Chapter Twenty-Eight #2
Lila’s throat rolled with a swallow. Her gaze cut to her parents, to her brothers, then back to me. I didn’t even know if she understood what I was saying.
“I won’t let them hurt you,” I added.
I could not give two shits what would happen after I made my point, but she didn’t have to know that.
Finally, the frightened little creature put her bony hand in mine.
Ten men sprang toward me the minute our hands touched.
Vello raised his palm, a silent order for them to stand down.
They halted. You could cut the tension in the room with a butter knife.
The entire ballroom watched in horror as I escorted her to the dance floor, like leading a newborn lamb to slaughter.
I stopped next to Achilles and Gia and assumed a waltz position. Lila was stiff in my arms, disoriented.
“Do you know how to waltz?” I asked.
She stared at me dumbly, blinking.
“Do you know how to talk?” I stifled a groan.
Another horrified blink.
With a sigh of annoyance, I planted her heeled feet on top of mine and started moving. She didn’t know how to dance. Didn’t know how to speak. But I watched the way her eyes glimmered. Her lips twitched.
She was no fool and definitely not intellectually challenged.
What the fuck was her family playing at?
Vello had his eye on us the entire time. So did every other man in the Camorra.
Achilles and Gia shuffled closer until we were almost shoulder to shoulder.
“Every Achilles has his heel,” I said and grinned. “I think I just found yours.”
“You’ve crossed the line.” He bared his teeth at me.
“Impossible. I have no lines when it comes to my wife,” I responded. “I thought I made that clear last time we spoke.”
“She has an intellectual disability.” Achilles spun Gia expertly to distract her from our hushed conversation.
Blinding, searing jealousy struck me. I was unaccustomed to that emotion. To any emotion. My stomach churned and twisted. I did not like what the sight of Gia in another man’s arms did to me.
“She’s human,” I clapped back. “You treat her like a French bulldog. She wanted to dance.”
“She doesn’t know what she wants,” Achilles sneered. That he was an ableist fuck was the least surprising thing I learned this century.
I bent Lila down, careful to cradle her head—poor girl was as arrhythmic as a pet rock, not one musical bone in that body—and spun her halfway.
Her cheeks were flushed pink, her mouth parted, and she stared at me with a mix of awe and joy, like I’d plucked a particularly fanciful, glittering star and gifted it to her.
“I think she does. I think she very much wants to be treated like a normal teenager.”
Achilles’s jaw tightened, and Gia was now giving both of us her full attention.
I spun Lila around, stared into her eyes, and very slowly mouthed, “I’m going to say horrible things right now. I don’t mean any of them. Nod once if you understand.”
I waited a beat. Two beats.
She nodded.
The kid goddamn nodded .
“Look how happy she is,” I murmured, smiling to the young woman, ready to deliver the final blow.
This wasn’t just to mess with Achilles. I wanted him to know he was selling his sister short.
That she understood the world better than he gave her credit for.
“I bet there are other ways I could make her happy. Is she promised to anyone yet? My marriage is shaky these days.”
“What the bloody hell is wrong with you?” Gia ripped herself from Achilles, staring at me in abhorrence. Her fists were curled tight. “She’s a child .”
“I’m barely touching her.” I continued swaying Lila in my arms with enough space for Jesus between us. Lila seemed quite happy by the way she clung to me, her arms fastening around my shoulders like I was an anchor, innocent eyes pleading for me to continue.
Achilles, like Gia, didn’t like my little joke. In fact, as soon as the words fell from my mouth, he was jerked back by Luca, who left his unexciting fiancée to growl, “He’s just messing with you, you idiot.”
“ Tate .” Gia stomped.
“ Gia .”
“This is incredibly disrespectful to all of us.”
“If you want me to stop dancing with another woman, just say the word, and I will.”
She clamped her mouth shut.
I shrugged. “Very well.”
I spun Lila again.
Tears clung to my wife’s waterlines. My knees nearly buckled at the sight. Yet I couldn’t stop myself. I wanted us to be exclusive. To never see her in another man’s arms again.
Spinning Lila for the third time, I thought I heard a lilt of juvenile laughter. Achilles and Luca were ready to rip her from my arms, but they didn’t. They saw her having fun for the first time in what I assumed was years. Maybe ever.
Gia pivoted on her red-soled heels and tromped her way off the dance floor. I finished the waltz with Lila, then escorted her back to her pitiful table, determined not to give my maddening wife any more power over me than she already had.
