Chapter 11
PRIEST
For the fourth night in a row, I wake in the darkness to Luna’s screams.
I’m instantly alert, hitting the low light on the bedside table, scanning the room for any hint of an intruder. There’s no one here but us. She jolts awake, blinking blearily, holding up her left hand toward the offending light.
There, on her ring finger, is a single gold band. The one I gave her on our wedding day. It takes me by surprise the same way it does every time I see it, the reminder that we’re married.
She’s my wife.
“It’s okay,” I tell her, dimming the lamp to its lowest setting. “You’re not in danger.”
That’s a lie. As far as I know, she is in danger. That’s why we’re still here, at the Andriani stronghold four floors underneath the casino we own an hour outside of the city. But she’s not in danger in this moment, here, with me.
With me, she’s the safest she’s going to be.
She sniffles, and I realize she’s been crying. And that she’s still half asleep, totally out of it. My gut clenches, and that same protective instinct I’ve had for her from the moment we met hits me like a fist.
“Come here, baby.” I reach for her, and she nuzzles into my bare neck, the wetness of her tears on my skin.
She’s shaking, her breath catching with every inhale.
Luna Revello is one tough woman, but watching her father’s murder unfold while she was in his embrace hit her hard.
She’s spent the days since struggling to adjust to this new normal.
It doesn’t help that we’re in a safe house and that she hasn’t seen daylight since the morning I hauled her away from the church, bloody and in shock.
I whisper all the nice words I know in Italian—admittedly, not all that many.
I’m far from fluent in it, knowing mostly profanity, but I make do with what I’ve picked up from my father and from Zia Maria.
My hand goes up and down Luna’s spine in slow motion, and I swear I can feel her bones even more than I could a few days ago.
She’s only been picking at her food. Zia ’s not here with us, and the shit Saint’s been bringing down from the casino just doesn’t have any soul.
I’ve made a mental note to switch up our kitchen staff and menu when I’m not on twenty-four-hour watch, trying to protect my wife and find out who the hell is responsible for Tomasso Revello’s cold-blooded hit.
Gradually, she comes out of her catatonic state. I can tell the instant reality sets back in, because she stiffens in my arms.
“Sorry,” she whispers, turning her face into my shoulder. “I guess I was having a nightmare again.”
“You don’t have to apologize. It happens.”
“Does it happen…to you?”
My hand pauses just above the dip in her lower back. I know what she’s asking. It’s a question no one has ever dared before.
“It did,” I say finally. “A long time ago.”
“When?”
“I was probably seventeen.” I grimace into the shadows, thinking about the first time I killed a man.
I haven’t thought about it in years.
“How old are you now?”
“Thirty-two.”
She doesn’t say anything to that, and I wonder what she’s thinking. Too old? Doesn’t care? She’s fallen asleep?
Also, why do I give a shit anyway?
“Ancient,” she says finally.
And for a second, I’m so lost in my head that I don’t know what she said.
“Pardon?”
Her breath is a hot little puff on my clavicle when she speaks. “I said you’re ancient.”
A reluctant smile kicks up the corners of my lips. “Feels that way sometimes.”
“Because of your age, or because of what you do?” She tilts her head back, studying me, her honey-brown eyes searching mine.
Seeing me.
I want to kiss her.
To roll her onto her back and pin her to the bed with my dick.
The urge is so sudden and forceful that it takes me by surprise. I may want her, but I’m not a complete asshole. She’s just lost her father. We’re pretty much strangers who are married.
I let go of her, because she’s fire, and I need to get burned to feel alive, and everything about this moment feels dangerous.
“Both, maybe,” I say, rubbing a hand over my chest like I can scrub away the feeling of her.
I can’t.
It’s like she’s branded me.
Luna isn’t finished examining me. She props herself up on an elbow, her midnight hair a wild tangle around her shoulders. She looks sleepy and sexy. It doesn’t help that she’s wearing a flimsy nightgown that’s doing nothing to hide her hard nipples.
“Haven’t you ever wanted a normal life?” she asks.
“What’s normal?”
“Not having to worry about being killed or arrested. Having a job that’s not illegal.”
“Anyone could be killed or arrested at any time.”
She rolls her eyes at me. “You know what I mean.”
Damn, the balls on this one.
“My job’s not illegal. I’m a business owner.”
“You’re a mobster.”
I rub my jaw next, feeling the prickle of my beard because I haven’t shaved in a few days. “I’m an entrepreneur.”
