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I’d taken his words to heart, hiring a masseuse and esthetician to swing by the mansion to pamper her. Shit, I would have hired a harp player to sit in the courtyard playing all day if that helped her relax. It didn’t matter, though.
All my attempts to make things better had been met with indifference for the most part. She hadn’t been interested in the masseuse or the esthetician.
Not sure what else to do, I’d suggested a day off the island, maybe try a little retail therapy. She had agreed but I could tell her heart wasn’t in it.
We had just visited one of those horrendously expensive strips of private boutiques and designer stores. She seemed uninterested in everything.
After learning she had tried to contact someone on her computer the other night, I’d had my men pay more attention towhat she did when I wasn’t around. She didn’t know it, but her freedom was now even more limited.
I’d had my guys block her emails and restrict certain sites. It had been subtle, but maybe she had noticed. Maybe she was catching on.
I couldn’t dwell on Mya, even though she was my favorite obsession. Hortensio’s mess had been the start of something that could mean the end of the empire I had carefully created and expanded after my father’s death.
There was trouble brewing in my organization. I was trying to get to the root cause so that I could exterminate it once and for all, but I didn’t quite know the source. I did know that my big brother, Matteo, had caught wind of it.
Part of me wondered if he was behind it all, but he wasn’t smart enough for that. Rumor had it though, that he was causing a ruckus in the underworld.
He had his own operation that he ran, and he was getting messy and pissing people off. It would only be a matter of time before he came running to me to clean up his mess, yet again.
People were dying. Soon enough, the feds would be involved. I had tried to save him from himself once before, but he was boisterous and stupid. I had a feeling that Nico was there with him, causing chaos wherever he went.
I was at the point where I didn’t know if I could protect them and keep the organization together. Everything that I had carefully planned and put together could all fall apart because of Matteo’s pride and Nico’s insatiable need to prove himself.
For that reason alone, I was concerned about Mya’s safety. I knew by now that Nico had figured out exactly who she was.
I’d lied to Mya. My reasons for marrying her had nothing to do with Nico and had everything to do with my need to have her. However, I hadn’t been lying about wanting to protect her.
Now that she was my wife, there was nothing I wouldn’t do to keep her safe.
My brothers hadn’t been invited to my wedding. There was no way in hell I would have Nico there and Matteo didn’t mix well with others. Matteo had taken the lack of invitation personally.
Oh, well. I hadn’t cared one way or another.
To be honest, Nico was more of a threat because he was a wild card. There were things I knew surrounding Nico’s role in Jason’s death that I hadn’t told Mya.
Some things were better left a secret. And the last thing I needed was Nico around pouring salt on a fresh wound.
Mya and I couldn’t grow together if my family was around. How could she trust someone who entertained the company of the man who killed her husband?Former husband, I reminded myself.
I was her husband now, and I would protect her in ways Jason never had.
The only way to protect her from what was coming was to keep her close. So, in the foreseeable future, I wouldn’t go anywhere without her. I needed to know where she was at all times.
She hadn’t complained once since the visit with the doctor. That worried me. Was everything really all right? Dr. Kali wouldn’t lie to me. I trusted him completely.
Yet, Mya seemed to be a shadow of herself. She was usually fiery. She kept things in check but she wasn’t a pushover.
Since the incident in the study where she almost fainted, she seemed to be a softer version of herself. But she also looked distracted.
I had given her privacy to meet with the doctor, but when Dr. Kali had come out, I had asked if Mya was okay. He assured methat she was. He had said that she was simply dehydrated and looked stressed.
Instantly, I blamed myself. It was the situation I put her in, living day and night virtually in captivity, restricting her movements. But I knew I couldn’t fully blame myself for every negative emotion she experienced, no matter how much I wanted to.
It was par for the course. Whatever I couldn’t fix, I became fixated on. I had to have order. All the pieces of my life needed to fit.
Mya had been the piece in my life I felt was missing, and seeing her sick had done something to me.
For that moment, her vulnerability and fragility hadn’t been something that I looked objectively at and admired for its beauty. They had been real, a reminder that she wasn’t an object that I could collect, but a beautiful soul that could be extinguished.