Page 83 of Wicked Mafia Mistake
“Noted.” I’ll have to personally thank him for making sure my woman could protect herself and also ask why he let her storm the castle so to speak instead of holding her until I could get to her.
“You took off and I’ve been hunting all over the city for you for the past two hours. The only way I knew you were here is because Harlon tipped me off.”
“It doesn’t feel good being left out of the loop, does it?”
“Touché,tesoro.”
God, she’s beautiful when she fights me.
Those pretty lips of hers shift from tight and indifferent to slightly parted and flushed with blood.
Kissable.
I keep my hands to myself and keep my promise until she shows signs of wanting to be touched. But it’s hard not to drag her to me and show her just how much she means to me. Screw having an audience. Let them watch and see what love is.
Her hands hang empty at her sides. The tremor she was hiding spreads from her jaw through her shoulders and down her arms until her fingertips vibrate and her chin starts to quiver. I watch the armor crack in real time. Not the rockabilly exterior, but the woman of steel underneath. The internal fortress she built to walk into this building and do what she did. It held long enough to get the job done. Now it's giving way and I can see the fractures spreading across her face in the way her brow furrows and her nostrils flare and her lips press together so hard they lose their color again.
I open my arms. I don't reach for her. I don't pull. I open my arms and hold them there, palms up, and wait. Because I have taken enough of her choices and this one, this moment, belongs entirely to her.
She steps into me.
The impact of her body against my chest pushes the air from my lungs. I hold her to me, breathing in her scent, locking in her warmth and making damn sure she feels mine.
It washes away the pain of the last few hours of being scared to death of not knowing where she was. I hold her against my chest and her curves mold to me. She tightens her hold around the material of my shirt over my shoulders.
The sound she makes is not a sob. It's deeper than that. A release that starts in her chest and vibrates through her ribcage into mine, a shuddering exhale that lasts so long I feel her lungs empty completely before she draws the next breath.
My arms tighten around her. I hold her so tight I feel her ribs expand against my forearms with every inhale. Her heartbeat pounds rapid and hard, and I press my cheek against the top of her head and breathe.
"I'm sorry." I press the words into her hair, my lips moving against the loosened curls. "I'm so sorry, Sloane."
She doesn't answer. She holds on. I hold on. We stand in the wreckage holding each other because there is nothing else left.
Harlon arrives twenty minutes later. He walks into Lorenzo's building with Santi and Cassius flanking him, his dark eyes sweeping the scene with clean efficiency.
His gaze moves from Lorenzo's crumpled body to the blood to the shell casings scattered across concrete to Sloane sitting on an overturned crate with my jacket draped around her shoulders.
He crosses to me. His scarred knuckles flex at his sides and he studies my face for a long moment before he speaks.
"Your wife dismantled a contract I spent a week vetting." His voice is quiet, pitched below the noise of the cleanup. "She sat across from all three of us and laid out evidence I should have found myself. Frankly, she’s a badass." His dark eyes cut to Sloane and back to me. The corner of his mouth pulls. "Let her handle your negotiations from now on, Santoro. We might all learn a thing or two."
His praise levels me.
My throat tightens. I swallow hard against the swell of pride rising in my chest because this is not the time or the place to let it show. But goddamn, this woman. She’s more than I deserve.
“I hear you.”
I glance at Sloane. She's watching us from the crate, her blue eyes tired and sharp at the same time, the water bottle clutched in hands that have finally stopped trembling.
“Where do we stand? Are we good?”
“Lorenzo brought dirty papers into my house. That's on me for not catching it sooner." His dark eyes hold mine, steady and unapologetic. "The contract is voided. My runners stand down effective immediately. As far as Genesis is concerned, the alliance with the Syndicate stands the way it always has.”
“I understand how it works. No hard feelings.”
He unlocks his arms and clasps my shoulder. His grip is firm, the rough calluses pressing through my shirt, and he holds it for a beat longer than business requires. His dark eyes soften by a fraction, the smallest shift, and I feel the weight of what passes between us. Two men who understand what it costs to love someone in this world.
"Take care of that woman. She’s earned her spot in our world."
