Prologue #4
I sighed. “I’m good. I’ll catch up with you later, enjoy your night.”
His shoulders slumped, and guilt flooded me. If I told him I needed him right then, he would have ditched Sophie in a heartbeat and given me his undivided attention. But I couldn’t do that to him.
Theo gave me everything I wanted. It was my turn to let him have what he wanted.
Ready to get the hell away before she came back, Theo called my name. I turned back, a forlorn look on his face. “I really like her,“ he said, his voice tinged with an emotion I’d never heard from him before.
Despite every part of me wanting to get away, I slid into the booth next to him. “She seems to like you too,” I replied, doing my best to keep my voice neutral, and not let on that the admission was like taking a knife and plunging it into my own chest.
“I know it sounds crazy, we only met a couple of hours ago, but I’m smitten. I’ve never felt like this before,” Theo said, his dark eyes—the same as mine—filling with warmth.
A muscle in my jaw ticked. Theo was like me. He didn’t do dating or relationships. He and Kai, his brother, were destined to rule Hollows Bay within the next year, and neither of them had time for relationships or the drama women brought.
So no, Theo had never acted the way he was right then, and with the realization of how serious he was, I wished I really did have a knife I could plunge into my heart.
Shutting down every single emotion that was beginning to build up inside me, I clapped Theo on the shoulder before standing again. “If that’s how you feel, man, then you gotta go for it. A feeling like that is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for guys like us. Hold on to her, and don’t let her go.”
The words tasted bitter coming out of my mouth, and when a relieved smile lifted Theo’s lips, the invisible knife was shoved deeper into my chest cavity.
I didn’t hang around to hear his reply. I couldn’t. I already wanted to slit my throat. Hopefully, finding a woman whose ass I could fuck would alleviate some of the brewing tension in me.
Making my way out of the VIP area, I beelined toward the voyeur room. Only, I didn’t make it that far. As I passed the hallway that would lead back out to the foyer, my attention was drawn to a couple arguing near the exit.
The man was blocking the woman’s body, but I could see the way he was gripping her bare arm, and even with the music playing in the main club, his aggressive shouts reached my ears.
I fucking hated men who hurt women. I’d seen enough violence from my father to my mom to last me a lifetime. Men like that had no place in Hollows Bay.
Not waiting to see if he was going to strike her, I stormed over to them, my heart leaping out of my body as the petite woman came into view.
Sophie.
Her face was twisted in a mix of fear and panic as the meathead towered over her.
“Get your hands off me!” she squealed, trying her hardest to shake him off.
“You heard her,” I growled, my voice deadly.
The fucker was huge; bigger than me, not that I was worried about his size. I’d spent years training to fight, not to mention the two guns I had strapped in my holster under my suit jacket.
But I didn’t need to worry about him turning his wrath on me. The second he spun to face me, his eyes widened, and he instantly released Sophie’s arm.
“Mr. Wolfe,” the dickhead started, holding his hands in surrender. “Please. We don’t want any trouble. Sofia forgot about the treaty; she’s just a kid who doesn’t know any better. I’ll get her out of here, and you’ll never have to see her again, I give you my word.”
My mind worked overtime as I looked between the man and Sophie, whose brows had shot up in surprise, her eyes brimming with tears while her bottom lip quivered.
Treaty.
Sofia.
It didn’t take long for the dots to join.
Sofia Bianchi.
The one fucking person Theo could absolutely not fall for.
My eyes narrowed on her, betrayal beginning to swirl in the pit of my stomach.
“Milo-” she started, snapping me out of my daze.
“Don’t fucking call me that. It’s Mr. Wolfe to you,” I hissed, stepping closer to her. The meathead rightly stayed where he was, not daring to try and stop me from getting close to her. “You’re a fucking Bianchi?” I added, disbelief heavy in my tone.
A tear slid down her cheek as she slowly nodded her head, disappointment filling her gorgeous eyes.
Fury turned to rage, threatening to burst out of me like a volcano, destroying everything in its path.
As I stared at her, I ran through in my head what I knew about her.
She looked nothing like the only photo I’d managed to obtain of her, but that was years ago, when she was a child.
My heart dropped into my stomach as I recalled another piece of information I’d obtained from a source a while back. She’d been out of the country for the last two years to attend a school in Italy.
“You’re a fucking kid,” I sneered, looking her up and down, disgusted with myself for the things I’d imagined doing to her. Fuck, I was nearly thirty, as was Theo.
She was fucking jailbait.
“I’m…I’m seventeen,” she whispered defensively, another tear falling.
“Get out.” I tore my gaze away from her to snarl at the meathead. “Get her the fuck out of my city, and if I find that either of you have so much as crossed a toe over the border again, I swear to god, I won’t hesitate to start a war.”
“Yes, of course. Thank you, Mr. Wolfe,” Meathead replied, grabbing Sofia’s arm again.
I returned my gaze to her, looking her up and down in revulsion. “It’s only because I love my cousin that I’m not putting a bullet in your head right this second. Now get the fuck out of here. I never want to see you again.”
I stormed away as Meathead pulled her to the exit, trying to think of how in the fuck I was going to explain to Theo that the woman he was crazy about was the daughter of our number one enemy.