Chapter 29
Romeo
When I open my eyes, I find my best friend standing beside the bed, gazing down at me like a goddamn creeper.
“Are you watching me sleep, or just waiting to smother me with a pillow?” I ask him as a slight grin curves my lips.
When he doesn’t smile back, instead giving me a look I can’t quite decipher, I follow up my first question with a, “What?”
He leans forward, resting his clenched fists on the side of my mattress. “You fucking married her without my permission?!” he growls, and I’m not sure if that’s a question or a statement. Either way, I don’t like his tone.
“She told you?” I ask with a grimace.
“No, you did, dumb-arse.”
“Yeah, right,” I scoff. I’m not that fucking stupid.
“You did. When you were high on whatever drugs they’d given you.”
I frown. “Someone drugged me?” Is that why everything feels so hazy?
He tilts his face towards the ceiling and groans. “The hospital. We spoke after your surgery.”
“Oh.”
“Yes, oh. Start fucking talking.”
“We’ve already talked about this. You said if I touch or taint her in any way, she was mine to keep.”
He straightens with a sharp exhale, dragging a hand down his face like he’s trying to wipe the frustration away. When his eyes lock with mine again, they are cold and accusing.
“That right there is the problem, Romeo. Lucia told me the whole story. You never planned on keeping her. You told her you were going to divorce her or get the marriage annulled as soon as Salvatori was out of the picture. Make it make sense.”
“When I saw that missing person flyer, where he’d written my wife, I …” I let the words die in my throat. Because telling him I married her on a whim, out of jealousy, isn’t going to help my case.
“You married her simply because that fucker was claiming her as his?”
I lift one shoulder and then wince as pain shoots down my side. “Pretty much.”
A vicious growl rumbles in the back of his throat before he says, “Well, guess what, motherfucker, you don’t get to walk away from this. She’s tainted now, so she’s yours to keep.”
My eyebrows pinch together as my gaze locks with his. “I didn’t taint her. We never consummated the marriage.”
He rears back slightly in surprise. “You didn’t?”
“No, I didn’t. For that very reason. I knew we had an expiration date.”
“Do you not realise she’ll still be considered tainted in our world if she’s a divorcee?”
I glance away and run my fingers through my hair. “I never considered that.”
“Exactly.”
He taps the bed beside my leg with an open palm before raising his hand and pointing his finger in my direction. “This isn’t over, De Luca,” he says, taking a step back. “When you are well enough, we’ll finish this conversation.”
With that, he turns and storms from the room, leaving me lying here, wishing I’d done it all differently.
I don’t even get a chance to dwell on the repercussions, the kind that could bring my time in the Famiglia to an end, because the second Dante exits, a petite little brunette rushes into the room.
Lucia.
The relief that floods through me the moment my eyes land on her is indescribable.
Fuck, she’s a sight for sore eyes.
As soon as our gazes lock, a smile curves her lips, but when she steps forward and leans in to rest her forehead against my chest, she bursts into tears.
“Babe,” I say, lifting my hand and smoothing it over her hair. Those tears are my fucking weakness, and I can’t stand seeing her so upset. “Hey, hey. It’s okay … I’m okay.”
“I thought I’d lost you,” she cries. “The last time I saw you, Dante was doing CPR, trying to bring you back to us.”
“He was?”
She lifts her head, and the look she gives me is one of pure devastation. Those tear-stained cheeks make me want to pull her into my arms and kiss all her blues away.
“After you took out the bastardos who kidnapped me, you collapsed right beside me. You weren’t breathing, Romeo. You didn’t even have a heartbeat,” she says over a sob. “I thought I’d lost you, and in that moment, I wanted to die too.”
Fucking hell.
My hand moves to her jaw, the pad of my thumb lightly brushing her cheek. When my eyes lock on the gauze near her hairline, images of her being dragged out of the car, bound and gagged, flash through my mind.
It all starts to come back slowly. The blinding rage I felt when I saw that cocksucker manhandling her, dragging her out of the car like she was a piece of trash.
My instinct to protect her immediately took over, my body seemingly moving on its own. I remember taking out the first guy, then the one in the passenger seat, before emptying the entire magazine into the vehicle. That’s when it all goes black.
“What did they do to you?” I ask as my hand rises so my fingertips can gently skim over her forehead.
“Not much really,” she says with a casual shrug. “One of them clocked me with the butt of his gun and knocked me out after I head-butted his mate, broke his nose, and kicked one of the others in the balls.”
I chuckle because that doesn’t surprise me in the slightest. Most women would fall to pieces in a situation like that, but not this one. She held herself together, steady and unflinching.
That knowledge doesn’t stop me from beating myself up, though, because I never should’ve put her in that position in the first place.
“I shouldn’t have left you in that car alone … I’ll never forgive myself for that,” I admit.
“None of this is your fault.”
“It is,” I say, clenching my eyes closed, trying to push all those fucked-up images from my mind. “My mother set me up. I should’ve known better.”
“I’m sorry she let you down again, but you weren’t to know. And to be fair, if I’d listened to you and stayed at the safe house like you asked …”
I wonder if Dante has sorted my mother out yet, and I hate that I even care if he has. She deserves whatever is coming to her for what she did, but the whole situation still makes me feel sick to the stomach.
“Have you had a chance to go to the house and check on Killer?” I ask, trying to change the subject.
“No. Dante is going to take me there when we leave here. The doctor had to sedate me when I got back to their place. I wasn’t coping very well without you.”
Tears rise to her eyes again, and I swear I don’t deserve this woman.
“Come here,” I demand, using what little strength I have to pull her onto the bed, ignoring how much my body screams in protest with every movement.
She doesn’t hesitate to nestle against my side, resting her cheek on my chest.
Snuggling with me seems to have become second nature for her. I wasn’t much of a snuggler before she came into my life. Hell, I don’t even know if I am now, but when it includes her, I definitely don’t hate it.
Turning my face, I place a lingering kiss on the top of her head, grateful I get to hold her. Yesterday I wondered if I’d ever get to do it again.
It’s a shame I can’t keep her, because I want to. I want those mornings with her tangled in my sheets, and her laugh echoing through our home. I want the softness she offers so freely, and the way she looks at me like I’m actually worth something.
But she deserves a world I can’t give her, a life without men like me in it. I’ve already dragged her through more than she should ever have had to endure.
And despite what Dante said earlier, deep down, he knows the truth: I’m punching well above my weight with this woman, because Lucia could do far better than me.
I exhale all the air from my lungs as I pull her a little closer, holding her as if I never intend to let go, even as I begin plotting exactly how I’m going to do just that.