Chapter Thirty-Four - Elise
CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
Elise
A typical morning consists of Joshua waking up at seven, placing a kiss on my cheek, and getting ready for the day. I wake up an hour later, when he brings me a coffee, another kiss, and tells me that he can’t wait to see me later.
This is not a typical morning.
When I open my eyes, I wince at the sunlight streaming in and squeeze them shut again with a hiss as a throb resonates in my skull. When the pain subsides, I squint to check the clock on the nightstand. It’s nine o’clock, and strong arms are still firmly wrapped around me.
I must have woken Joshua because he’s suddenly hovering over me, mercifully blocking me from the sunlight.
He pulls his phone from his pocket, presses a few buttons, then brings it to his ear.
I wince as soon as he starts talking and bring my hands up to cover my ears.
“Jay, I need Tylenol, a large glass of water, and a greasy breakfast brought to my room immediately.”
Jay must agree because Joshua hangs up and puts the phone back.
“My head is killing me,” I say, only then realizing how dry my throat is.
Man, I’m thirsty.
“That’s what happens when you drink two bottles of wine,” he says, guiding me to sit up with him.
I do, then close my eyes as I lean my head on my knees.
“It was only a bottle and a half,” I murmur, and his light laugh makes me wince.
I open my eyes to glare at him, which is when I notice the dark circles under his and remember that Joshua spent most of the night sleeping on the hardwood hallway floor.
I also remember why.
“You blew me off—again.”
He points to the door. “I spent ten hours outside that door, four of which I was sleeping on the floor. I think we’re even.”
“It’s not about getting even.” I lift my head, working very hard to ignore the dull pulsing that comes with the motion. “It’s about making me a priority.”
“You’re my main priority,” he corrects. “Keeping you safe is all I care about, Elise. I would love to spend every second of every day with you, but if I ignore my responsibilities to this family, I won’t be able to keep you safe.”
“I’m not asking you to ignore your responsibilities. I’m asking you to keep your word if you say you’re going to spend time with me.”
“I can’t control if something comes up that I have to deal with,” he says, but his tone isn’t defensive. He sounds genuinely at a loss. “I’ve never had to balance my work with a personal life.”
I know that Joshua didn’t want to cancel our dates. When he returns to the house each night, it’s obvious that he’s excited to spend time with me.
But that makes me feel like a puppy sitting at the window while their owner goes off to work.
I nod, then immediately stop when my head throbs. “I know you can’t control when important things come up. I also know your work will keep you from me sometimes, but you can’t cancel three dates in a week and expect me to happily stay put and wait for you to have time for me.”
“I know,” he agrees. “I won’t do it again.”
“And if you do have to cancel, come tell me yourself instead of sending Ryder to do it.”
“Would it help if I said I sent Ryder because I knew that if I came myself, I wouldn’t be able to force myself to return to work?”
“No, not at all,” I answer, laying a hand on his hard chest. “But I do recall Ryder saying you’d make it up to me.”
Joshua’s smile is enough to melt any remaining anger.
“But you’ll have to do it later,” I tell him, just as he starts to lean in to kiss me. “I need to sleep off this hangover.”
“Oh no, you don’t,” Joshua says, pulling the covers off of me. Goosebumps break out across my entire body. I sit up to grab the duvet so fast my head spins, and I briefly wonder if I’m about to throw up.
“What the hell?” I hiss, all my anger returning tenfold.
He pushes the duvet off the bed. “You wanted time with me—you got it. You have me all day long, Princess, and I’m not going to let you sleep it away.”
I glare at him, but he ignores it, dipping his head down to take my lips in a sweet kiss. “Come on, beautiful. We’ve got big plans for the day.”
“Like what?”
“For starters, mattress shopping.”
After taking Tylenol, drinking two bottles of water, and forcing myself to eat a plate of sausage, bacon, and eggs, I don’t feel so miserable. After a shower, I almost feel human.
Despite the hangover that isn’t gone until well into the afternoon, my day out with Joshua is perfect—which seems only fair for all the hell it took to get it.
