Page 35 of Widow’s Walk (Women of the Mafia #1)

Chapter thirty

Blackwell

I haven’t slept next to her since I brought her home.

Three nights. Three fucking, sleepless nights. I’ve been camped out in my office putting out fire after fire. Clean-up and damage control from the takedown. We’ve made ourselves countless enemies, but our allies are still more valuable to retaliate against.

My neck aches, and my back is bent, but I don’t move from the chair. Because if I crawl into that bed with her and she turns her back on me, or recoils if I reach for her, or tells me to go to hell if I whisper her name, I don’t know what I will do to her.

The thin line between restraint and desire.

Part of me wishes to hold her so tight she can’t ever leave again. Tell her how I wish I had told her about what was going on behind closed doors. That I would never let her go, even if it costs me everything.

Then there’s the other part of me that wants to fucking throttle her. For gutting me with that note. For having me chase her through blood and fire, only to look at me the way she does now. Like I am the center of all her scars, old and new. As if I made every one of them.

I either want to hold her or strangle her.

Sometimes both.

My hands fist on the arms of the chair, nails biting into leather. I need more time. We both do.

Still, I feel her like a phantom limb. Every breath she takes echoes in my spine. Every word she won’t say to me cuts me to the bone. And I can hear her laugh in my fucking skull. Especially when the house is dead silent.

If I go to her, I will cage her. And that’s not what I want. I love the rebel in her, the side eyes, the dry tone, the defiance. I don’t want to break her to reconstruct her. I want her as she is. I only want her to trust me enough to stay.

However, I need to step it up, just as my father trusts me to do. Sinclair is home and safe. The worst is over. I need to focus back on work. The time apart will only be good for us.

So, I stay where I am. Because if I break first, she could actually break me. And I won’t survive.

And neither will she.