Page 86 of A Lethal Game of Trust

“I’ll spill my dirty secrets when you spill yours,” he said gruffly.

Rocco was a man of very few words with most people. Being my personal guard for the last seven years made us close friends. His father working for my dad had made me love him like an older sibling.

He gave me space when I needed it and didn’t report back to Ivan when I requested. He let me live a life with some form of privacy.

Down at the gym of our apartment block, a dance room could be hired out. When we first moved in, I thought I could get back into dancing and run some lessons there, but I never really got the motivation.

He pulled off his leather jacket and threw it on the floor by the barre. He placed a mat down and already had boxing gloves ready to go as I threw on the thinner top. We quickly slipped back into a routine. Ten minutes of boxing, then hand-to-hand combat.

See, as much as I hadn’t been planning on going back to thefamily business, I knew who I was. It was inescapable. If I hadn’t been trained so well as a teenager, there was no way I would have made it out of that basement alive after being taken.

Rocco wouldn’t let me quit.

Like Dom wouldn’t when he trained me. When we were teenagers. When our touches were innocent and —

“So you and Dom,” Rocco crooned, eyeing my neck. “That’s not surprising.”

I went to hit him particularly hard, but he stepped back, evading me completely. “Don’t think with those messy emotions, Leo.”

“Does everyone know?”

He shook his head and gestured to his neck. “Sporting lovely green-yellow bruises there.”

I groaned, holding a hand up to where he motioned. “It’s over now.”

He snorted, landing a light jab on my shoulder.

I slapped him. A loud thwack sounded around the room and he smirked, holding me by both my biceps. “You two ever thought of, you know, talking it out?”

When I went to speak, he laughed and interrupted me with, “Instead of fucking it out?”

“Rocco!”

His lips stretched into a smile he didn’t bother to fight. “I’m just saying. Imagine the Belov-Castillo empire. He hasn’t left his house in four days.”

“So? He probably has women coming to his.”

But he shook his head, letting me go. “No one has been or gone. Well, other than Is briefly.”

Roc was my man. His dad’s allegiance to mine had onlytransferred between us. He was the only one truly loyal to me. He updated me on the Castillo side of the business, any information I sought to do with the Belovs.

“How do you know that?”

His attack blindsided me. He put me in a tight headlock and, as I squirmed, he ruffled my hair with his fist. “Gotta look out for my girl’s best interests.”

When he released me, I knew my hair was a complete mess. I huffed at him. “But you’re his friend, too.”

“And?” he asked, rolling the mat up and pushing my feet off it. “Can’t I be both?”

“No,” I said. “He… nothing will happen there anymore.”

My heart thudded erratically at how sure I sounded.

“Why?” he asked, putting the mat away, but the way he asked the question… I knew I had his full attention.

“Because ten years ago, when I needed him most, he wasn’t there. He left me to go through… to go through all of that alone. We were best friends, Rocco.”

“And people can’t change? People can’t be sorry?”