Page 63 of Because I Need You
27
GIO
This woman was going to kill me or get me killed, and if I had to pick between the two, I’d take the latter because death by Isabel would somehow be more excruciating than anything else I could experience. I’d known her less time than I was with my ex, and somehow, she’d managed to reach something inside of me that no one else before her had. She treated me like I was just a random guy off the street, and for some strange reason, I loved it. I’d grown so used to women already having a certain image of me, and delivering accordingly, that I’d forgotten how to be. With Isabel, I just was. I was myself, not a pretense of myself that I thought she wanted me to be. It was dangerous. I knew deep down that I should give her up and just walk away from this now. It would be the smart thing to do, to let her keep her secrets and her body, but the more I thought about it, the more I wanted all of her. I hadn’t gotten my hands dirty in years — years — before I paid a visit to Carson Riley the other night.
In the past, I’d dealt with a couple of people because my father expected it from me, but with this scumbag, it was personal. I didn’t know what it felt like to want to rip apart a human being until I looked into his eyes after I knew what he’d done. Tony had called Lorenzo and Dominic for backup because he couldn’t drag me out of the warehouse I’d tied Carson Riley in. Even the memory of his name brought the taste of blood to my mouth. I sat up in bed with a sigh, propping my right arm on one of the pillows Isabel set between us. She wasn’t in bed. I groaned, letting myself fall back onto my pillow. She wasn’t letting me touch her, could barely look into my eyes, and was making me sleep on the other side of my own bed. Not even the side I normally slept on. Nope. She’d pointed at the right side of the bed and told me that was where I would be sleeping, and normally I would have said something, shouted a reminder that this was my house and we played by my rules, but I was so tired. So fucking tired. I would’ve slept on the couch. My phone buzzed on the nightstand beside me, and I blindly reached for it, groaning when I saw my brother-in-law’s name on the screen.
“What?”
“You good?” he asked.
“Splendid.” I yawned. “What the fuck time is it?”
“Twelve.”
“In the afternoon?” I bolted up. What the fuck? I’d never slept this late.
“You practically just got home,” Loren said on the other end. “Take a fucking day.”
“I can’t. You know I can’t.” That was all I said. All I had to say. “I have to go. We’ll be in touch. By the way, your wife is in Chicago. She was here last night hanging out with Emma and Isabel, and I’m almost afraid to know what they said and how they treated her because I don’t want to lose my shit two days in a row.”
Loren laughed. “My wife is currently on an airplane coming back home, and she told me Isabel was her new best friend, so I don’t think you have to worry about this one.”
I frowned and ended the call.
New best friend? That was new and unexpected. What the fuck had they talked about? How long had they even been here? I hadn’t even gone back to the kitchen after Isabel wrapped my hands and told me where I would sleep in my own bed and what I would and wouldn’t be doing with her in my own house. As much as I loved my sisters and wanted to spend time with them, I couldn’t go back out there. They understood. I knew that much. They were used to me, used to my moods and my need for solitude. I looked at my phone. Twelve-oh-five now. Fuck. I got out of bed and made myself get ready for the day as if it was just any other day, because it was. Every day was the same shit around here. The only thing that would be different about today was that I’d have a little chat with Dave, the lawyer, about the manila envelope he was supposed to hand over to Isabel. Another day visiting another lawyer. Hopefully, his fate wasn’t anything like the last guy’s.
I was shrugging on my jacket when I walked out of my room and stopped short. There was music playing. Fucking music. In my house. At least it was wordless music, just rhythm. Brazilian, maybe? And it wasn’t loud, just background noise. Whatever. If she wanted to listen to music, she was allowed. I kept walking. In the kitchen, I found Isabel and stopped short again, something in my chest squeezing a little for God knew what reason. I swallowed. It was the exhaustion. She was wearing a dress that was covered in little flowers. I took her in as she spoke on the phone, a smile on her face. Her long brown hair was down and moved whenever she animatedly moved her hand as she spoke. The dress had sleeves that covered half her arms and wasn’t skin-tight. In fact, you couldn’t see much of her curves at all, but I knew they were under there.