He hadn’t been joking about mattress shopping. We spent over an hour buying a new one for the bed I ruined upstairs, but Joshua didn’t seem bothered by the fact that I cost him a few thousand dollars.
After that, we went to lunch at a local sports bar, to hike at a park, and had dinner at a small winery almost an hour from the house. We were supposed to do a wine tasting before dinner, but I vetoed that. The idea of having wine today could not be less appealing.
Conversation with Joshua flows naturally, as if we’ve known each other all our lives.
The ruthless mafia boss who drugged and kidnapped me to blackmail my father made me laugh so hard I almost spit my drink out with a story from his early days when he and Ryder showed up at the wrong location for a drop-off and nearly sold a duffle bag of cocaine to a very confused elderly woman at a bus station.
The car ride back to the house is the longest stretch of silence we’ve had all day, but I’m okay with that. It’s a comfortable, easy silence that still feels as if we’re getting to know each other.
Joshua has one hand on my thigh, and I’m working hard not to show him how much the simple touch affects me. He taps a finger on the steering wheel to a song on a local station I’ve never heard, and I hope he doesn’t notice that I keep glancing at him.
On days like today, Joshua doesn’t seem like a mafia boss at all. He seems like my…boyfriend? That term feels juvenile compared to the feelings I have for him, but I’m not sure what else he is.
If it were up to Joshua, he’d be my husband.
By the time Joshua parks the car in the driveway, the sun is just starting to set. Neither of us moves to get out.
I place my hand over his. “Are you sure your boss won’t give you the day off tomorrow, too?”
Joshua shakes his head. “No way. That guy’s an asshole.”
I smile as he intertwines our fingers, bringing them to his lips to kiss my hand.
“Thank you for today,” I tell him. He didn’t have to take an entire day to spend with me, and I’m sure it wasn’t as easy as moving meetings around to make it happen, but he did it anyway. “It meant the world to me.”
“Well, it’s not over yet,” he reminds me. “What would you like to do tonight? I’m sure the capos would be in for a few rounds of Kemps.”
Joshua lowers our hands to the middle console, and, once again, I try to imagine this man as my husband.
The thought is slowly starting to seem less crazy.
“Can I see the ring?”
The question catches him off guard, and it’s a moment before a wide—and hopeful—smile touches his lips.
We walk inside, hand in hand, and the hollers from the capos in the kitchen echo through the house, but we don’t stop on the way to our room.
Joshua pulls me to the couch, and I sit, watching as he retreats to the closet.
I note that someone has cleaned up my mess from yesterday. Any traces from my girl’s night in are erased.
He returns only seconds later, sitting on the couch beside me, and my eyes drop to the small box.
When Joshua opens it, I feel the same overwhelming admiration I did the first time I saw it. I’ve never given any thought to the kind of ring I want, but if I had, this is what I would’ve chosen. Its design is simple yet breathtaking.
I’m not sure how long I’ve been staring at it, but I’m pulled back to reality when Joshua removes it from the box. He lifts my hand and slides the ring into place.
A perfect fit.
And more than that, it feels right.
I already know that Joshua’s feelings for me are genuine, but the fact that I’m starting to doubt that I could be without him makes me realize just how strong my feelings have become.
“I love it,” I whisper.
“It suits you.”
Before I can get carried away, I work the ring down my finger to return it to the box, but Joshua’s hand over mine halts the action.
“Keep it.”
The implication makes my heart race with excitement, but there’s panic there, too. As right as it feels to wear this ring, I’m not ready to say yes to him.
“Joshua, I’m not—”
“I know this isn’t a yes.” He lifts my hand to his lips, placing a gentle kiss there. “But will you wear it while you’re here?”
His lips against my skin ignite the now-familiar electricity, and there’s no way I could deny him.
“Okay,” I breathe and bring my lips to his for a long, adoring kiss.
“What would you like to do tonight?” he asks.
I’m about to tell him he can pick, but I’m interrupted by a yawn.
“Tired?”
I nod. “I never feel rested after nightmare nights.”
“Nightmare nights? You have a name for it?”
