CHAPTER FOUR
SIENNA
“I know I was being a brat earlier in the gym,” I admitted. “I apologize. But don’t go all silent on me like that. I can’t take it.”
“I wasn’t going silent, beautiful. Not on purpose. I was thinking.”
“About the Irish mafia?” I asked, already knowing the truth.
“Yes. And about my enemies here. I won’t be at peace until they’re all dead. I know you think I’m trying to control you and trying to keep you in a gilded cage. I swear I’m not. I mean, yeah, I want you all to myself. But I know you don’t want that…”
“You’ve got me all to yourself. You just have to share me with Eve sometimes. That’s it.”
“And Tower D. And fucking Terzo.”
“Hey, be nice to Terzo. He’s my only friend here. Besides Eve. But she’s more like a sister.”
“Terzo is not your friend. He’s your associate,” Stefano growled.
I smiled against his chest. According to Terzo, Eve and I were his muses. But I wouldn’t tell Stefano that. I was trying to soothe my beast, not rile him up more.
“Forget about Terzo,” I told him. “Focus on us.”
“I’m always focused on us,” he countered, holding me close.
Maybe that was the problem. In just a few short months, I had become Stefano’s world. And while I loved being that to him, I didn’t want him to have tunnel vision. I didn’t want him focused solely on me, my needs, and my threats. That would start to take a toll on him, on me… on us.
Yet, even as I thought that, I recognized how stupid I sounded. What woman complained about being her man’s world? Only me. However, I wasn’t actually complaining. I just hated what this was doing to him.
Was it possible to love someone too much? Was it possible to be driven insane by love? If it were, I could foresee that happening to my savage. I wanted to prevent that. I wanted him to relax, to live a little, to enjoy this life we had together instead of always being on edge.
“I love how focused you are on us,” I told him, choosing my words carefully. “I just wish…”
“That I would relax a little,” he finished for me.
“Yes.”
“You keep telling me that, but you’re not telling me how to do it. I can only relax when you’re with me. When you’re not in my sight, I feel anxious. And when we’re not together, and my phone rings, I wonder if it’ll be a ransom call or maybe…”
He went silent. But I knew what he was going to say. He was wondering if that call would be the one that informed him of my death. I leaned back to look up at him. His eyes were closed, but the expression on his face was one of pure anguish.
My beast.
“Stefano,” I whispered, my heart aching for him.
I didn’t know what to say. I was truly at a loss for words. I wanted to reassure him that everything would be alright. However, I wasn’t a psychic. Predicting the future wasn’t one of my skills.
Yet, somehow, I needed to put him at ease. I wasn’t good at this. I’d never been in a serious relationship. One that I wanted to succeed, one that I wanted to nurture. One that I wanted to make work long-term.
One that involved compromising and coaxing. However, that was no excuse because this was all new to Stefano, too. Even so, my Beast always went out of his way to make sure I was protected, to make sure I was happy, to ensure I felt cherished.
I’d thought I was doing the same for him. I wasn’t. Right now, I felt like I was failing him horribly. His eyes were still squeezed shut. From his expression, I could tell he was fighting an inner battle that had me at the center of it.
And since I was handling things my own way, he had to feel like he was fighting this inner battle alone. Gosh, you suck, Sienna Keys. Swallowing the lump in my throat, I lifted my hand and cupped his face.
“Look at me,” I whispered.
He didn’t.
“Please, look at me, Stefano.”
His eyes opened slowly, and there it was. All of it. The fear, the tension, the dread, everything that was festering inside of him, eating him alive. My chest tightened at the sight, but I didn’t look away.
I couldn’t. I needed him to know that I was here with him. That I was standing in this moment with him. He never had to fight any battle alone. I had his back. Today, tomorrow, forever.
“I know my life is in danger,” I told him. “I’m not ignoring that truth. I just don’t want it to consume me. I especially don’t want it to consume you.”
His jaw ticked under my palm. Okay, so those words hadn’t put him at ease.
“It already consumes me,” he whispered. “I feel like it’s eating me alive.”
Yeah. I knew. That was the problem. I slid my hand down from his face to his chest, pressing my palm flat against him, feeling his heartbeat. This man used to believe he was incapable of love.
He used to believe all he could do was cause pain. That wasn’t true. He’d always been capable of love. He just hadn’t found himself in the right conditions where love could grow and blossom.
Just like plants needed the right environment to bloom, so did love, so did people. Together, my savage and I were blooming. Yet, pests and insects were trying to infiltrate our garden.
