Page 60 of Wicked Mafia Beast
I want to ask what those words mean, but I don’t have the energy in me right now or the brain power. When the sobs finally ease into trembling, hiccupping breaths, he pulls out gently and carries me down the hallway, my face buried in his neck, my tears soaking into the collar of his shirt. He lays me on his bed. Pulls a blanket over us both. Wraps his arms around me and tucks my head beneath his chin.
"I'm fine," I try, my voice wrecked and unconvincing.
"Nyet."
"I don't need..."
"Sleep, Onyx." His arms tighten around me, his heartbeat steady against my cheek, his warmth seeping through the blanket and into my shaking bones. "I've got you."
I should argue and push him away and walk to my own room and rebuild every wall he just watched me demolish. I should be stronger than this.
Instead, I close my eyes and let the Beast hold me while the last of my defenses crumble to dust.
I hate how safe it feels.
I hate how much I don't want him to let go.
Hours later, I surface from a dreamless dark. The room is dim, moonlight filtering through curtains. I'm still in his arms, still pressed against the solid wall of his chest, still wrapped in warmth and the scent of him.
"You’re still here?" The whisper barely makes it past my lips.
His response comes immediately, low and certain, as if he's been awake the entire time.
"Why would I leave?"
I don't have an answer. I press closer to him, curling my fingers into the fabric of his shirt, and let the steady rhythm of his heartbeat fill the silence.
That scares me more than anything.
Eleven
Kon
Three days since she cried in my arms. Three days since she let me see her break.
She's been rebuilding her walls ever since, brick by careful brick, and I've been letting her because I'm not a complete idiot. A woman who has survived what Onyx has survived needs to control the timeline of her own vulnerability. Push too hard and she bolts and seeing her run from me is the last thing I want.
So I stand back and wait. I cook breakfast and answer her questions and pretend the sound of her crying doesn't echo through my skull at three in the morning when sleep refuses to come.
But today we formalize things. Rafael called yesterday. Twice. The first call was business: Luca's team has mapped Seamus's shipping routes and we're ready to move on the warehouse within the week. The second call was personal, wrapped in the careful diplomacy Rafael uses when he's about to deliver a truth I'd rather not face.
"The brothers are asking questions, Kon. About her. About you. About what exactly is happening between us."
"She's an intelligence asset under protection."
"Is that all she is?"
I hung up without answering.
This morning I set the contract on the kitchen counter beside her coffee. Massimo drew it up yesterday. Clean, professional, every clause vetted by the sharpest legal mind in Chicago's underworld.
Onyx emerges from her room and I nearly drop the spatula.
She's wearing a skirt.
In eight days, I have seen this woman in jeans, my borrowed t-shirts, and the occasional blouse buttoned to the throat. Today she's wearing the flowing black skirt I bought for her. It ends above her knees and caresses her curves in a way that makes my blood pressure spike. She's paired it with a soft gray sweater, the neckline wide enough to bare one shoulder, and her dark hair falls loose past her shoulders instead of pulled up in the usual messy twist.
She chose this. From the closet I stocked for her, she deliberately chose a skirt. And from the way her blue eyes flick to my face the moment she rounds the corner, cataloging my reaction with that sharp journalist's gaze, she chose it for me.
