11. Romeo
11
ROMEO
“ W e need to go right now?” Tessa asked me.
“Yes.” I looked down into her dark-blue gaze, captivated all over again at the depth of trust that shone there. Nina and Tessa both confirmed that the truth was out about me. Tessa now knew that I was involved with the Mafia.
If learning that I’d killed those three men hadn’t scared her away, I worried that revealing my connection and importance to a Mafia organization might.
No worries there. So far. She’d run into my arms. That was a high sign that she wanted to be near me, not distance herself.
“We will stay in touch,” Nina promised. She reached out to grab Tessa’s hand and squeezed it, and I was damned glad that the blonde stayed tucked at my side. I didn’t see any reason to lower my arm, and keeping her close felt natural.
“I’ll ask Dante and Franco about our phones and whatnot.” Nina glanced at me as my father led her out the door. “Now that I know you’re with Romeo, I can reach you one way or another.”
“Yes. I feel like we’ve only begun to scratch the surface of catching up, mama-to-be.”
Nina’s smile was sweet and sincere, but she didn’t dally and try to linger with her best friend she’d only just gotten reacquainted with.
Once she was out the door, I caught my father’s eye and nodded at him. Before we came to the house, I told him that I’d move to a vacation house that wasn’t even under the Constella name. Most properties were hidden with shell corps showing as owners, but this one further out of the city was layered even further from discovery, willed to one of the old-timers who’d passed away several years ago. Like this house, the cabin had been sitting and neglected. The main perk about the place was the extensive network of surveillance cameras and tech capacity that could be started up again. Franco likely had already sent someone to hook it up and test it before I’d get there.
Before we would get there.
Alone with Tessa again, I felt the need to tread carefully. I couldn’t expect her to just give up her life and follow me. Everything felt tenuous and delicate, but I wanted to forge a path forward with her. “I understand that this is a big request, to relocate with me…”
She shook her head and stepped back. “But I want to go with you.” When she lowered her gaze, worry returned, but she faced me again. “If you want me to come with you.”
“Yes. I told you that I’d help you, Tessa, and that means lying low with me until you figure out what you want to do next, so that’s what we’ll do.”
She smiled slightly. “Thank you.”
“But I understand that you had a life before I found you. A job?—”
She scoffed. “Which one? The bar I left last night? My shift started an hour ago and that’s my first no-call, no-show. I’m fired.”
I frowned, not liking the resignation in her voice.
“The Hound and Tea?” She arched one brow. “Now that I know you’re a Constella and the owner of that steakhouse, I guess you could give me a sabbatical from waitressing there.”
I nodded, not relaxed enough to smile yet, but she had good points. “And you’re certain your parents won’t wonder…”
“I bet they’re pissed that I’ve gone missing, wondering where I am, but angry , not worried about it.” She crossed her arms, smirking. “I’m guessing my dad went to get his car, and that’s it.”
“No one else who’d notice you missing and report it or anything?”
She started to shake her head but stopped midway. “I guess Elliot would be curious, but he’s not my concern. I don’t care what he thinks or guesses.”
I liked the sound of that. Even though there were more pressing things on hand now, like the Devil’s Brothers trespassing on Constella property and killing one of our guards, I didn’t intend to give up on figuring out how I could help Tessa with this crooked lawyer she had no interest in.
“We’ll head out to the other location now. And once things settle down,” I promised as I looked her directly in the eye, “I will resume working on how to sever any obligations or connections you have with Elliot.”
She stared at me, seeming to search my face. For what, I didn’t know, but I hated the possibility that she might not believe me.
“If that’s what you want,” I added.
She huffed a light laugh. “Oh, I want. Not having to even think about being with Elliot would be a dream come true.” Furrowing her brow, she seemed to rethink her words. “I don’t mean… I’m saying… You…”
I raised my brows.
“I’m not asking you to, um, remove him for me.” She rubbed her jaw, sheepish now. “Not like you removed those three men last night.”
But it’d be my fucking pleasure to. “Killing Elliot Hines would be a different endeavor from killing those three bastards last night. Hines would be missed, and with the connections he seems to have by representing some of our rivals, it would be a complicated mess.”
She nodded.
“However,” I said and stepped closer, “I will do anything and everything to help you and keep you safe, Tess.”
Her smile was slow and sexy. “I like when you do that.”
“What?” I’d do it again to get that smile.
“Shorten my name. I always wished more people would. I like the sound of it better.”
“I like it too, Tess.” And I definitely like what you and I could be if you lower your guard to do more than let me take care of your safety.
An hour later, we were packed and heading out of the house. A soldier followed us in another car. It had to be the backup security Franco arranged for after Joseph was killed.
Tessa didn’t talk on the ride, but I was aware of her looking out the window and watching me through her peripheral vision. The silence wasn’t awkward, but I wanted to make sure that she’d didn’t spiral or fall back to a quieter, shell-shocked numbness.
What she went through wouldn’t—and shouldn’t—be dismissed. Trauma is a difficult thing to manage, and I had a suspicion she’d never faced anything like it before. My method of dealing with trauma or anything heavy was to hide my emotions and let a high and thick wall block me from anything else impacting me. It wasn’t the healthiest coping mechanism. I knew it was a terrible flaw, but even worse, right now, I felt clueless and inadequate to know how to help Tessa cope.
“I can still contact Danicia if you need her help,” I said.
She flinched, and I realized neither of us had spoken for at least a half hour.
