48. Basilio
Basilio
I waited for her to say something. Anything.
She said nothing, but the ghosts in her eyes were unmistakable. When I heard her screams in the middle of the night, the terror lacing her voice, it almost brought me to my knees. I couldn’t wake her up, her skin glistening with sweat as she thrashed.
So I did the only thing I knew. The thing my mamma used to do the nights I was scared of my father.
I started talking to her, keeping my voice low.
She couldn’t hear me, but it seemed to soothe her.
I told her how I searched for her, night and day.
How I’d never given her up because to give up meant living in the permanent darkness.
She was my light. My sun.
Without her, there was only darkness.
She was my calm in the storm.
When she walked away from me, she took the only light in my life, as well as my heart. Or maybe it just stopped working, I wasn’t sure.
She was the reason I survived my wretched father and all the brutality in my world. All the roads led me to her and God help me, I’d keep her.
At. All. Fucking. Costs.
I was nothing without her. Just a mirror image of my father and I fucking hated that.
Yet to her, I was nobody now. Nothing.
My teeth clenched, my gaze turned hard and I smiled darkly.
“You left me without a backward glance, principessa,” I growled. “Why?”
Her lips thinned and her chin tilted up, stubbornly as defiance shone in her eyes. She wouldn’t tell me. Not yet. But I’d hammer through those walls. Whether she liked it or not.
“You made a promise, and I intend for you to keep it,” I told her.
Before this was over, I’d be her fucking everything.
* * *
“We should move her,” Priest said tersely.
Dante, Priest, and I sat in Emory’s office. It was barely eight in the morning,
I sat on the couch with my feet up on the coffee table. The office had girly touches to it. Pictures and flashes of pink and blue here and there. Despite the fact that Emory rarely ever wore color.
I sat back and cracked my knuckles. Over and over again. The restlessness ghosted under my skin, demanding I go check on Wynter. I wanted her within my sight all the damn time. I couldn’t stop thinking about her.
She still smelled of honey and ice, just the way I remembered. When she finally calmed down from her night terrors, I couldn’t tear my gaze from her. The way the moon glowed against her fair skin and made her curls glow.
The need to touch her seared through my veins but I refused to do it. Not without her permission. I couldn’t fucking handle it if she looked at me the way my mamma did when she walked away from me. Or the way Mamma looked at my father.
“Are you fucking listening or daydreaming, Basilio?” Priest snapped and Dante gave him a tight look.
“Basilio just needs to get laid,” Dante said, sitting opposite of me and smirking like a motherfucker. “Once he gets his ice princess to freeze his balls, he’ll be back to normal.”
“What the fuck is the matter with you?” Priest snapped, glaring at his older brother.
Priest definitely woke up with something up his butt, and I wasn’t in the mood for it. He should go and recite someone's last goddamn rites. That usually got him in a good mood.
“I’m ready to shoot both of you motherfuckers,” I growled, “-if you don’t tell me why in the fuck I should move her from here. Nobody knows about this place. Not even our own fathers.”
“Everybody's gonna know about this place soon,” Priest said. “You kidnapped a world-renowned Olympic skater.”
What the fuck was wrong with my cousin? “You didn’t complain when we came up with the plan?”
Dante must have sensed my bad mood because he chimed in, “Wynter had an interview scheduled for 7 A.M. They noticed her gone right away. Priest was able to hack into the hotel surveillance. Brennan lost his shit. The big Russian wasn’t far behind.
The two got into it. Apparently, her bodyguard wanted to fly her out last night but Brennan refused. ”
“Well, that must have been entertaining,” Emory butted in, strolling into the office like she was doing a fucking catwalk wearing combat boots and a holster.
“Someone had to have the princess.” She gave me a pointed look.
“It will be so much fun when the Irish and Russians attack. It will be like a mafia world war. Maybe we can turn it into a bloody wedding reception.”
“Shut up,” I told all three of them. “Let me see the footage.”
