Page 147 of Unchained

Over the phone.

I love her?

Shit.

I think I do.

“Let’s go,” I tell Tate as I stand.

“Should I prepare myself to get shot as soon as we get outside like what happened to Jett a while back?” he asks quietly.

“Aren’t you always ready for someone to try and kill you?”

He laughs. “Well… yeah. You didn’t have to nurse Jett back to health, though, Colt. Fuck me, I could never be a nurse.”

I can’t help but laugh. Jett did make a big ass deal out of getting shot.

By the time we head over to grab the next load of paperwork for the last two horses, the Bentley is gone.

They wanted me to see them, which gives me more questions than answers.

CHAPTER SEVENTY-NINE

Gianna

Colten is leaning against his truck, hat tipped down, foot resting on the metal, waiting for me as I step off the jet.

I had planned to stay in LA for a week, but after four days I couldn’t take it any longer. My house is dull in comparison to the ranch. It’s dark and morbid. Yes, it’s beautiful, but it no longer feels like me anymore.

The conversations are dull. There is no spark there. It’s like there’s a dark cloud that covers the city.

Butterflies erupt in my belly when he looks up and gives me that boyish grin.

I hated every second of it away from him. I sat through ten meetings about real estate, and I maybe listened to two sentences of conversation throughout all of them.

Dom has everything under control. My company is running smoothly in my absence, but that is the entire point of owning a business. You build it to run without you. I make the money. I have no one to prove myself to anymore. Dad is already dead.

No funeral. No goodbye. My uncles had his body flown back to Italy.

And I don’t know how I feel about that. Going back to LA made my skin crawl. Getting back on that jet was the only joy I felt. And this time, I wasn’t even scared, because I knew I was flying back to Colt.

How am I meant to run a mafia empire in a place that only holds my trauma?

My feet are running before my brain even catches up. My bodyguard, Matteo, will have to pick up the bag I threw on the floor.

Colt strides towards me as my heels click against the tarmac and we collide together. His arms wrap around my waist, pulling me against him as I loop my hands around his neck, and he lifts me so I can straddle him. He spins us, so my back bashes against the hot metal of the truck. “Fuck. I missed you,” he growls against my lips.

That has my heart racing. I’m glad it’s not just me. Four nights away from Colten was enough. Enough for me to realize I don’t want to keep doing that. In Arizona, I have him; I have Harper and the rest of the crazy family. I have horses, my precious baby girl sheep, and an animal shelter to keep me busy. Every day there is something different to do that doesn’t feel like work. It’s complete freedom.

LA isn’t my home; it was my prison. And now that I own the keys to it, it doesn’t mean I have to keep going back willingly.

“Keep kissing me, cowboy,” I whisper.

And he does. Hard. Enough to steal my breath away and ease every bit of tension I brought back from California.

In his arms, I’m Gianna Sterling. The girl who is obsessed with her husband. I’m not a Milano. I’m not trying to impress anyone. Well, except my handsome cowboy.

“We need to take another trip to Greece soon. Joining the mile-high club is now on my list,” I tell him as he pulls back.