41. Olivia
Olivia
The moment my mind comes back to the land of the living after a full night’s rest, the first thing I notice is the radiating heat engulfing every inch of me.
Fuck. It feels so good. Without thinking about it, I snuggle into it further.
Wrapping my entire body against it until every inch of my exposed skin is touching the source of the heat.
It warms me like a heater in the middle of winter.
A sigh rocks through me as I cling to it, reveling in the peace it gives me. A sense of safety engulfs me.
My brows furrow when I feel the large hand squeezing my ass through my gym shorts, constantly squeezing and not letting up. Wait. A hand? On my ass? The fuck?
I stiffen, plotting the ass-grabber’s murder. If I could reach my knife hidden beneath my mattress, I could get them away from me. Or stab them. Whichever happens first.
I search around, trying to discreetly grab my knife again while holding my breath.
But then, JJ’s worried face flashes in my mind.
I freeze, holding my breath again. Right, JJ.
I blow out a breath. He was here. In my dorm room.
While a violent thunderstorm blew through town, I cowered beneath my blankets with Waffles on my chest, protecting me.
JJ broke in. He walked into my room and held me while I slept so I wouldn’t be afraid. He came through the rain to protect me from something I shouldn’t be afraid of. The rain. The lightning. The thunder. He held me close, letting me use him as a shield.
And the worst part? I slept like a baby in his arms. In fact, it’s the best sleep I’ve had in years. Since the night my life completely changed.
Peeking an eye open, I sigh into JJ’s neck, where my face is currently snuggled. A familiar comfort washes over me. Memories. Our times together. It sits there in my mind, playing on repeat. All the happy times we shared.
Sunlight beams through the lone window of my dorm room, lighting up JJ’s features. Pulling back slightly, I let my eyes roam over his face, slack with sleep as he blows out several breaths. His firm, naked chest heaves with his breath.
He looks like an angel. Like the JJ I knew so many years ago.
For the first time in five years, I’m close to him.
Entangled with him in my bed. Like so many years before, when he’d sneak into my bedroom and lie with me.
Or break me out and take me away from my prison after destroying the bars on my window.
We always snuck around behind my dad’s back.
I’m sure my father knew, though. Maybe he didn’t care as much when he took in the stray boy and trained him to do God knows what.
I like to believe he forgot about me once he got his hands on a true prodigy.
I was a girl. A daughter he didn’t want.
A daughter he tortured for his own delight.
But once that boy stepped up to the plate, he took all the pressure off me.
Thanks to him, I was kind of safe. Until I wasn’t.
Until Franco blamed me for whatever reason and slit my throat and killed my mom and sister.
I long for them, too. Hearing their laughs and guidance.
Despite my mom’s inability to speak up for us kids against my father’s abuses, she was still my mom. Sophia was still my sister.
And we all died that night. Them in big ways. And me? I died piece by piece, trying to recover and rebuild myself into who I am today.
I lick my lips, trying to will the terrible memories from my mind. I hate thinking about them. The past. The torture. My death. Their deaths. I used to be able to block it out and force it into the back of my mind. Not here, though. I’m reminded of it every day when I look around.
JJ’s chest heaves a breath, and a small snore escapes through his lips.
A serene expression passes over him as his lips twitch into what I can only describe as a smile.
His brown, shaggy hair sticks up in every direction, and sleep marks take over his face.
My eyes trail toward his ears, noting his hearing aids nestled there. Something he never used to sleep in.
My fingers brush against the faint scar on his chin, the only remnant besides the loss of his hearing from the accident he was in as a kid that took his parents and landed him on Franco’s radar.
My heart chokes in my chest, nearly stalling as I take him in.
All of him. Every inch. A familiar longing settles deep inside me.
A yearning I had after that fateful night that clung to me like a fucking monster.
In my conflicted mind, I still yearned for the boys who broke me out of my room and protected me from my father’s wrath.
Not the men who stood over me and slit my throat.
My thumb brushes against his scar several times without thinking, losing myself in the peaceful aura radiating off him. I lean into it. Wanting to capture it for myself and stay in this heavenly bubble all day.
I don’t want to leave. Or think of the ramifications of losing myself in him.
