Chapter 16
Chapter
Sixteen
GIO
I’m a fucking asshole.
As soon as the words were out of my mouth, I regretted them. Anyone with two fucking ears could hear the hurt in her voice. I knew it was below the belt, but she’s so goddamn stubborn and hellbent on doing everything herself it just slipped out.
She’s never run from me before.
Even if it was just to the bathroom, I got a taste of what Matteo felt with Wren when I heard the lock click.
It’s cute she thinks that lock will keep me from her.
I rinse the flour off my hands and dry them on the hand towel she has hanging off the handle of her oven before going to her. If there’s anything I learned from Matteo and Wren’s shit, leaving her alone for too long will only cause me a bigger headache.
I try turning the handle, already knowing it’s locked, but I’ll give her a little show of acting like that’s what’s keeping me from her if that’s what she wants.
“Open up, cara.” I rap my fist against the door.
My stomach clenches as I hear her sniffle and not answer.
Fuck.
I made her cry.
My head falls back as I squeeze my eyes shut. Goddamn it.
I rattle the handle again. “Open up or I’m coming in. You should know a little lock isn’t going to keep me from you.”
I lied.
I’m not giving her any more time to decide if she wants to let me in. I’m coming in. As I crouch down, I pull out my lock pick. Sticking it in the hole, I move it around slightly before I hear the familiar click.
I stand up as I open the door and stop dead in my tracks at the sight of Bronwyn sitting on the edge of the tub, her eyes red and face blotchy as tears stream down it.
“Cara,” I say softly as I pull her up into my arms, wrapping her up tight. “I didn’t mean to make you cry.” She lets out a sob into my chest. “I shouldn’t have made the comment about your dad. I’m sorry.”
My nose scrunches up in disgust as I feel her rub her nose against my shirt, wiping the snot off. I guess I deserve that.
“No.” She sniffles. “It’s okay. I needed to hear it from someone else. He’s never cared about me. I don’t know why I thought that was ever going to change.”
I squeeze her a little tighter.
I can’t imagine what it’s like to never have family there for you. That’s not how I was raised, and it’s not something I’ve ever been inclined to think would happen in my future.
“I was just trying to help. But I shouldn’t have done it in that way, so I’m sorry.”
Bronwyn doesn’t say anything as she works on calming herself down. It isn’t long before she stops shaking in my arms, leaving only silent tears in its wake. I press my lips to the top of her head and ask, “Has he tried to call you or pay you back?”
I don’t bring up that she pinky promised me she would let me know immediately if he did. I don’t need to make the hole I’m in any deeper.
“No.”
Shit.
That’s good and bad.
Good for me because I don’t have that shitbag sniffing around my girl and she doesn’t have to see what I would do to him.
She might have taken the other two incidents like a champ, but seeing it happen to your own father will hit different.
I don’t want her to look at me differently.
And even though all of that is good for me, it’s bad for her because all she wants is her dad to stop being a piece of shit and do something he says he’s going to do for once in his fucking life.
I don’t have kids of my own, but I know for a fact I would live on the street before I ever even thought about taking a dime from them.
“I’m sorry, baby.”
“It’s not your fault.” I contain my shudder as she wipes more snot onto my shirt. “But I don’t like that you paid my rent. I had it worked out with him.”
I sigh. She isn’t going to let this shit go.
“I want you to listen to me, and listen to me carefully. My family owns this business. I’m in the family business. I didn’t pay your rent; we just aren’t charging you it anymore.”
Bronwyn leans her head back to look up at me. “How can my rent just go away? There has to be a mortgage for the building that my rent was going toward, Gio.”
Oh, my sweet baby. She has so much to learn.
I shake my head. “We own it, cara.”
Her eyes widen at the realization. “Oh.”
“Yeah, oh.” My lip tips up. Jesus, she’s fucking cute when she isn’t trying to send me to the pits of hell with her glare. Who am I kidding? That shit is cute too. “Are you okay?” I ask as I bring my thumb up to her face and wipe away the last few tears trailing down her cheek.
She slowly nods. “I’m okay. But we need to get one thing straight.
You can’t just go behind my back and take care of things like that.
” I open my mouth to cut in, but she presses her finger against my lips, silencing me.
“I understand you’re trying to help, but the way you do it pisses me off.
It feels like you’re going behind my back because I can’t do it myself. ”
“I don’t think you can’t do it yourself.”
She works harder than anyone I know, and that pisses me off. She shouldn’t have to work so hard and still barely get by.
