Page 85 of My Best Friend Is Broken

Liam makes a noise. A quiet whimper. My eyes snap open. His are scrunched tight and his face is pale.

My stomach flips over.

“Liam?”

He winces. He draws in a shaky breath. “Sorry.”

I pull away from him and drop onto the mattress by his side. I wrap my limbs around him and hold him tight.

“Don’t be sorry, alright?” I say. “Just tell me. Please don’t let me hurt you or scare you. That would break me.”

He draws in another shuddering breath. “You’re right. I was being a dick.”

I lean forward and kiss him. He melts into it and kisses me with hunger and love.

“Alright,” I say. “Kissing tonight. Maybe I’ll blow you. But we won’t try anything else. We have all of the nights of the rest of our life for that.”

“Alright,” agrees Liam softly.

Then he kisses me deeply and all other thoughts fall out of my head.

Chapter twenty-eight

Nicky

The call comes at two in the morning, shattering the peaceful silence of sleep with its harsh ring. I’m awake instantly, years of training making the transition from unconscious to alert, nearly instantaneous. Beside me, Liam stirs but doesn’t wake, just makes a small sound and burrows deeper into the pillows.

I slip out of bed carefully and grab my phone from the nightstand, already seeing Dante’s name on the screen. Nothing good ever comes from Dante calling at two AM.

“Yeah,” I answer quietly, moving into the hallway so I don’t wake Liam.

As quiet as I am, part of me is internally screaming. Voiceless pleas spinning in my mind. Why now? Everything was ‌finally going so well. Please, not now.

“We have a problem.” Dante’s voice is tight, controlled, but I can hear the undercurrent of tension. “Russians hit the club on Brick Lane an hour ago. Three of our guys injured, one critical. They left a message.”

My blood runs cold. “What kind of message?”

“The kind that says they’re not interested in negotiation anymore. They want blood, Nicolo. They want to make examples.”

I lean against the wall, my free hand rubbing over my face. The situation with the Russians has been deteriorating for months. Territorial disputes, broken agreements, the usual power struggles that define our world. But this is different. This is escalation, the kind that leads to all-out war.

“What does Dario want to do?”

“Meeting tomorrow. Nine AM. He wants everyone there. Capos, soldiers, everyone who has skin in this game.” Dante pauses. “He’s worried about Molly.”

Of course he is. Molly is Dario’s entire world, the reason he killed his own brother for control of the family, the reason he restructured everything to create something safer, more legitimate. The idea of the Russians targeting Molly to get to Dario would be Dario’s worst nightmare made real.

“Has there been a specific threat?”

“Intel suggests they’re looking at vulnerabilities. Ways to hurt us where it matters most. Extended families, partners, anyone we care about who isn’t directly protected.”

The words hit me like ice water. Anyone we care about who isn’t directly protected.

Liam.

My mind immediately goes to him, asleep in our bed, completely unaware that he might have just become a target simply by loving me. He has no training, no street smarts for this kind of danger, no ability to protect himselffrom the kind of people who wouldn’t hesitate to hurt him to send me a message.

“Nicolo? You still there?”