“What are you thinking about, Livy?” he rasps without opening his eyes.
His fingers unhook from my ass, and a muttered sorry falls from his lips as he trails his fingers over the exposed flesh of my hip where my shorts have fallen.
I shiver under his movements as goosebumps spread across my heated skin.
I swallow hard, ignoring the way his soft fingertips feel against my skin like a memory drawing me back in time when we lay in bed together.
Or the treehouse, where he held me close and rubbed my back, exploring my flesh without taking our clothes off.
“I yearned for this after my recovery,” I mutter, tracing his scar again, shivering once more when his movements stop abruptly.
“For what?” he breathes.
“Lying in bed with you all. Having you to help me recover…” I trail off, rolling my lips together. Explaining my recovery to him would be a massive line to step over. It would reveal where I went after I left here. Who I trained with. Even if most people don’t know Veritas exists.
Those brown eyes pop open as soon as the words leave my lips, and he stares down at me with confusion swirling in the depths. The same eyes I got lost in as a teenager. They pull me in and hypnotize me, loosening every muscle.
“Spitfire,” he murmurs, cupping my jaw with his hand and letting his thumb gently rub along my cheek and down toward my neck.
He feels his way gently across the scar lining my throat and moves my head to reveal all the burn marks on the left side of my face.
I hold my breath when his fingers trace them, and he shudders, an agonized groan falling from his throat.
“You never should have been left alone there,” he chokes up.
“One of us should have stayed with you or…”
“You didn’t know,” I rush out, staring up at the ceiling with a burning behind my eyes, refusing to turn my face and fall back into his gaze. “Besides, Franco would have had your asses if you disobeyed him.”
Even now, I’m sure stepping out of line gets them into major trouble. They’re the heirs of his empire. He’s been grooming them to step up and take over every inch of his organization so they can lead whenever he’s gone.
“No,” he whispers, bringing my gaze back to his and cupping my jaw again.
“We didn’t know what was going to happen.
We thought it was a routine run to the casino.
If we had any inclination that something bad was going to happen, we wouldn’t have left.
” Tears swim in his eyes, threatening to fall.
“We would have stayed by your side or snuck you with us into the SUV. That’s what we should have done.
” Heavy emotions weigh down his face. “What happened to you after?” he whispers, keeping my gaze locked on him. “Where did you go?” he begs.
My heart jumps in my chest, thumping loudly in my ears. Jonathan’s cruel words from before echo in my mind. Use this to your advantage. Use JJ’s emotions against him to get under his skin and gain his sympathy.
I blink several times, willing the tears to go the fuck away. All I do now is wallow in my own fucking emotions and cry when I haven’t done that in so long.
“I woke up in a hospital,” I whisper as he clings to me more, pulling my body impossibly close to his and forcing my gaze to stay connected to him. There’s an invisible tether holding JJ and me close right now. It’s weak, but it’s rebuilding something we once had. “I don’t know who saved me.”
And that’s not a lie. Jonathan swears it was him. But sometimes, I think this entire situation is turned on its head, and someone is lying to me.
Them? Jonathan? I don’t know anymore.
“I don’t know how I got out. God, the last thing I remember is feeling the flames eat away at me as I died in a pool of my own blood.
” I’ve thought about it so many times; it doesn’t faze me anymore.
But by the choked sound JJ gives me, I know I’ve said something to tear his heart out and stomp on it.
But if I don’t finish what I’m saying, I’ll never get it out.
I’ll throw it back into a vault and never revisit it again.
“I woke up with bandages on my wounds and an oxygen mask on my face. I could barely move. I…” This was it.
This was the moment I either veered into a massive lie, or I steered the conversation into the truth. “My uncle Jonathan was there.”
“Jonathan Viotto?” JJ whispers in a broken voice, sniffling.
“How…” I start to say.
“Surveillance footage. Hotel records…” He trails off, using his bare shoulder to wipe away the moisture building on his cheeks. “So, your uncle took you after the fire and…”
“Trained me. Fed me. Healed me,” I whisper.
JJ licks his lips as his Adam’s apple bobs. “Trained you?” he asks.
I search the depths of his brown eyes. “When I get the results back from the video footage you sent me…”