“Right.” She rolls her eyes. “And one more thing, I want you to take the hush money back. If I’m not paying rent, which, by the way, I’m not happy about. But I know this is a battle I’m going to lose, so that’s the only reason I’m agreeing to it.”
“You’re going to have to talk to Matteo about that,” I tell her, watching the glare I love take over her face. Her eyes are still red and puffy, making it lose some of its aggressiveness. “It was his order in the first place, not mine.”
“Fine. Take me to where he works.”
I fight back laughter. “He doesn’t have one place of work. You can talk to him about it over family dinner.”
“Gio.”
“Bronwyn.”
“I’m not going to family dinner!”
“We’ll see about that.” I shrug, knowing it’s going to happen. “Now let me get your pizza in the oven so I can work on making you feel better.”
“How are you going to do that?” Bronwyn asks as I lead her out of the bathroom and make her sit down on the couch.
“You’ll see. Play your game while I finish up.”
She gives me a funny look as she grabs her controller. “How did you know I game?”
Shit.
Now is not the time to tell her I let myself into her place and looked around.
“You work at AFK, so I assumed you would play. Wouldn’t make sense to work at a video game store and know nothing about them.”
“I guess that would make sense,” Bronwyn concludes as she turns her system on.
Always so skeptical of everything that’s going on.
I can feel her eyes on me occasionally as I finish the pizza and get it in the oven. I don’t think she trusts me fully yet, and that’s okay. She will.
Just as I join her on the couch after putting it in the oven, a chat box pops up on the screen.
mrfafo: Your mic is off. Are you feeling better today?
My body tenses at the question. It feels personal, like they know each other on an intimate level.
“Who is that?” I ask, trying to keep my tone as casual as possible as I twirl a strand of Bronwyn’s raven-colored hair around my finger.
“Just someone I game with,” she replies without making eye contact as she minimizes the chat without responding.
Hmm.
Not liking that it’s a fucking guy.
“You can talk to your friend, cara,” I tell her, keeping my same casual tone as I throw my arm over the back of the couch so it’s resting behind her shoulders and cross my leg over my thigh.
Bronwyn’s eyes move to my foot that’s bouncing, the only indication that I’m anything but relaxed right now. I force myself to stop as she slides her gaze to me before opening the chat back up.
ravenslayer: Headset is dead. I’m a lot better. Thanks for checking in.
My jaw clenches as I read her response.
Thanks for checking in.
Who the fuck is this guy?
mrfafo: anytime. I know you’d do the same for me. Up to play?
How close are these two?
ravenslayer: for a little. I can’t stay on long though.
mrfafo: got a date?
Bronwyn snorts as if that’s so fucking funny.
“You two seem close,” I say, breaking the silence. My fist opens and closes behind her head. I want to fucking break something.
“We’ve been playing online together for a while.” Bronwyn side-eyes me. “Are you okay?”
“Sure.” I just want to kill whoever this fucking douchebag is.
“Are you sure? You seem tense.”
I’m tense because you made it seem like there wasn’t anyone else in your life when there clearly fucking is.
“Is his username seriously Mr. Fuck Around and Find Out?” I ask, this time unable to keep the displeasure out of my tone.
The second I get home, I’m calling Wiz to hack into her system and find out who this piece of shit is. He’s going to find it hard to talk to my girl when both hands are gone.
Bronwyn laughs as if it’s the funniest thing in the world. “Yeah. Isn’t that creative? I thought it was so funny when I figured it out.”
“Hilarious,” I answer dryly.
ravenslayer: no date, but I do need to get some sleep tonight.
No date.
I see red.
There’s a growl coming from somewhere in her apartment. It takes her hand grabbing my upper arm out of concern to realize the growl is coming from me.
“Are you okay?” Bronwyn asks.
My eyes are glued to the conversation on screen as I shake her hand off me. “You don’t have a date?” I ask, my tone taking on a scary edge.
“Um…” Bronwyn trails off as she leans away from me. “Is that what this is?”
This time it’s my turn to glare at her. “I’m cooking for you, aren’t I? Spending my time making sure you breathe a little easier tonight, right? You don’t need to go out somewhere for something to be classified as a date.”
“Well, no,” Bronwyn softly agrees.
“Then what the fuck?” I bite out, making her flinch. “Don’t fucking do that. You know damn well I would never lay a hand on you.”
“I’ll tell him I have a date,” Bronwyn says, her voice barely audible.
“Don’t do it just to appease me. If you had wanted him to know, you would have told him in the first place.”