Chapter 43
MICHAEL
The following day, we return to Raph’s house, where my father remains prisoner.
Gio rushes toward him, his chest howling with breaths, and he throws a fist into his nose. “You fucking tell us where Nicolette is, or I swear, I will torch your damn body bit by bit.”
Our father shakes his head in mockery, spitting up blood. He’s barely recognizable, contusions and swelling distorting his face.
He’s strong, I’ve gotta give him that. But we’ll break him. He will talk.
“What a disappointment you are, Gio.” He still manages to laugh. “But then again, you always were stupid and pathetic.” He scoffs. “It’s no wonder you’re still alone. No woman wants a loser for a husband.”
Gio growls, whipping out his semi-automatic and digging it into our father’s chest. “Say another goddamn word and I’ll put a hole in you right now.”
Raph pushes past Gio, gripping the collar of our father’s shirt. He’s barely been holding on to his sanity in these last few days. He may not say it, but I suspect he’s grown a little too fond of Nicolette in their time together.
“I’m done playing games,” he snaps. “Talk or I kill you!”
“I can talk all day, son.” Our father grins. “Your wife was some piece of ass.”
He groans, and Raph grits his teeth.
“And all this time, you couldn’t put a baby in her…so I did the job for you.”
My breaths lock in my chest.
He can’t…
“What baby?” he strangles, his face instantly going white as he releases the grip on our father.
Fuck. No. He can’t know. This will gut him.
“Don’t,” I warn.
That has Raph zipping his hard gaze to mine. And in his eyes, I see a man who’s been hurt too many times. Who never deserved the betrayal that was laid at his feet. Raph was always too good for that, yet life fucked him anyway.
He continues to stare, as though daring me to speak. To tell him what he must already suspect.
Gio has been silent this whole time, but now his features hover with rage, nostrils widening as he flexes his fists at his sides.
“I’m sorry,” our father says. “I must’ve forgotten to tell you the best part.”
“What is he talking about, Michael?” Raph’s voice twines with both rage and anguish.
“Just tell him, Michael. Take him out of his misery.”
“Shut the fuck up!” I quicken my pace and slam a fist into my father’s mouth.
Crimson trickles down onto his lap.
“Why should I? I met her first. She was more mine than she was his.” He turns to Raph. “And that was my baby she was carrying. Your baby brother.” He snickers. “Or sister.”
Raph inhales sharply, his face contorting with too many emotions—pain, betrayal…it’s all there. I can only imagine how much this hurts him. If my little dove did to me what Bianca did to him…. Fuck.
She betrayed his loyalty in the most horrific way. And she created a baby out of that betrayal.
I never dared to ask why they didn’t have kids, but I now suspect it may have been because they couldn’t. It would make sense. Both of them wanted children. They both told Mom that. And even with Bianca working toward becoming a nurse practitioner, she said she wanted kids.
He looks at me then. Broken. Ripped apart seam by seam.
“How could you not tell me?” His words thicken with incredulity and agony.
I run a hand through my hair. “I didn’t want this to hurt you.”
He grits his teeth and takes a single long breath. “Fuck Bianca. I just need to find her.”
“Her?” Our father chuckles, the sound grating up the walls. “Which one, exactly?”
Raph’s expression instantly hardens. “What the hell do you mean, which one?” He drags his face to our father’s until there’s barely anything separating them. “Nicolette! Where is she?”
“Oh, I’m sorry, son.” He purses his mouth, looking proud. “I thought you meant Bianca.”
ELSIE
“Do you need anything?” I ask Raph, getting water from the fridge before heading upstairs to go to bed with Michael.
It still feels weird to be here in Michael’s home, though he much prefers me to call it ours. This life with him is mine, and Raph…he’s my family now, and I worry about him. It breaks my heart to watch him hurting, being without the woman he’s clearly in love with.
Days have gone by, and still, Michael and his brothers can’t seem to find Nicolette. It’s been killing Raph. He doesn’t even hide it.
“No.” He shakes his head, face planted in his palms as a rush of a breath leaves his lungs. He looks up at me, the whites of his eyes streaked with red, a tight tug between his brows. “I appreciate it, though. Thank you.”
I force a small smile as I ready to head upstairs to be with my husband.
“Elsie?” he calls.
I turn, hoping he actually wants something from someone. Because my God, this poor man.
“Yes?”
“You’re good for my brother.” He runs a hand through his thick black hair. “I don’t remember ever seeing him this happy, not until you.”
My heart lurches in my chest. “Thank you for saying that.”
“Just being honest.” He shrugs with a heavy sigh, dropping his head into his palms once more.
I stay rooted in place, feeling helpless, knowing how he feels. When I was missing my friends, worrying about them, it was a dark place. And that’s where he is too.
“You’re going to find her,” I tell him, hoping to spark some light in the darkness.
But he peers back at me with no hope left. “I don’t know about that anymore. I don’t even know if she’s alive.”
