Chapter 27
Twenty-Seven
VIOLET
Iclung to Mateo on the back of the bike during the short ride back to his building. The wind felt good against my skin, drying the tears that still fall.
It’s as though a dam has burst, and I just can’t get it to stop flowing.
Seeing pictures of my sister, taken just weeks ago, was surreal.
She’s thinner than before, her eyes filled with resignation, and when I saw that her lip was split, it filled me with so much rage that I wanted to fuck someone up.
I still do. I need to sweat and punch the bag. I don’t want to go back to the penthouse and wallow and cry and feel sorry for myself.
Mateo parks the bike, and I swing my leg over and climb off, and he does the same. I pull my helmet off, another gift that he gave me earlier today, and pass it to him.
“Will you please take this upstairs?” He frowns at me and I lick my lips. “I’m going to go to the gym for a while. I’ll be back later.”
He’s already shaking his head.
“I can’t let you go anywhere by yourself. It’s late, and I can’t let you get hurt, Savage.”
I narrow my eyes at him. “I’m going to be real with you right now. I’m angry, and I’m looking for a fight, and if you don’t want me to take it out on you, you’ll let me go.”
“You can take it out on me,” he replies easily. “Come on, I have a gym in this building.”
He turns to walk away, and even the sure set of his broad-as-fuck shoulders irritates me right now.
“I’m not good company, Mateo.”
“You’re always good company,” he says over his shoulder, and I have no choice but to follow him to the elevator. He presses the button for the third floor, and when we step off the elevator, I lift an eyebrow.
Because this is better than any gym I’ve ever belonged to. It must take up the entire floor, and there’s even a boxing ring. A bag hangs from the ceiling, and there are free weights, along with any cardio machine a person could want.
“Is that a yoga studio?” I ask in surprise.
“I don’t use it, but yeah. If you want to hire an instructor to come in, we can do that.”
“I already belong to a gym, you know.”
“Keep the membership,” he says with a shrug. “Every penny you’ve ever paid there has been refunded to you, by the way.”
My jaw drops, and I stare at him as he pulls a basket out from under a bench by the ring and takes out some tape.
“How am I supposed to stay mad when you do sweet things?”
“You’re not mad at me.” He smiles at me with so much patience, it almost makes me cry again. “You’re just pissed off, and I get it. Remember our talk in my office?”
I take a deep breath, and he nods.
“I understand needing to punch the fuck out of something. So you’re going to beat whatever you want. The bag, the speed bag, me.” He grins. “Pick your poison.”
“I don’t want to hit you,” I reply with a whisper, and he walks to me, cups my face, and kisses me softly.
“The punching bag, then.”
I nod, and my hands are still shaking, so I let him wrap my knuckles so I don’t bloody them up, and then I stride right over to the bag and go to fucking town.
I keep picturing that asshole, Lincoln, and his hands on my sister, and I hit the bag right where his fucking jaw would be.
I’m starting to sweat, and my shirt is sticking to me, so I take it off and toss it aside and then keep going. Jabs and hooks and uppercuts with all my body weight and force.
Mateo has to stand behind the bag to keep it steady for me when I almost send it off its hook.
“Punch him in the balls,” he orders me, and I hit the bag right at groin level.
He calls out other hits, and I follow his lead. I can empty my mind and hit this fucker.
When I can’t lift my arms anymore, they fall to my side, and I pace away, breath heaving, sweat dripping, feeling a little better.
“You’re fucking ferocious,” Mateo says with a proud set to his jaw, those brown eyes gleaming and his arms crossed over his chest. I can’t take my eyes off his sculpted biceps. “I’d never allow it, but you would be a fucking killer in the cage.”
“You’d never allow it?” I lift an eyebrow, and he grins, as if I’m adorable.
“No. I wouldn’t. Because the second someone dared to raise a fist to you, I’d fucking kill them.”
“That really takes the sport out of it for me.”
He laughs, and my shoulders loosen.
“Someday, I’d like to take classes again,” I admit and accept the bottle of water he offers me and let him peel the tape off my hands. “The sparring was fun.”
“I’ll spar with you,” he reminds me, but I shake my head.
“You don’t hit back.”
“Fuck no, I’m not going to hit you, Savage, and neither is anyone else.”
“Okay, overprotective boyfriend, but when you’re practicing, you have to hit and get hit. It’s part of it.”
He’s grinning at me now, and I frown.
“What?”
“You called me your boyfriend.”
“Okay? We live together and have sex on the regular, and I kind of like you most of the time, so that’s usually the word that’s used for that type of relationship.”
“I’ve never been someone’s boyfriend before.”
