Chapter 37
ISEULT
It’s not like my sister to make me worry. She wouldn’t just not answer her phone. She’d find a way to call me.
I’ve managed to track the numbers to everyone she knows.
I’ve called her high school friends and college friends.
But no one has seen or heard from her since she left.
And the last ping on her cell Tynan said they had was at a gas station about ten miles from home.
Then the phone was turned off and they have been unable to gather info.
My father has everyone on payroll—the dirty cops, the equally dirty politicians. And they’re all on the hunt for her. I feel useless, sitting here staring at my phone, now back in my apartment. I hate this. I hate not knowing if I’m the reason she ran. If I hurt her without realizing it.
Picking up the cell, I call the one other person who may know where she is: Devlin.
The phone rings a few times before his deep, broody voice comes on. “Yeah?”
“Hey, Devlin. It’s Iseult.”
“I know.”
I don’t wait for him to say anything else. He’s always been a man of few words.
“Have you heard from Eriu at all in the last couple of days?”
He pauses, and I can hear his heavy, taunting breaths.
“What happened to her?”
He’s always been protective of my little sister, maybe even more than a bodyguard should be. I sort of see that clearer now, more than I ever did then. Seems like my sister isn’t the only one with feelings involved.
“She ran off. Didn’t tell anyone. Left a note on her bed that she’ll call when she can, but she would never not call me back. I was hoping she was coming to see you.”
“If she was, she didn’t tell me. Why would she run?”
“My father arranged a marriage for her to the guy I’ve been involved with, and—”
“What?” His temper flares. “She’s getting married?” His sharp inhale shoots through the line. “To who?”
“Mafia. But she doesn’t want to. I’m hoping that’s why she ran, and not because she found out I was involved with him.”
“Bloody hell,” he spits out in a thick Irish accent.
He doesn’t say anything for what feels like a minute.
“She knows where I live, but she hasn’t come.”
I register the noise of something shattering. Like he just broke it.
“Okay, thanks. If you hear from her, call me.”
“Aye. You too.”
The line goes dead, and I throw the phone on the couch and pace.
With Sergey out there, my worry for Eriu grows. I hope she’s safe, wherever she is. I just need her to fucking call me.
My cell beeps, and I jump at it again, seeing an email from the videographer at my father’s wedding. I’ve been waiting for that, hoping to find out who’s working for Sergey and make sure she pays. I read the note from the photographer.
Please find the link to the drive containing the video file you asked for. Thank you.
-David.
I quickly hop on my laptop, download the video, and press play. Cillian and Fionn give their toasts, and then more guests do the same.
I start to fast-forward, my eyes scanning for a woman with black hair and a black dress. I sit there for over an hour, fast-forwarding to the time when the waiter handed me the note.
Once I find that exact moment, I see her. The woman walks up to the waiter, her back to me, her hair up in a bun. She’s only with him for a few seconds before she hands him the envelope, then she struts out of view.
“Damn it!”
I slam a palm on my desk, continuing to watch until it’s over, and I’m not any closer to finding her or Sergey.
“Open the door, Red!” a voice booms.
I startle, lifting my head up from my desk, realizing I’d fallen asleep. With a groan, I rub my face with a hand.
“Come on. I heard what happened,” Gio’s voice carries. “We need to talk.”
A heavy bang echoes.
Gio.
A twinge tightens in my chest.
And it’s then I realize I’m going to have to break his heart, in turn breaking mine. But I can’t seem to gather the courage to do it. To move from this spot, open the door, and end it.
Because I don’t want to. I don’t want to go back to the days before—before he was mine and I was his.
Shutting my eyes, I sit frozen as he continues to call for me, asking me to talk.
With deep breaths, I attempt to muster the courage to appear as though breaking things off isn’t going to destroy me. But I know it will, whether I show it or not.
How can I let him go? How can I leave the comfort of his arms? The one place I felt more at home than I’ve ever felt anywhere else.