“Okay. I don’t think you need to ask her to drive far or anything like that. I packed all the clothes she dropped off, and all the medicine.”
“Good.” God, I hated how stilted I sounded. I wasn’t sure how to read her when she acted like everything was fine. There was no way she’d moved on past her trauma yet, so I had to assume she was either ignoring it and shoving it aside or trying to mask how it controlled her, that fake, stoic attempt like I did.
It was easier when she asked me for help. I knew how to care for her when she requested that I hold her. I wasn’t confused when she ran toward me to be in my embrace. Maybe it was the distance in the car, the center console separating us as though it were a ten-foot-high wall. But I dreaded that she might be trying to shelter herself from needing anything from me.
If she’s determined to be aloof and shut me out, then why would she say she wanted to stick around with me?
By the time we reached the cabin, I was more confused, on edge to be alone with her here.
What if she’d be better off with Nina, someone she knows and cares about?
What if she needs meds or counseling that I can’t help with?
What if she changes her mind about leaning on a Mafia prince for protection?
What if ? —
“I can take the couch,” she protested, again, in the living room of the cabin.
“No.” I’d told her that plain and simple answer three times now.
“I’m just saying. You’re so tall and… and…” She frowned, gesturing at me. “Big. I’m petite and short. I’d fit better on the couch, whereas you’d fit well on the bed.”
I shook my head. The only way I’d compromise on those assigned sleeping arrangements was if I shared the bed with her.
Pushing her would be wrong. Until I could better gauge how she was feeling and coping, I couldn’t insist on anything from her. It had to be her reaching out to me. It had to be her signal that she wanted to be held again—or anything else.
For the next few days, we settled into a routine. I stayed busy on my laptop, searching through all the intel that came in from our spies. I spent a significant amount of time on the phone with Andy. Then my father. Then Franco. Plus other spies. After the Devil’s Brothers dared to set foot on my land, the stakes were higher. Tensions were raised. It was still a waiting game of wondering who’d strike next. We wouldn’t until we were ready, because nothing good came from being rash with enemies like those biker bastards and the devious Giovannis.
Trying to give all my attention to preparing to fight our enemies had become my project, and every moment I spent working was one more method of trying to rise above the pressure building between me and Tessa.
She wasn’t idle either, on the phone—a new one my father sent here—with Nina. Or she read the e-reader app on the device. When she wasn’t doing that, she set herself to giving this dated, dusty cabin a very thorough, deep clean.
“You don’t have to,” I scolded her the first time she set up to clean.
“I want to.” She shrugged. “It’s how I was raised.”
I scoffed. “To be an obedient, good girl?”
She sighed. “Basically. But I like things tidy, too. It’s rewarding to clean something up and see it sparkle.”
Her hangup with being an “obedient, good girl” was something I intended to revisit later, but I left her to it. Whatever made her happy, and if dusting and mopping satisfied her, I wouldn’t stand in her way.
Before long, I realized we’d fallen into a roommate sort of situation. While I wouldn’t say she grew more distant, she seemed less likely to strike up a conversation or look my way. At first, I thought she was nervous about interrupting my calls. I told her that she was my priority too, and she waved that comment off.
I was stuck between not wanting to push but desperate to reach her and know that she was coping and recovering, not hiding how much she still suffered. I Had no idea how to achieve that fundamental closeness I'd felt when sitting on the bed with her at the other place.
On the fourth night, I finally got a hint of how poorly she was coping. It came in the middle of the night, when the rain from the evening’s storm passed through with a steadier pattern on the roof.
Earlier, the deluge pounded the cabin so hard that the thrum of precipitation cut out all other noises. I got up to check on Tessa, making sure she could sleep through it. And she was fine, dozing deeply. I returned to the small couch, hating that I was stuck with this distance between us.
Why won’t she reach out to me again? Ever since she learned that I was in the Mafia, she was staying away. She seemed so determined to appear strong, not needing anything from me, but I refused to be duped that easily.
The cry that came from her room suggested otherwise, that she was scared and feeling hopeless. If she was scared of storms, I’d comfort her. I was over the top, smitten and obsessed with this woman, but it didn’t stop me from checking on her.
“Tess?” I loved the nickname she preferred. “Tess?”
I entered the only bedroom where she slept. In the darkness, I made out the shape of her alone on the bed. Crying. Whimpering.
Fuck. I hated to see her distraught.
“Tessa?”
Shit. It looked like she was dreaming. A nightmare, judging by the tight features of her strained face and the tears on her cheeks.
Tess. I swallowed past the emotions clogging my throat. This woman, still so much a stranger, moved me to struggle with myself. Her happiness would make mine possible.
“Tess, it’s me. It’s okay. Wake up.” I sat on the edge of the bed, brushing her hair from her face.
“No. Don’t. No! don’t let them…” She sobbed harder, and it broke me.
“Tess!” I had to snap her out of this night terror. If she was reliving the rape, I had to break the memories and spare her more pain.
“Tess. It’s me. Romeo. Wake up.” I shook her harder, digging my thumbs into the smooth skin of her upper arms as I lifted her slightly off the bed. It killed me to witness her distress, trapped in her mind.
“They’re coming for me,” she mumbled in her sleep.
Fuck that. No one would come after her for the sake of malice ever again.
Only I would be there for her. I would always come to her rescue. And as illogical and backward as it probably seemed as a plan, I reacted with what I was sure could be a sharp jolt to her system and wake her the fuck up.
I leaned down and kissed her, hard.