I start to say something and then close my mouth before coming up with “Never?”
“Nope.” He’s still smiling.
“I had one boyfriend before.” He loses the smile now and narrows his eyes. “But I was in the third grade, and we couldn’t really go on dates or anything.”
The humor’s back in his eyes when he walks to me and cups my jaw and neck in his hand. “What was his name, Savage?”
“Freddie. He was a ginger. I liked his freckles, and he had a hamster.”
He chuckles and kisses my forehead. “I can’t compete with a hamster and freckles.”
I shrug and slide my hand along his waist, under his shirt, so I can touch his smooth skin.
“You have other attractive qualities.”
He lifts an eyebrow.
“Muscles. Like, the muscles do things to me, Mateo. You have a crotch rocket.”
“Sport bike.”
“A pierced dick. Pretty eyes.”
“Pretty?”
“It’s my list,” I remind him, and he presses his lips together. “You listen. Like, you hear me. You see me. And you’re still here, even with all of my fucked-up shit.”
“Yeah, Savage.” His thumb brushes over my bottom lip, and I can’t resist biting it, making him smirk. “I see you. I can’t get enough of you. I’m not going anywhere.”
I let out a trembling breath and suddenly feel the exhaustion take over.
“Come on,” he says, leading me out of the gym. He passes my shirt to me on the way to the door, and I slip it over my head.
But when we get inside the elevator, he hits the button for two floors below the penthouse.
I frown up at him, but he just lifts my hand and kisses my knuckles, and when the doors open, he nods at the two guards there and leads me down a hallway of doors.
At the end of the hall, he punches in a four-digit code and pushes a door open, gesturing for me to walk in ahead of him.
It’s dark inside, but he flips on the lights, and I frown because we’re standing in an apartment. It’s not furnished at all, and it looks brand new.
“No one has ever lived here,” he says as I walk through the living room to the windows that have almost the same view as the penthouse.
It’s a spacious place, with a big kitchen open to the living room, divided by an island that would make a great workspace for someone who likes to cook or bake.
I wander down a hallway and find two bedrooms, a hall bath, and then the primary suite with a giant walk-in closet.
It’s a great spot.
And I’m confused.
“You want me to live here?” I ask with a frown. “If you’re tired of me already, you shouldn’t have had me give up my place. I can—”
I’m yanked into his arms, and he’s kissing the breath out of me. He growls and lifts me onto the island and continues to claim my mouth until we’re both breathless.
“You live with me,” he says against my lips. “In our penthouse, in our bed. You may call me your boyfriend now, but I’ll be getting a promotion to husband soon enough. If we weren’t busy with other things, you’d already be wearing my ring and my last name.”
I blink at him in stunned silence.
“I’m not offering you an apartment, Savage.
This is for your sister. I want you to furnish it, decorate it any way you want so it’s ready for her when she comes home.
I know you’ll want her nearby, and she can stay upstairs with us for as long as you both need her to, but at some point, she’ll need her own place. ”
My head buzzes and my chest aches. Tears drip from my eyes and onto his hands where he’s holding my face, and I lean into him so I can rest my forehead on his.
“You would do this for me?”
“I would do anything for you. This is nothing to me. It’s been sitting empty since I bought the building, baby. I’m happy for her to have it.”
“You already gave me the studio.”
“This isn’t about checks and balances,” he replies. “This is simply our life.”
“I don’t think there’s anything simple about it,” I reply, making him chuckle.
“No, I guess not. Anyway, do whatever you want in here to make sure she’s comfortable, and then she can add whatever she wants or needs later.”
“I don’t know how to thank you for all of this.”
“You never have to thank me.” He frowns down at me and rubs his nose over mine. For an organized crime boss, this man is incredibly affectionate. “Come on, let’s go home so I can take care of you and put you to bed.”
“I need a shower.”
“Let’s take a bath.”
“You argue with me a lot,” I inform him as we leave the apartment and head back to the elevator. “Often, in fact.”
“It’s the other way around, Savage.”
“I don’t argue with you.”
He barks out a laugh and leads me into the elevator, then boosts me up against the wall and nibbles his way down my jawline, making my core tighten. “You’re the only one who can, you know.”
That makes me pause and then smile at him. “Really?”
“Really.”
“Good.”
“This is so fun,” Natasha says with a smile as we walk through the furniture store, our guards behind us.
Mateo assigned two men to follow me everywhere. Bobby and a guy named Lucky, who is not as easy to smile as Bobby.
And he doesn’t look lucky, since he only has one eye. But Mateo says these two are among his best, and he trusts them.