Page 166 of Obsessed by My Ex's Mafia Uncle

“She’s panicking,” she warns.

“I know.” His eyes stay on me anyway. “But I need her to hear me.”

“Robert…”

“Please.” His word comes out rough enough to stop all of us for half a second. “I need to be here,” he continues, looking directly at me now. “For both of you.”

Tears sting harder behind my eyes at how wrecked he sounds. How wrecked he looks.

Because some horrible part of me still wants him near even while another part is screaming to run.

“You can’t protect us,” I whisper.

“Maybe not from everything,” he admits. “But I’ll spend the rest of my life trying if you let me.”

That assurance shuffles something inside me dangerously.

Aisha feels it too.

I know she does because her hand lowers slowly from his chest.

Robert moves closer carefully after that. His steps are slow enough for me to pull away if I want to.

And I should.

God, I should.

But when his arms finally wrap around me, something in me gives out instead.

The panic smashes first. Then everything underneath it spills open behind it.

“They tried to kill my baby.” I sob into his chest, clutching harder at the front of his shirt. “They tried to kill her,” I whisper again, my voice splintering this time. “She was screaming, Robert. She was in the backseat screaming and I couldn’t…” My breath catches. “I couldn’t get to her.”

“Christine.” He pulls back but his hands come up immediately, cradling my face carefully.

I hate how stable he feels.

How warm.

How solid against all this terror.

His thumbs brush beneath my eyes, catching tears faster than they can fall.

“It won't happen again.” He promises firmly.

“You can't be sure.” I shake my head instantly.

“I am.”

“Why?” My voice pitches again.

His eyes flash with something dark. Something that feels like certainty. The deadly kind.

“Because I won’t let it.” The conviction in his voice should scare me.

Instead, it eases somewhere deep in my ribs like something exhausted finally sitting down.

“Okay.” I nod weakly anyway because I don’t have enough strength left to argue with him anymore.