The stabbing pain in the center of my chest comes swiftly, and my palm fastens around the anguish, fruitlessly attempting to contain it.
And it’s right here, in this moment, that I realize that I’m falling for him too. Why else would the very thought of never seeing him or talking to him hurt this badly?
“I saw your car!” he booms. “I know you’re inside. So either you open this goddamn door, or I’m breaking it.”
He’s bluffing.
Two seconds later, the loudest slam I’ve ever heard sounds off, and my eyes pop wide.
Okay. Soooo, he wasn’t bluffing.
With a deep inhale, I start for the door. “Alright, I’m coming!”
“That’s right, you are.”
I can just see the intensity on his features, and I can’t help but smile.
I’ve never had anyone fight for me like this before.
As soon as I open the door, he’s there, an arm raised against the doorframe, hair disheveled, strands falling over a thick brow. But my God, he’s still so insanely sexy. I want to run my fingers through his hair, to grab him, pull him close, and tell him how badly I’ve missed him.
He’s in a black button-down, two buttons popped open at the chest, changed from when I saw him earlier.
His eyes narrow.
His nostrils flare.
And the way he’s looking at me… It’s like he’s a hungry predator waiting for me to run just so he can catch me.
His jaw clenches, and my heartbeats quake. I lick my lips, watching him, watching as his mountainous bicep jerks when I take him in.
My body roars to life, owned by him. Completely and utterly owned by this man that I want more than anything. But we can’t get everything we want in life. Sometimes, we have to let things go.
Before I can find the right words to send him away, his hand reaches for me, fingers curling around my jaw, his thumb deepening into my pulse. And with a growl, he wraps his other arm around my back, throws me up against the wall on the outside of my apartment, and smashes his lips to mine.
He groans when my tongue dances with his, my tempo just as ravenous, just as depraved. My hands are everywhere—clawing his back, grabbing chunks of his hair. His hand slinks downward, clutching my throat as he kisses me like he’s punishing me for everything I’ve ever done to hurt him.
Every hard inch of his body is so tightly molded to mine that it’d take an earthquake to separate us.
He draws back, his gaze daring me to say a word that would contradict what he feels for me. And the more he looks at me that way, the more every piece of me dies.
I don’t want to let you go. But what choice do I have?
My brows snap and he closes his eyes before he lowers his forehead to mine. “Whatever you’re thinking, don’t.”
“Let’s go inside where we can talk.”
“We can talk out here,” he challenges, pitching me with an irate gaze.
“I can’t say everything I want to out here…”
“That’s the damn problem,” he snaps.
And with a harsh pull of his inhale, he takes my hand, drags me inside, and shuts the door behind us.
“Talk.” He leans against the door, arms folded against his well-defined chest, muscles clinging to his shirt. “And I swear, it better not be you ending this.”
“You don’t get it, Gio.” A defeated sigh escapes me.
“Eriu is gone. She ran, and my father is blaming me.” I tilt my head up to the ceiling and stare momentarily before I find the right words, then I return my attention to him.
“We were temporary. You had to know that. We were getting ahead of ourselves.” A cold laugh breaks from my treacherous lips.
“My father will never allow us to be together, even if I wanted that. And I don’t. ”
The words hurt coming out of my lips, but I had to say them.
I reach into my pocket and retrieve the ring he gave me, extending it toward him.
He drops his arms.
An icy glare shadows across his eyes.
His chest climbs with ravaging breaths.
He takes a menacing step forward, then another, while I stay rooted, waiting to see what he’ll do.
With a final stride, he grabs a fistful of my hair and bores his gaze to mine. “Do you think I’d let you go that easily, bambina?”
He lowers his mouth to mine, his lips hovering, breath against breath, chest against chest. My heart rate kicks up, air never reaching my lungs.
