Page 2 of Stained Honor

The back of his fingers brushes gently over my cheek before he leans close to my ear. “Just a few more minutes, and the man who hurt you won’t be breathing anymore, baby.”

Brando lets out an amused snort from across the room. “Honestly, he might already be dead. Pretty sure we broke every bone in his body.”

My body tenses instinctively.

Carlo takes a slow breath, his broad chest rising beneath me, carrying my body up with it. “I think you need a drink.”

He takes a sip of his Scotch, then cups my jaw, lifting my head from his neck while the glass remains loosely in his hand.

My lips part for him automatically. The second our mouths meet, the Scotch he kept on his tongue spills into mine with the kiss. I kiss him back, swallowing the burning liquid as it slides down my throat. But instead of calming me, instead of dulling the panic clawing through my veins, it drives me deeper into madness. The kind that bleeds straight into the way I kiss him back, desperate and far too deep.

I kiss him like I’m trying to steal the soul straight out of his body, or crawl inside him myself and stay there forever. I don’t care that the room’s full of depraved men whistling and cheering me on. There’s a feeling tearing through me, the exact same one I felt that day I watched Carlo disappear into the sky in that helicopter. The feeling that I’d lost the man I loved.

And now he’s here. Holding me. Kissing me back.

But somehow it still feels like he’s slipping farther and farther away from me every second, until he turns into nothing more than a fading speck in the distance, too far for me to reach anymore.

That’s when something inside me finally breaks.

A wounded sound leaves my throat into his mouth, raw and broken, like an animal bleeding out while life slowly abandons its body.

Carlo immediately straightens in the chair beneath me. He sets his glass down on the table and cups my face with both hands, pulling me gently away from his lips. His gray eyes search mine while his thumb strokes my cheek.

“Easy, baby. I’m here. I’m right here.”

The whole room goes quiet.

No laughter. No comments. Nothing.

It’s like every man in the room stopped breathing, staring at the crazy woman falling apart in front of them without understanding what the hell is wrong with her.

I force a few deep breaths into my lungs and wipe away the tears burning behind my eyes before climbing off Carlo’s lap. I walk to the bar, pour myself a whiskey, and throw it back in one swallow.

Giorgio. Lorenzo. Brando. Maxim. Carlo.

Every single one of them is staring at me from different corners of the room.

I drag in another breath that never fully reaches my lungs. Then I look at Carlo, at the intensity in his eyes, swallow hard against the knot in my throat, and whisper,

“I… I couldn’t let a child grow up without a mother.”

The second his brows pull together, a muffled explosion shakes the house hard enough to make the chandeliers tremble overhead. That bomb went off and all it caused was a little shaking. Now another one’s about to explode, and I have no idea what kind of damage this one will leave behind.

Brando lets out a harsh breath. “Fuck.” The tone alone tells me he already knows exactly what I did.

Without taking his eyes off me, Carlo gives a quiet order to his men.

“Out. All of you.”

Like always, they obey without hesitation.

I can’t handle the weight of his stare anymore, so I lower my eyes to the floor. Still, I feel him rise from the chair and start walking toward me. When he stops in front of me, I don’t flinch. I don’t step back. It’s been a long time since I realized Carlo would rather cut off his own hand than physically hurt me.

The chaos tearing through me isn’t fear.

It’s heartbreak.

I’m heartbroken because I betrayed my husband, and I know he’s feeling the exact same thing.