“She is.” My head slants. “Just have faith. Don’t give up on her or on each other.”
His Adam’s apple bobs, emotions perching in his tired gaze. The man doesn’t even sleep or eat. I don’t know how he’s up after searching for her the way he has.
“You need rest,” I say, hoping to convince him.
“I’ll rest when she’s in my arms. When she’s safe. Not a moment before.”
He rests his back against the chair and stares up at the ceiling. And that’s when I decide to leave him alone, taking my cup of water with me and another for Michael as I head up, stairs creaking beneath my feet.
As soon as the door flings open, Michael’s sitting up. “How is he?”
“Looks like hell.”
He shakes his head as I hand him his water. “I can’t believe our fucking father still won’t tell us where she is.”
“Is Gio working with his friend on trying to find her?” Taking a few sips of the ice-cold liquid, I place the cup on the nightstand and slip in beside him.
Immediately, his big, strong arms wrap around me, and he kisses my temple from behind.
“Yeah. Grant Westfield is his name, and he owns Westfield Enterprises. He’s doing what he can.”
“Westfield, as in the company who makes those cell phones?”
I hadn’t realized that was who Gio meant when he said he had a tech guy helping them. Why am I even surprised? This family is so well connected, I’m shocked they don’t have a direct line to all the world leaders.
“Yeah, one and the same,” he whispers, his mouth coasting down my nape as my nipples bead in the wake of his languid touch. “They also make memory chips for phones and are heavily into artificial intelligence.”
That smooth baritone rouses my body awake with wicked thoughts.
“Wow,” I groan, feeling my arousal swell between my thighs.
“Yeah. He can hack anything, so a friend like that is good to have. He and Gio went to business school together.”
“How nice for them…” I’m trying hard to focus, but it’s becoming quite difficult.
Just keep doing whatever you’re doing.
“He thinks he may have something on Nicolette’s location already.” His lips line the shell of my ear, his tongue swirling around my lobe right before he takes it into his mouth.
“Oh, God,” I gasp as he sucks.
The sounds he makes from deep in his chest reverberate down my spine.
“I…that’s good news,” I whisper. My hand skates around, grabbing a fistful of his hair. “And is Gio still supposed to marry…what’s her name again?”
“Eriu. And yes, he is, or the Irish will sever our deal and kill Raph instead.”
“I feel bad for Gio,” I groan as my husband’s hand slips under the waistband of my leggings, an index finger rolling between my wet slit. “Knowing that he likes her sister instead.”
“I know. He’s crazy about her, it seems.”
“The way you are about me?”
He growls, and it does something to me to hear that possessive twinge in his voice. “No one is crazy about a woman the way I’m crazy about you.”
“Is that right?” My question comes on a pant as his thumb presses to my entrance, and I buck against it.
“That’s right.” His teeth mark my throat, grazing down to my collarbone. “I’m going to hate leaving you tomorrow. I may be out all day looking for Nicolette. Try not to miss me too much.”
Two fingers sink inside me, and my eyes instantly roll back, my behind thrusting into his thick, rigid length that I’m dying to feel stretching me. My body shivers as he strokes my clit between two fingers, and the pressure to my core has me needing to be filled.
“Just make sure you come home to us,” I warn with a breathy sigh. “Or I’ll be the one to kill you.”
His chuckle grates up the side of my neck. “Promise?”
“Yes,” I gasp as he drives those fingers deeper now, curling them, slamming them faster, his thumb twirling around my sensitive spot.
He slinks his other hand up my abdomen, fingers feathering between my breasts until he grips his palm around my throat.
“Think I can put a baby in you before I go?” his voice husks out.
I gasp at the realization of what he just said.
“You want a baby?” I pant as my body climbs to the edge.
He doesn’t slow a moment. Instead, he fucks me faster, gripping my jaw in his relentless grasp.
Ravenously dark eyes meet mine.
“No,” he says. “Babies. I want babies with you, little dove.”
A heady moan slips from my lips, and then I surrender to the warm, tingling sensation flitting down my body. My limbs jerk, and he captures my mouth, quieting the brazen sounds spilling from my lips.
His tongue fills my mouth while he demands every drop of my arousal until I have nothing left to give. Gripping the back of his neck, I deepen the kiss, wanting it to last forever.
Slowly, my body stills, and he trails kisses down my jaw as he presses my body closer.
“So, what do you say, my little dove?” He flips on top of me, his eyes boring with such longing intensity, I feel it shooting down to my toes. “Want to expand our family?”
I hold his scarred cheek in my loving hand. “How can I say no to that?”
Emotions battle for space inside my chest, and in his gaze, I find love, acceptance, and a life I never thought I’d have.
But here we are, carving out a whole new beginning for the both of us.
A showstopping grin flashes across his face, and soon enough, he slips off my clothes and loses his own.
And together, we find love in one another, the way we never have before.