“Do you think I go around buying rings for every woman I fuck? Because I don’t,” he whispers gruffly, brushing his mouth with mine. “It means something to me, Red. You mean something to me. Clearly, I don’t mean shit to you.”
He continues to trap me in his inescapable hold, not allowing me space to move, yanking out my ability to speak. His free arm snakes around me, his palm latching on to my ass.
“Let me make something clear to you.” His eyes catch with a fierce kind of possession.
“This bullshit with you trying to push me away isn’t going to work anymore.
You’re mine,” he declares like an omen, winding my hair around his wrist like a chain.
“Do you hear me, baby? You. Are. Mine. And I fucking dare you to open your mouth and tell me otherwise.”
I run over the different things in my head, figuring out what to say to make him believe it when I myself don’t. I could continue making the lies come out of my mouth, but I don’t even want to anymore. I hold on to my engagement ring tightly, not wanting to give it back.
“Come on, Red,” he says. “Go ahead, tell me how you can’t marry me.
How you made a mistake when you said you would.
” His features turn with his subdued anger.
“Better yet…” He reaches into his waistband and retrieves a nine-mil.
“Here, go ahead.” He shoves the gun into my hand.
“Kill me. Because if you’re planning on giving me that ring back, you already have. ”
I choke on a laugh. Or a cry. My God, I don’t even know, because this man… I just don’t want to live without him.
“Always so dramatic.” A tiny blink of a smile falls over my face, tears casting over my lashes.
He takes a single long breath and drops his mouth to my forehead, and every time he kisses me that way, I give him another little piece of my soul.
“Ho più bisogno di te che del mio prossimo respiro,” he says, staring back at me.
I have no idea what it means, but looking into his softened expression, I know it means something beautiful.
“I think I need to teach you Italian,” he whispers with a smirk. “Just so you know what I say when I make love to you.”
Thump.
There goes whatever’s left of my heart.
“I’d love that, Gio.” I palm his face and kiss his mouth, just for a moment.
“I need you more than my next breath is what I said, bambina. And it’s true. I need you and I want you. So don’t go.”
My chest throbs. “I wish things were easy, but they’re far more difficult now than they were before.”
My fear kept me from talking to my father, but in the end, I ruined things anyway.
“Look, baby, I know you’re scared,” he retorts. “But we can get through this together. This is hard for me too. I never saw what a healthy relationship was like. My parents…well, you know.” He snickers. “But I want to be different, Red. I want that with you.”
“Why? Why me? Why the hell would you want me? I’m messed up, Gio. I’m not the kind of woman men fall in love with.”
“Too late for that. Already in love with you.”
I pant breathlessly as he leans in and kisses me slow, so achingly slow I melt, tingles spreading throughout my body.
“I was dead set on never getting married,” he goes on. “But when I met you, I just knew you were gonna be my wife, and I instantly wanted that more than anything.”
He traces my cheek with the back of his hand, and I’m running out of excuses why this can’t work. Why I shouldn’t tell my father to go fuck himself, because Gio is my future.
“Could you stop being sweet?” I tease. “It’s making it real hard to come up with ways to insult you.”
“Come on, sweetheart. I have faith in you.” He kisses me quickly, groaning, like he can’t keep his mouth off of me.
“You’re such an irritating idiot.” I roll my eyes, warmth flitting through my heart.
“See? I told you.” Then he grins, kissing my forehead, my cheeks, the corner of my mouth.
“Put that ring back on your damn finger.” He yanks it from my grasp and practically rams it down my hand.
I laugh.
“You think this is funny?” His eyes grow dark. “Just try to take it off again, and I’ll throw you over my knee, yank down your panties, and give you one hell of a spanking you’ll never forget.”
“Promise?” My mouth tilts up and I pretend to take off the ring.
“You want a spanking, baby girl?” He clutches my hips. “All you had to do was ask.”
Then he’s lifting me in the air, throwing me over his shoulder, and keeping his promise.
For hours.