Page 36 of Devil's Azalea

The force pushes him back into Emilia. “F–fuck you,” he gasps, crumpling to the floor.

“What did you do?” Emilia’s voice breaks with horror, her knife slipping from her grasp as she drops to her knees behind him, cradling his head between her hands with a tenderness that twists something ugly in my chest. When she glances up at me, her lips are trembling, eyes shimmering with tears that illuminate her irises before spilling down her pale cheeks.

Those tears belong to me, not the fucker on the ground.

Jesus. Impossibly, I’m jealous. Jealous of my own damn brother.

My hand tightens around the gun, and my thoughts spin dark: raise the barrel again. Finish the fucker. Blow his fuckingbrains out. Instead, I grit my teeth against the savage impulse. “Get out of here,piccola, or you’re next.”

More tears. More of that heartbroken expression like I’m the monster in this scenario. She thinks I killed him. Actually believes I murdered my own brother right in front of her. Discomfort and rage squeeze my throat tight.

What kind of man does she think I am?

She lays Romero’s head down and snatches up her discarded blade, jumping to her feet.

“You bastard!” she snarls, the word dripping with a decade of accumulated hatred.

I raise a brow as she advances with the knife, recognizing the wild, cornered look in her eyes. In her mind, it’s kill or be killed now. She’s genuinely going to attempt to put that blade somewhere vital.

But before she reaches striking distance, Romero erupts in a coughing fit and sits up, patting his chest.

Her brows pinch together as she whirls around to face him. “W–what?”

The confusion on Emilia’s face would almost be funny if my arm wasn’t throbbing and all I can think is that he couldn’t have picked a worse fucking time to‘come back to life’.

“I have a vest on,” Romero wheezes, still coughing. “That asshole knows that.” He jabs a finger my direction, and she follows the gesture to glare accusingly at me.

“Who gets shot and doesn’t bleed out?” I ask dryly, trying to bring some sanity back into the room. If she hadn’t been so sucked up in her emotions, she might have noticed that little detail.

But Emilia doesn’t react. The fire in her eyes is gone, replaced by something heavy.

Her hands begin to shake, and the knife slips from her fingers again, clattering to the floor. Then it’s her whole body—limbs trembling, mouth quivering, throat bobbing. And moretears—goddamn rivers of them—spill down her cheeks like she’s breaking right in front of me.

My heart expands painfully, compressing my lungs until breathing feels like swallowing glass. This isn’t what I wanted. None of this is what I wanted.

I take a concerned step towards her, but she spins around without a word and runs for the elevator where she violently stabs the call button over and over. When the doors finally slide open, she stumbles inside and slumps against the back wall.

I take several urgent strides towards her, but the doors are already closing.

She looks up at the last second, our eyes meeting through the narrowing gap.

And fuck me—all I see in her gaze is one thing.

Hurt.

Then the doors seal shut, and she’s gone, leaving me alone with the consequences of my cruelty and the hollow victory of her retreat.

11

EMILIA

I really thought he killed him.

God, I’m such a dumbass. The guys have been close since they were teenagers—he wouldn’t just kill him over some slight. Rafael is logical. Cold. Not some hothead who loses his shit like I apparently do.

The mirrored elevator walls throw my reflection back at me, and Christ, I look like hell. I need to get my act together before these doors open and Rafael’s men see me looking like I just watched someone die.

Which I thought I did.