Plus, Lila deserved to be bidden goodbye properly. I had no idea when exactly I grew a fucking conscience, but something in me knew that normal Gia, not the one who was pissed off with my ass, would want me to treat this girl right.
Practice empathy , Dr. Patel’s words echoed in my head. At the time, I didn’t see a need to try.
Now, I was willing to play along. For her.
When I returned to our table, Gia wasn’t there.
“Where’s my wife?” I asked Enzo, who now seemed to be flirting his way into a threesome.
“I’m off duty,” Enzo quipped, his eyes never wavering from the blond and brunette he was chatting up. “Ask someone who car—”
I fisted his bow tie, yanking him so our noses squashed together. “Let’s try again, shall we? Where is my wife?” For the full effect, I palmed the pocket where he kept his knife, silently signaling I could easily cut his thigh if he pissed me off.
“Jesus Christ. She went in the direction of the restrooms last I saw.” He wrenched himself out of my hold, elbowing me for good measure. “Please don’t make me kill you tonight. I’m really looking forward to the dessert.”
Ignoring the jackass, I galloped out of the ballroom. In the women’s restroom, I found a few horrified ladies who shrieked when I entered, but none of them was Gia. Men’s restroom—nothing but limp dick and a few lines of top-tier cocaine.
Tearing through the hallway of the ballroom floor, I began kicking doors open. Kitchen. Maintenance room. Grand suites. Where the fuck was she? I tried calling her, but my calls went straight to voicemail. Gia was angry, not stupid. She’d let me know she was okay. Would at least text.
Cold sweat formed over my brow. A foreign concept, and one I wasn’t eager to be introduced to. If she was getting back at me for my little stunt, this was a disproportionate penalty.
The hotel had twenty-five floors, and we were at the top of it. There was a good chance she wasn’t on the premises anymore.
A raspy cry erupted two doors into the hallway.
Faint but unmistakably female. I inched to the room it came from, taking a step back and kicking the door down.
It sailed and dragged across the plush carpet.
I stomped over it on my way inside to find my wife pressed to the bed stomach down, her arms behind her back as a pasty, burly prick pressed his knee to her back while he zip-tied her.
Another Irish soldier stood between us, advancing toward me with a knife.
Red tainted my vision as I grabbed the first guy and tossed him over his friend who was on top of Gia. They both tumbled down to the floor like bowling pins. One slammed against the wall beforehand, putting a hole in the drywall. Gia was still on the bed, motionless.
I grabbed the man on top of her by his greasy hair, yanking him to his feet. The other guy seemed in considerably worse shape, his neck fractured, by its unnatural angle. He was down for the count.
“Now.” I smashed the man’s nose against mine, sneering. He had heavy stubble and sharklike dead eyes. Definitely not a simple soldier. At least Tiernan Callaghan stopped sending me fucking amateurs. I was beginning to get a complex. “Want to try to zip-tie my wife again, this time to my face?”
The man pursed his lips insolently, trying to wiggle himself free of my hold.
Tugging on his hair, I angled his face to Gia, who was still on the mattress. “Does she look comfortable to you?”
No answer. Gia stared up in horror. She didn’t look injured, just shaken. My current behavior undoubtedly made things worse.
“Doesn’t look too comfortable to me.” I tossed the guy headfirst to the mattress far enough from her. I pressed the back of his head down with my palm, smothering him in an expensive sheet. “See? The lack of oxygen. The heat on your face. Not too friendly,” I said conversationally.
He flailed and writhed, squirming away from my touch. I yanked his head up.
“Where’s Tiernan?” I asked.
He coughed, gasped, but didn’t answer.
I pushed him down for another asphyxia session. Brought him up again after thirty seconds.
“How ’bout now?”
But he was a seasoned mobster, and despite his purple face and bloodshot eyes, his lips formed a thin line, and he gave me a cold stare. “Feck you, bastard.”
I put him down again. Finally, when he was weakened but not yet dead, I pulled him back up.
“One last chance to cooperate,” I offered.
His face was blue, his eyes swollen and unfocused. He wasn’t gonna crack.
“His death will be on your conscience,” I said to Gia, pointing at the still stoic man. “You could’ve prevented this if you just stayed put.”
“While you copped a feel and danced with a gorgeous woman?” Her eyes glittered.
Was she jealous? I wanted her to be.
“She is a mere child, and even if she wasn’t, you’re the only one who can do this to me.” I stepped toward the bed, grabbed her hand, and pushed it against my hardness. “The only one, Gia.”