While I was trying to be optimistic about what was happening, he was being pessimistic. I was hoping for the best, and he was planning for the worst. When did I stop being a pessimist? When did the two of us stop being on the same page? I sighed.
“I’m not doing a great job at this whole girlfriend thing, am I?” I asked, unable to stop a tear from sliding down my cheek.
“Don’t say that,” Stefano rasped, wiping my tears away. “You’re the best thing that has ever happened to me. You give my life meaning, Sienna.”
“But I’ve also brought chaos into your life. And sadness.”
“Sadness? What sadness?”
“You’re sad, Stefano. Because of me. I can see it in your eyes.”
Along with disappointment. Another tear trailed down my cheek.
“I’m not sad, love. I’m…” He paused for a moment before saying, “I feel like… like I’m failing you. Like I’m not doing my job properly. I feel like I’m not being the man you need.”
“But you are. All I need is for you to love me.”
“That’s not all you need, Sienna. That’s all you want. But you need more from me.”
“You’re right. I also need your protection. I know I can’t do this alone. Neither do I want to…”
“So why won’t you do things my way, baby?” Stefano muttered, finally saying what he’d been wanting to say all day.
“Because your way involves me staying in the house 24/7.”
“I don’t expect you to stay home all the time. We can go places. You like visiting Eve. I can take you there whenever you want.”
“Oh, my bad. Your way involves me staying either at our house or at your brother’s. Isn’t that the same thing? That’s not living, Stefano.”
“That’s how I can keep you alive until I’ve gotten rid of the threat, Sienna.
I trust Enzo and Eve. I know you’re safe at their place.
I know you’re safe here. Other places are unpredictable.
I can’t guarantee your safety when you’re at cooking classes or the mall.
Our enemies could be lurking there. Until they’re dead and buried, I won’t feel comfortable with you going places. ”
“You do know that when one threat is taken out, another one will pop up, right? That’s life for people like us.”
“It doesn’t have to be.”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean, it doesn’t have to be this way. What if we… what if we left this life behind?” Stefano asked.
I searched his gaze, trying to see if he was serious. I mean, we’d discussed moving away before. Talked of traveling the world, exploring faraway lands, visiting islands we’d only ever read about.
But could we seriously leave it all behind and find ourselves a little place of our own to live a peaceful life? Or would we always be pulled back here, back to his brother, back to my sister, back to the people who needed us?
Maureen once told me that killing tainted one’s soul. And once you’d killed as many people as we had, you were forever marked, unable to escape a destiny of darkness. If that was true, then even if we tried to run away from this life, it would always find us and drag us back into the darkness.
Look who’s being pessimistic now!
“You still want that, right?” he asked.
“I do,” I admitted. “I just… I just think it’ll take time for us to make that transition. I believe we can do it. One day. But we can’t live in fear until then. I can’t hide away in our home until the world is safer, Beast.”
He swallowed, and from the look in his eyes, I knew I was losing him.
“What we can do is make the streets as safe as we can for us,” I rushed to say, hoping to insert some positivity into our conversation. “And I know that’s what you and Enzo are working on.”
Though we didn’t talk about it, I knew what he and Enzo did while Eve and I were working at Tower D. I knew about the body count they’d amassed, the blood they’d shed. Terzo kept us filled in.
They were taking out anyone who was even rumored to have mentioned Eve or me. They were sending a message to their enemies to keep our names out of their motherfucking mouths. And I loved that shit.
“In case I haven’t told you lately, thank you for everything you do,” I told him. “I truly appreciate it. I appreciate you, Stefano.”
He relaxed a little. I watched his jaw unclench, the crease between his brows smoothing out.
“You’re welcome, beautiful. But I’m not doing enough.”
“You’re doing a great job, Stefano. I wish you wouldn’t be so hard on yourself. I mean, I’m not the easiest woman to protect.”
“Tell me about it,” he drawled. “It’s easier keeping Don Enzo safe than it is to keep you safe and happy.”
I chuckled, playfully swatting his chest.
“Hey, you didn’t have to agree with me,” I teased.
Yet, I knew he was serious. Though his focus was on me, I wasn’t the only thing on his agenda. He was the don’s right-hand man. That was a full-time job. He had his Deluca organization responsibilities.
On top of all of that, he was still grappling with the fact that he, himself, was a Deluca. And now the Irish mafia was on his radar. I pressed a kiss to his chest, over his heart.