“If that’s what you want to call it.”
We stare at each other, and fuck. I realize I’m smiling at her.
Priest Andriani doesn’t smile.
I wipe the stupid expression off my face before she notices it and thinks I’ve gone soft. I haven’t. Every part of me is hard.
Very fucking hard.
“It’s what we both have to call it,” I tell her, serious now. “Don’t ask what I do, and I won’t tell you. My business is mine. You can’t tell the cops what you don’t know.”
“You don’t trust me?”
“You’ve been out of this life for five years, and you don’t want to be a part of it.”
She doesn’t argue, just sits there with her pouty tits about to fall out of her nightgown.
“So, no, I don’t trust you.”
“You’ve been sleeping next to me every night.”
I tuck my chin down and give her a look. “Do you trust me?”
“No.”
Her answer is instant, without hesitation.
I shouldn’t be disappointed, but somehow, I am. Loyalty isn’t something I’m going to get from Luna Revello. Not yet anyway. Maybe not ever.
I rub my chest again. “You should try to sleep. It’s two a.m.”
I’ve got to be up at five to meet with my men. A hell of a lot has happened on the outside since I brought her here. And more shit is about to go down.
“I’m not tired.” The tiny strap of her nightgown slides over her shoulder.
She doesn’t do anything to right it, so I do, pulling it back into place. Touching her in the process.
“You should be.”
“I’m not.”
“If you stay awake, I’m going to fuck you.”
It’s not a nice thing to say. I don’t even mean it. But she’s playing with fire, and we’re both going to get burned. She needs the reminder. So do I.
Her lips part, the sleepiness disappearing from her eyes. “You wouldn’t.”
I hold her stare, letting her see everything—the darkest depths of my nonexistent soul. “Try me.”
She swallows, and for a second, she looks alone and scared, and her terrified screams echo in my head until I force them out.
I married her for power. To protect my brothers and our big, fucked-up family. She’s a pawn. She means nothing to me.
Luna gives me a jerky nod. “Good night, then.”
She pulls the blankets up to her chin and rolls away from me, presenting me with her back huddled under the comforter.
I turn out the light again, telling myself I feel nothing.
But as I lie on my back, staring up into the darkness, my dick hard as stone, I know that’s a lie. I feel way too much where Luna Revello is concerned.
And I’m going to have to do something about it soon.
Luna
When I wake in the morning, just as with every day for the last week, Priest is gone. His half of the bed is made. Not a hint of him remains, aside from the faint scent of him on the sheets that I find strangely comforting. Psychotic killers shouldn’t be allowed to smell as good as he does.
I roll out of bed and stretch, trying not to focus on the fact that I’m essentially a prisoner in a windowless dungeon.
And failing.
To say I’m going stir-crazy is the understatement of the year.
I miss the sun. I miss my life. I miss books, my phone, the outside world, the sound of birds, walking to class, the clickity-clack of my fingers on the keyboard, wind ruffling the leaves of trees.
And yeah, most of all, I miss my father too.
Some of the shock has worn away, but the nightmares linger.
Maybe they always will.
We weren’t close. He was a shitty father and an even shittier human. But he was still my father, and I don’t know if that should even matter, given everything that’s gone down, but it somehow does.
Besides, someone put a bullet in his head when I was in his arms on my wedding day. At the very least, I need to get justice for him. I need to find out who murdered him and make that person pay.
I pad over to a dresser and open it. Inside the drawers, my things are neatly folded—all of it taken from my carry-on.
I grab a pair of pajama bottoms, a tank top, and panties before heading to the bathroom.
I have nothing to do here in my grim little cell.
So I start the day with a long shower and try to shake the darkness that’s never far.
At least the shower is amazing. I go through the motions—even my shower gel and shampoo are here. I have everything but my phone and laptop. I’m not allowed to have them yet.
Maybe not ever.
As I scrub my scalp, I go through all the scenarios again, just as I have every day since I’ve become a prisoner.
What can I use as a weapon, when can I utilize the element of surprise, et cetera, et cetera, and yet the answers are always the same.
Anything with an edge has been removed. I don’t even have shoes.
I know I’m no match for Priest, even when he’s asleep.
And besides, if I were able to harm him, there’s no way in hell I’d get out of here alive.
I’m fucked.
Closing my eyes, I lean back and rinse the suds from my hair.
I’m almost finished when that magnetic sense of awareness hits me and I realize I’m not alone. Panic hits me, instant and uncontrollable. I start screaming.