“You expect me to believe you don’t find other women attractive?” she spluttered.
“I don’t expect jack other than to stop trying to get yourself killed. Now, if you’ll excuse me.” I dragged the brawny man toward the window, then slammed his face against the thick glass over and over again, breaking all his facial bones in the process.
“Jesus, Tate.” Gia scrambled up to a sitting position behind me. “What are you doing?”
“Throwing him out the window.”
“The window’s not even open!”
“That’s the best part.”
Thrash.
Thrash.
Thrash.
Finally, when the man was on his last few breaths, I unlatched the window’s lock and tossed him out.
Silence blanketed the room for a moment before Gia opened her mouth again.
“Do you think he’s dead?”
“No, sweetheart. Of course not.”
He was definitely dead. And in at least fourteen different pieces. But there really wasn’t any need to distress her further. I potentially killed two of Callaghan’s men today. I hoped it got the message across.
Shit. Now I had to clean this entire place of her fingerprints and mine.
It just became one hell of a crime scene.
Swiveling to my wife, I found her perched on the edge of the bed, trembling. Her hair was a mess, her makeup streaked with tears. I wanted to gather her in my arms and comfort her, but I was also beyond pissed that she’d put herself in danger again.
“How did you get here?”
“Th-they took my bracelet. The one my dad gave me,” she hiccupped, ignoring my question, rubbing her wrist absentmindedly. More tears slid down her cheeks, and she hugged herself. “They took my one last keepsake of everything good and happy and normal .”
My heart sank. Fuck knew normal and happy weren’t in the cards for her with me.
“It’s not what I asked,” I said aloofly, feeling something… something . Inadequate. “How’d you get here, Gia?”
If she went into a bedroom with another man willingly, I was going to do something drastic. Not to her, but I could see myself setting the entire city on fire. When we weren’t in it, of course.
She sniffled, wiping her eyes with the back of her hand.
“I went to the kitchen to find Cal to vent. These two men waited around the corner in the hallway and dragged me here. I didn’t see them coming.
Once the door was shut, they called someone downstairs and told them to wait outside the back door. ”
I glanced at the unconscious man at my feet. He looked pretty dead, or at least too badly injured to answer any questions. I rolled him with the tip of my loafer and crouched to put my fingers on his neck. Shallow pulse, no reflexes.
“They came close this time,” Gia whispered.
“Whose fault is that?” I tipped my head up, tapping my thigh as I counted crystal raindrops on the chandelier. Three hundred and seven. Odd number. How could they?
Gia stood up. “Only in your twisted mind is any of this my fault. You brought this on us. You and your stupid revenge plot.”
“Stupid?” I arched an eyebrow. “You got my father sent to prison and are responsible for his death, and we haven’t even properly discussed your role in this mess yet. Don’t you find that interesting?”
She flinched. I knew she had apologized, but she was still cagey about the details of what happened that night. A little fucking clarity would’ve gone a long way.
She opened her mouth. Clamped it shut. I was surprised and proud of her for hardly paying attention to the dying man at our feet. This was definitely progress.
Finally, she said, “You touched another woman.”
“You touched another man,” I countered.
She was jealous. I wanted her to admit it. To own it. To understand the implications of it.
She pinched her lower lip, staring at the carpet. “I don’t want you to touch anyone else ever again.”
“Done and ditto.” I peered around. I was going to need a lot of fucking soap and alcohol to wipe this place out.
“No more jokes about making someone else happy either,” she warned.
“Sweetheart, I’d never deliberately bring joy to anyone but you. You’re the only human I can stand.” The confession surprised me more than it did her.
I didn’t hate her.
I didn’t tolerate her.
I liked her.
Quite a fucking lot.
A terrible complication, obviously.
For the first time since I walked into the room, I softened, eating the space between us with one long stride. I put my hand on her damp cheek, tilting her face up. She closed her eyes.
“Look at me.”
She shook her head.
I brought both my palms to her cheeks, inching my face to hers. “ Now .”
Her eyes fluttered open. I felt my heart drilling its way out of my rib cage.
“Listen to me carefully, Gia. I am yours. All of me belongs to you. My body—yours. Brain—yours. Money—yours. Kingdom—yours. Every inch. Every cell. Every atom. Every single breath has your name on it.”
“And your heart?” Her voice came out scratchy and thick, eyes glittering with tears. “Is it mine too?”
“Oh, Apricity.” I plastered my forehead to hers, gathering her into my arms. “If I had a heart to give, it would be yours. Without question.”