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A bolt of angry lightning shoots down my spine. If I could bring that bratva back to life just to kill him all over again, I would.
“I’m here,” is all I can offer, and her gaze slowly rises up my face, as her lips reach for mine.
We share a passionate, slow kiss that dispels the night’s tension. She tastes like toothpaste and metallic, and the hot air she sighs into my mouth fans a flame I’ve been fighting for days. I grip her arm to tell her I want her,right now. Then I pull back.
“Thank you,”she whispers, her lips remaining parted like a door begging me to walk back through. She adjusts herself in the seat when she realizes I’m not coming for more. “I didn’t realize how much darkness surrounds me.” She winces,fighting a breakdown. “I’ve known that man my whole life. He’s protected me more times than I can count.”
“Until he’s backed into a corner of his own making. Those are the times you see a man’s real character, Quinn. I’m sorry you had to learn it the hard way.” I go to scrub the window. “It won’t be long now before we’re free of this mess.”
The hour and a half goes by in relative silence. I noticed the tears falling down her face on more than one occasion, and I let her suffer them, because that’s what needs to happen right now. I know the pain all too well.
Was I part of a world where death lurked around every corner? Yes… I was the reaper that waited.
Should I have been hardened to accept it even in my own home? Yes.
But sometimes life doesn’t work that way.
When my family was taken, I broke too. And there was nothing anyone could say or do to fix that. Ferraro was her family in a way. Her whole life is spinning upside down into oblivion. Who would’ve thought I’d be the one to ground it?
Once the bodies are sufficiently wrapped like carpets in the back, and the front dash is nearly too pristine for a plumbing vehicle, I start the car.
Quinn’s long pale fingers are wrapped around my seat directly behind me. I can’t have her ride at my side since she’s the only survivor in a murder heist—that is,ifFerraro lets them know she’s gone. There will be so much fuckery surrounding this case. It’ll be best to just disappear.
“You’re safe now, kid. You can relax,” I say.
“Not yet.”
We drive carefully onto Main Street. John had to request from Castor that the chop shop workers stay overnight to keep it open.Special Delivery, they called it. That’s a fucking understatement.
Once we pull into the garage of the chop shop, it’s like we’ve made it to the mafia embassy. It’s a checkpoint.We’re safe.
I instruct Quinn to keep her hood on the entire time and look straight at the floor. The workers are all exhausted with bloodshot eyes, and couldn’t give half a shit with who I’m rolling with. Still, I can’t have anyone identifying the captain’s daughter.
We’re in and out with an old black Chevy within the hour. And now that we’re side by side incognito—my little ghostette—I can breathe.
I glance over at her resting her head on the window, letting it bounce with the bumps. She catches my glance and looks my way. All that fire in her was extinguished when the workers pulled the bodies out of the van.
Trauma works in weird ways. Some people turn off their emotions until they have a chance to breathe. Others freeze up in the moment. It’s an odd process to dissect. I give her the room she needs to experience her own roller coaster.
I’m obsessed with this woman,I realize. Even knowing the situation will fade and we’ll ultimately fall apart because of the age gap… I still find myself making drastic plays to keep her safe.
“What?” She keeps staring at me.
“What yourself,” I growl.
“Oh, now that I’m not all tied up for you to pity, you’re going back to being a grumpy old shit?”
This is what she needs to cope, I tell myself. “How about some fucking gratitude? You and your dad would be in a Russian box if I hadn’t intervened,twicenow.”
“Oh please, Silver. Dishrag or whatever his name was is right. You’re just chasing this.” She motions to her pussy. “Oh wait, you rejected that too when I offered it.”
“Thisis what you’re thinking about?” I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t too. But as I said, trauma is weird.
“Sue me.I’m alive. My dad’s alive. Life could end at any fucking second thanks to my good-for-nothing uncle, so why not just turn my mind off and let my urges take me?”
Her saying that sends more blood than I’ve spilt flowing into my cock.
If I act on it, am I taking advantage of her?