Page 127

There was a gleam in his eye. His unsaid message was that she was too strong for me, that I couldn’t handle her.
“I don’t have a problem with my woman taking control,” I told him. “She’s capable. And I’m comfortable letting her take the lead.”
I didn’t stoop so low as to even insinuate that I could take the lead in other places, although the baser parts of me wanted to throw that in his face. Even though she hadn’t spokenabout their physical relationship—the mere thought of his hands on her made me want to rip his fucking limbs off—I knew instinctively that she’d never trusted him to take control. To let go completely. That was a gift she gave only to me. One I’d hold sacred.
“Don’t mistake my easygoing demeanor for weakness.” I was looking in the eye of someone I was rapidly beginning to hate with a malice I hadn’t known I was capable of. “If you try to hurt Calliope, you will see just how easygoing I am not when it comes to my woman.”
He showed his teeth, white and straight, and I wanted them embedded in my knuckles. Never had I felt such murderous fury in my life.
“I don’t mistake you for being weak,” he replied mildly. “I just know I’m stronger. And I’m willing to fight dirtier to ensure I own Calliope.”
My blood boiled as I fought to keep my composure. He was trying to rile me. That much I knew. He had come to my restaurant, now my home, to scare me, to stake his claim. Neither of which I was going to allow.
“If you have to fight to own Calliope, without knowing she isn’t a possession, then she was never yours to begin with, and she’s lost to you forever.” Satisfaction swam through me as I stepped forward. “And you place one foot on any property I own again, we’ll have problems.”
“You own?” He arched a brow. “Or does Calliope? Since she’s the one who paid off all of your debts.”
I didn’t let my shock show. Though it did surprise me that he had access to that kind of shit. He was swinging his dick, showing me how powerful he was, trying to make me feel less than. But I couldn’t feel less than when Calliope slept next to me every night.
“What can I say?” I shrugged. “I’m okay with my woman being successful. Powerful. Now get the fuck off my property.”
He watched me for a long beat, smiling and putting his hands in his pockets before he turned and leisurely walked away.
I knew that the lock I clicked on my front door wouldn’t keep him out if he planned on coming in. But my father had given me a lot of things, had taught me a lot of things, and one of those was how to take measure of a man, if that’s what you could call Jasper Hayes.
I figured he wouldn’t go straight to violence, to using brute strength. And I dismissed my earlier suspicion of him being involved in the shooting. No, that was too simple for that kind of man. This was a man who waited, who toyed with his prey. He had it in his head that he could coax Calliope into his web, back to his side then taunt me with that.
Yet I knew her better than him, despite their history. He only knew her darkness. I knew her in the sunshine.
My breathing was back to normal by the time I walked into my bathroom, eyes skimming down Calliope’s bare back, exposed in a silk nightgown that dipped almost to the small of her back.
I knew it was silkier than any fabric I’d bought. She had expensive, luxurious things, and I fucking loved her in them. Not as much as in my tee but a close second.
She was dabbing cream on her face. Another thing I loved, all sorts of fancy glass bottles cluttering every available surface in my bathroom. Her making herself at home. Because this was her home.Iwas her home.
“That was a long trash trip.” Calliope met my eyes in the mirror.
Despite the events of the night, what she’d revealed—broken pieces of herself she’d been expertly hiding—she looked relaxed. Her hair tumbled down her back, her face free of makeup,exposing the freckles that were becoming more pronounced with the warmer weather and the time she spent outside. In the sunshine.
I’d vowed to myself to never lie to her, to never deceive her, and I kept my promises. “Was some kind of scavenger, trying to weasel in. Had to take care of it.”
It wasn’t a lie.
She shook her head, dipping her fingers into a glass tub of some kind of cream before slathering it on her arms. The floral scent filled up the small space.
“Better you than me,” she muttered.
“Yeah,” I agreed. “Much better me than you.”
An hour later, she was sleeping in my arms. Though she seemed so much bigger in stature—something I’d never say to her face, lest she misunderstand it—when the sun was shining and she was wearing heels, being Calliope Derrick, it was only in the darkness where I realized how petite she was.
How delicate.
Her bone structure, her nose, her wrist bones. I traced the skin that was red from Jasper’s fucking hands being on it. She was never soft for him. She’d never curled against his chest, hair splayed over his shoulder as she mewed faintly in her sleep. Because if she had, he would never have even dreamed of marking that milky skin, of harming her.
My brain wouldn’t shut down.
The Russian Mob…