Chapter 18 Lexi
EIGHTEEN
LEXI
Colten was right. I did need to sleep for a few hours so I could get my bearings and recover from the adrenaline drop I was riding this morning.
Normally when I wake up in a new place, my first reaction is panic. It usually only lasts a handful of seconds, but ever since I was taken in college and woke up in the trunk of a car, it takes my mind a moment to process that we’re safe.
Except apparently waking up surrounded by the scent of Colten is all my brain needs to know nothing and no one can hurt me.
That’s not quite the case, though.
Because the man himself has the power to destroy me.
I reach for my phone, where I dropped it on the bedside table, blinking sleepily at the handful of notifications waiting for me.
I’ll need to call my mom before she finds out what happened from someone else. Lord have mercy if it gets back to her before I have a chance to tell her.
An email catches my attention, my heart clenching so hard in my chest that I can barely breathe past the mix of panic and hope that slams into me.
Mafia Matchmaker
You have a perfect match!
A perfect match?
It’s not exactly uncommon for the algorithm to find someone perfectly compatible, I just didn’t think it would happen to me. I didn’t dare hope for such an outcome because I doubted I even had a soulmate.
My thumb shakes as I silently hype myself up to open the email.
Don’t get ahead of yourself, I remind myself. Just because the algorithm considers us a perfect match doesn’t mean that whoever’s name I find in the attached profile is going to be a good person.
Everyone that signs up for the Mafia Matchmaker goes through a round of checks, but at the end of the day, every single person is connected to organized crime, which means there’s always a chance they’re a shitty human being.
I swallow down my nerves and allow my thumb to tap the screen, but the contents have my heart clenching for an entirely new reason.
It’s not possible.
There’s no way Colten Pierce is my perfect match.
Because that would mean I’ve had the person I was meant to be with right in front of me my whole life.
I stare at the screen for long seconds, reading over the words in front of me, but none of them are processing.
This is insane. No, we’re well past insane right now.
This is impossible.
A thought niggles in the back of my mind that tears my eyes off the screen in front of me.
Colten’s known about this for…days maybe.
There’s a clause in the consent I signed with the matchmaker outlining that whichever party is more ingrained in the day-to-day operations of the organization is alerted to a match first. Sometimes that looks like hours, but most of the time it’s days or even weeks.
Which means Colten more than likely knew last night when he came to the restaurant that we were matched, and he almost definitely knew this morning when he was kneeling at my feet applying salve to my injuries.
Why didn’t he say anything?
Why would he wait for me to find out through an email instead of telling me himself?
Before I can catch myself, I’m flinging the bedroom door open, a mixture of anger and hurt swirling around in my stomach.
An unsuspecting Colten turns, a flicker of concern appearing on his face before amusement takes its place.
He knows he’s about to get chewed out.
“How long have you known?” I hold my phone up between us, as if that gives any indication of what I’m talking about, but he doesn’t reply immediately, instead keeping that same smirk locked in place.
“Colten,” I warn, irritation bleeding into the word.
“Not long,” he finally says.
“That’s not an answer,” I snap.
“No, it’s not the answer you want.”
I huff. It’s possible my irritation is misplaced, but I can’t help how annoyed I am. He’s one of my closest friends, basically family after everything we’ve survived together. How could he not tell me this huge piece of information that changes our lives?
A perfect match.
Colten stands slowly, stretching his shoulders out after sitting behind the computer for a long period of time.
“Would you have believed me?” he asks, taking measured steps toward me.
“If I sat you down this morning after you’d been attacked, while you were feeling vulnerable and scared, and I told you that the matchmaker had found we were perfectly compatible?
” He continues forward into my space until I have no choice but to back up into the wall behind me.
Colten surrounds me, his body and warmth wrapping around me like it was always supposed to. “What about last night when you were upset you and Nico weren’t better suited? Was that a good time to tell you that you were always meant to be mine?”
His fingers wrap around my jaw, forcing me to look up into his eyes, where more emotion than I’ve ever seen from him stares back at me. “Tell me when I could have told you, Wildcat.”
I open my mouth to respond but quickly snap it shut again, because he’s right. The last few days have been rough for me, and if Colten had flat out told me we were matched, I would have told him he was crazy.
The only way I was going to believe it was to hear it straight from the matchmaking service.
“I want to go home,” I say, my voice shaking beneath the weight of the words.
“No,” he growls.
“Colten—”
“I said no, Lexi. Someone tried to take you this morning, and the only person I trust with your safety is me.”
“You can’t keep me here against my will.”
He chuckles, pressing his body into mine until there’s not a breath of space between us. “Watch me.”
My chest tightens at how utterly menacing he sounds, completely at odds with the gentle giant I grew up with.
“Colten,” I say softly. “It’s better that we aren’t living together while we navigate this next stage in our…relationship. Lines are going to get crossed, and I don’t want either of us to be put into a position we’re not ready for.”
“Under normal circumstances, I might be more inclined to agree, but when you were just attacked in the middle of the night by an unknown threat? I’m not taking any chances, even if that means moving up the timeline.”
“Oh god, Cruz is going to lose his shit.” My heart clenches at the thought. Is my brother going to see this as some kind of betrayal? His sister and his best friend?
Colten chuckles, his breath whispering across my cheeks. “Cruz has been trying to talk me into making a move for years, Wildcat. He’s going to be thrilled.”
I open my mouth to argue, to tell him there’s no way Cruz would be okay with this, but Colten isn’t a liar. It’s part of the reason my family trusts him implicitly.
“I’ve spent a lot of years knowing you were perfect for me, but I understand that you need some time to come to the same conclusion, and I’ll do my very best to make that happen, even while living in close quarters.
But I want to make something very clear to you, Lexi.
” He brackets my throat gently with his tattooed fingers.
“Now that you’re mine, there’s nothing I won’t do to keep you. ”
My breath catches in my throat, a shiver of need moving through my body. Perhaps a sane woman would be afraid, but not me. No, I’m turned on as hell.
He smirks and pushes himself off the wall, and as much as I hate to admit it, I miss his warmth immediately.
Without a backward glance, he moves back to his desk and starts working away as if he hasn’t just admitted to having feelings for me for years.