Priest pulled up his phone and opened the surveillance from the hotel. Sure enough, Brennan and Sasha Nikolaev were at each other’s throats.
“They’re already hacking all the surveillance and checking all the flight logs,” Priest warned. “They’re using Nico Morrelli. He’s the best.”
“I thought you were the best,” I retorted dryly.
He flipped me the bird. “I am but Nico has a tech company that does only that for him. And with the Ashford brothers backing up Brennan, we’re at a disadvantage.”
“Excuses, fucking excuses,” I grumbled. “The Ashfords won’t back him up for long.”
“Basilio, it won’t take them long to find us,” Priest warned.
I got up, buttoned my jacket, and turned to leave.
“Let them,” I replied, before I left the three of them so I could go find Wynter.
“Get laid,” Dante shouted behind me. “We can’t stand much more of you like this.”
I flipped him the bird over my shoulder and continued my path to the guest room on the highest floor, the one without any options of escape, where we stashed Wynter. After all, I met her climbing down her uncle’s balcony, and I was certain it wasn’t her first time sneaking out.
I barged into her room without knocking. My eyes wandered from the empty bed toward the wall, the balcony, then bathroom. She wasn’t here.
I rushed out of there and roared, “Wynter!”
If she ran off, I’d lock her in next time. There’d be no freedom roaming the house. I was back in Emory’s office, the three of them in the same spot where I left them with serious expression on their faces.
If they’d let her go behind my back, I’d crush their throats. Teach them a lesson, they’d never forget.
“Where is Wynter?” I bellowed, out of my goddamn mind. She wasn’t in her bedroom. Not in the bathroom. Nowhere.
“She’s in the basement gym,” Emory answered, eyeing me suspiciously. “What the fuck is wrong with you?”
Ignoring her, I rushed out of the room and almost plowed into her guard.
With each step I took closer to the basement gym, the music grew louder.
I opened the door and the bass speakers almost shook the walls how loud she had it turned up.
She’d be able to wake up the dead with this kind of music.
Some kind of angry version of Lady Gaga’s “Paparazzi” song but screamed by a dude.
Wynter ran steadily on a treadmill, oblivious that anyone else was in the room. Blood rushed into my cock, watching her gorgeous body in a sports bra and skin-tight shorts that barely covered her ass. And fuck, she had a nice ass.
My cousins better stay the fuck away from here. I’d gouge their eyes out if they even look her way.
I caught her reaching for her ear, but her hand faltered and I realized she was used to having headphones in. I recalled she told me once that she liked to put headphones on and not hear anything, including her thoughts. It helped her concentrate.
I pulled up my phone and shot a message to Priest to get me Apple AirPods, every version and model and a new Apple burner phone. Then I leaned against the door and just watched her.
Probably made me some kind of psychotic stalker but the sight soothed me. As long as I knew where she was, I could breathe.
“She has some endurance.” Emory’s voice came from behind me and I stiffened. Fuck, I didn’t even hear her approach me. I couldn’t be oblivious to my surroundings, particularly with Wynter under my protection.
“She’s an Olympic, two-time, gold medalist, what do you expect?” Dante almost sounded impressed.
“Do you two have to be everywhere I am?” I grumbled. “And for fuck’s sake, Dante, stop looking at her.”
“I just can’t help myself,” Dante snickered. “She might prefer me to my cousin.”
A growl climbed up my throat. “Dante,” I warned before he said more stupid words.
“Yeah, you two will be lucky not to get shot by her uncle or one of those Russians she uses as bodyguards.” The world had gone to hell in a handbasket if my sister was the only one that had some common sense left.
“What the fuck is wrong with Priest?” I asked them, instead of commenting on my sister’s sound observation.
A fleeting glance the two shared didn’t escape me. “What?” I demanded to know, my eyes glued to Wynter’s form.
“He needs some time to come to terms,” my sister said quietly.
“With?”
“He tested his DNA against hers.” Dante didn’t look pleased.
“And?”
“Priest and Wynter share the same mother.”