My cheeks heat, and for the first time today, it’s out of embarrassment. “That’s just what I started calling them in my head,” I admit.
“Have you always had nightmares? Or did they start when I brought you to the base?”
My heart sinks with this particular topic. I’m tempted to tell him I don’t want to talk about it, but I don’t. Joshua is the only person who’s been able to chase my nightmares away. The least I can do is explain where they come from.
I pull my knees to my chest, wrapping my arms around them. “They started when I was thirteen.”
It takes me a moment to find the words as I recall the day that I’ve worked so hard to erase from my memory.
“I’d only known about my dad’s work for a few months, so I was still wrapping my head around the whole idea.
I’d been going to our family’s base my whole life, but up until then, I’d always thought of it as Dad’s office.
One day, I was looking for my dad, but I couldn’t find him anywhere.
I wandered down a hallway I probably shouldn’t have, but I heard his voice, so I followed it.
He sounded angry, but that wasn’t what scared me. There was this animal wailing.”
I can’t stop the shiver that runs down my spine as I remember the day that scarred my child self.
“I’m not sure why, but I couldn’t help myself, and I opened the door.
Needless to say, it wasn’t an animal, but the man didn’t look all that human after what my dad had done to him.
There was blood covering almost every inch of his body, bone was visible where my father had carved out part of his leg, and one of his eyes had been cut out along with his tongue.
It didn’t take long for my dad to notice I’d walked in, but it was long enough. ”
Joshua places a comforting hand on my thigh.
“I could barely look at him for months afterward. I understand that sometimes you guys need to do stuff like that, but it was unnecessarily cruel. It’s not like my dad was getting information out of him if he cut his tongue out.
He was doing it for fun, and it made me sick to think that he was entertained by that. ”
It occurs to me that I’ve never told anyone this before. By that point, my brothers had all inflicted that sort of cruelty themselves, so they wouldn’t have understood anyway.
“The nightmares started that night, and they’ve never gone away for more than a few months at a time,” I explain.
After the long stretch of silence, I look at Joshua, but his focus is on the floor.
“Are you okay?” I ask, feeling exposed and vulnerable.
It’s like my question flips a switch.
Joshua’s shoulders relax, and his eyes soften. “I’m sorry you witnessed that, Elise.”
Nodding is my only response and my gut twists at his guarded expression.
I’m about to ask him what’s wrong when he kisses my forehead and stands. “I am so sorry for this, but I completely forgot about a few things I need to get done before tomorrow. If I go to the warehouse for an hour, will I need a ladder when I get back?”
I breathe a laugh, and his carefree smile puts me at ease—mostly.
“Depends on what time you come back,” I taunt. “Don’t keep me waiting all night.”
He dips down and places a long kiss on my lips.
My smile falls the second Joshua closes the door behind him. I don’t mind that he has work to do. He spent the entire day giving me his full attention, not so much as taking a phone call or answering an email.
What bothers me is the little voice in the back of my head that tells me Joshua is keeping something from me. I know that there are plenty of things that he hides because it’s family business, but this feels different.
I walk to the window, watching Joshua and Ryder make their way down the gravel path. By the time they disappear behind the trees, I’ve made my decision.
I’m going to follow them.
I quickly throw on my tennis shoes and leave our room. The house is quiet, but I still tiptoe to the front door. Miraculously, I don’t encounter a single person as I open it and walk into the warm evening.
I pass the extra garage and the vast guest house, being extra careful to conceal myself along the tree line as I do.
The sun is on the brink of setting by the time the large metal building comes into view. I’ve never seen it before, but it’s exactly what I expected—bare metal aside from the big set of doors that dominate the wall facing me.
Unable to hear or see anything from where I am, I go around the back and try my luck there. Surely, there’s a window somewhere.
Ensuring the coast is clear, I creep close to the building, looking for anything that might give me a clue about what’s going on.
My heart jumps to my throat when I hear the sound of a racing car coming down the gravel path, and I’m thankful that I decided to move to the back since I undoubtedly would’ve been caught.
I nearly laugh at my good fortune, but the joy is short-lived because that’s when I hear the unmistakable sound of gunshots.