Page 52 of Dark Knight (Knight's Ridge Empire 10)

Shame burns through me.

But I don’t regret it. Not a single second of it. Because while she was here, even while she was fighting me, I had everything I’ve ever wanted. I just have to hope it’s enough to hold onto, because no matter how much I might already be craving a repeat, something tells me she’s not going to accept it willingly.

I stumble back and fall unceremoniously onto the toilet. I drop my head into my hands in the hope that when I lift it again that my mind will have miraculously cleared and that I’ll have a solid idea about how to handle this.

As much as I should stay away from her, now knowing that she’s in bed with the enemy—literally—means I can’t.

She cannot be spending time with the Italians. She just can’t. It puts her at too much of a risk. And I refuse to allow her to be in any situation where she might get caught.

Sadly, when I stand once more, I don’t feel all that much better.

Dragging on a pair of boxers, I head out to my kitchen for the strongest cup of coffee my machine will spit out and search for my phone.

I find it on the counter beside the mess I left behind while making our breakfast late on Sunday morning.

Waking it up, I find a stream of messages from Alex, and one from Dad, and more than a handful from Isla demanding to know why I’m ignoring her.

“Jesus,” I mutter when I take in the date and find that I’ve been out of it for over twenty-four hours.

How many of those pills did she give me?

The evidence that something was up when she returned with our drinks was more than obvious. I could see that something was off in her eyes, the way she nervously chewed her bottom lip. And then the taste of the Fanta. That wasn’t normal. If it were anyone else sitting on my bed wearing only my ruined shirt, then I might have questioned why it tasted so funky. But it was Calli. My fucking angel. I never would have suspected anything of her. Clearly, I’ve underestimated our innocent little princess. But then I guess, she does have Cirillo blood running through her veins, and the apple only falls so far from the tree.

* * *

“Holy shit, what happened to you?” Alex asks when I let myself into his flat a few hours later.

Her scent hits me, and it angers me equally as much as it turns me on.

The second I loaded the tracking app and discovered that she was here, mere feet away from me, I nearly forgot about everything and just stormed in to have it out with her.

But that’s not how I work. I don’t let my hot-headedness take over, and just because this situation involves Calli, it doesn’t mean that I can forget everything that makes me the fucking fantastic soldier that I am.

So I waited. And waited. It was fucking painful to do so as images of what the hell the pair of them could be doing just the other side of the wall played out vividly in my mind.

Alex has made his interest in her very clear recently. I always thought it was just a game to rile Nico and Theo up. I mean, that’s all it used to be. But something has changed with him. The way he looks at her these days is more meaningful, more serious.

The sight of him doing it makes jealousy like I never even knew existed erupt within me like a deadly volcano.

It’s wrong. I have no claim over Calli, and nor should I have.

I came to terms with the fact that she would find another man, a better man than me to spend her life with many years ago.

But Alex? My twin?

That shit hits on a different level.

“Nothing,” I grunt, going straight for his coffee machine and making myself another double espresso.

“You look like you just came back from the dead, Bro.”

“Fucking feel like it,” I mutter to myself.

“So what’s going on then?” he asks as I fall onto the sofa and stare down into the mug of liquid gold in my hands.

“No clue. I popped a couple of sleeping pills. I’ve been out for… a while.“

“Daemon,” Alex warns, knowing full well I shouldn’t be having more than one.