“Dante … I’m scared,” she panted as she met me thrust for thrust.
I smacked her ass to correct her. “You’re strong, Lilah. Not scared. You better overcome your fear of me. We got this. I got you.”
She bit her lip, and then her gaze shot up. I saw her reflection in a decorative mirror, those hazel eyes vivid, determined, but sparkling with unshed tears of fear.
“Seven, baby. Keep those eyes on me.”
“Seven to heaven.” She took a deep breath, and I escaped into the rainbow of gold and sage and misty gray of her hazel eyes as we breathed together. Seven breaths. Seven moments. We breathed each other in. Then we let each other go. I fucked her like it was the last time, hoping it would be one of the first.
We got to heaven together.
But who knew it would be just seven days before I experienced the hell that was losing her.
She fell asleep in my arms as I carried her across the hotel to her room. In the damn spa’s sheet.
Everyone was getting a raise when I left here.
Which had to be soon.
Our bubble, the one I’d kept her pretty much captive in, was about to pop. Our glass house was about to shatter; the freedom, even if it was fractured, that I’d given her was about to become complete lockdown.
I let her sleep for a couple hours and took a call from Cade that afternoon.
“If Izzy’s out, why isn’t she here yet?” I almost yelled into the phone at Cade.
“You know I’m just watching security cameras. I’m guessing her guy got her out.”
“What guy?”
“Iago, man. He’s here. That means Albanian families are definitely involved. Bastian’s pissed.”
Bastian was the head of the Armanelli family. It meant things were getting out of hand and that we needed to end this now or a war would rain down on us all.
“Iago’s been dealing with Izzy for a year or so in Miami. He knows her. If he’s here, he wants this shit to go off without a hitch. She told me, once she’s out, she’ll try to get to your hotel under the radar. She’ll call Delilah, right? Because that wouldn’t raise a red flag. Make sure Lilah has her phone, that you guys—”
“I’m not a fucking idiot, Cade. You sound nervous. She’s been doing this shit for years. We got this. We got her. They’re not going to—”
“I’m missing something underground on the dark web. If something happens to Izzy—”
“Izzy?” I said, completely shocked. “What the fuck do you care if something happens to her? You’ve been calling her an addict since the day you met her.”
“She is one,” he growled. “If something happens to her, I’m going to have to hear about it from my brother, okay? His wife likes Izzy. They met, so now I’ll be on the hook if—”
Cade, the crazy hacker of a brother to the head of the mob. He didn’t give a shit about anything, not even Bastian being pissed. “You don’t care if you’re on the hook for anything, Cade.”
“This I do. I’m not having her blood on my hands, even if I hate her.”
Fair enough. None of us wanted blood on our hands anymore. Bastian had started a new reign. We were done with the bullshit our fathers had done before. We wanted a clean family, legal business, and a government we worked with, not against.
“Nothing’s going to happen.”
I hung up on him and told myself that same thing over and over again the next day. We were waiting now. Waiting like sitting ducks until we heard from Izzy.
I didn’t tell Delilah. She seemed happy, back to how she was before the last couple of days. We didn’t mention the spa or anything we’d talked about there, but we enjoyed one another’s company. I catalogued the day like I was heading to fucking jail the next, like I was being shipped overseas and I’d lose her all over again.
I knew our train wasn’t heading in the right direction. It was veering, careening off course, away from a happily ever after into a fiery explosion down below.
It was my job to read people’s emotions. I had to know what was pushing them and what wasn’t in order to find their weaknesses and strengths.
In my line of work, I’d perfected it, but in my personal life, it was the opposite.
In those seven days after the spa, I saw her retreat into the darkness of whatever shell she thought she needed to hide inside, and I couldn’t fix her. Her light disappeared, and whatever she was thinking dragged her down, drowned her in her sadness. It felt like not even I could breathe around her.