Page 20 of By Blade, I Love
I was content to be out and about with her, to have some of our previous relationship back. She was still shrouded in grief and misery, but through the cracks came flowers and blossoms that managed to survive. I had been too young to understand grief when I’d lost my parents, so I didn’t know how to handle her sadness. I let her take the lead. Let her ask to go out for lunch, let her initiate sex, let her take the reins until she was ready to give them back to me.
It was hard because I didn’t let anyone call the shots in my life.
“You don’t want to try it?” she asked.
I shook my head.
“You should be a monk with that kind of willpower.”
“I’ll never have the willpower to be celibate.”
She smirked. “You’ve got me there.”
My phone started to vibrate in my pocket, and I pulled it out to glance at the screen. It was Don Russo, so I answered it right away. “What do you need?” I fell right back into my old ways, acting like the lieutenant I’d always been.
“Ciro says Icarus is on the way,” he said calmly. “If we don’t take this stand with him, they’ll be gone. And that’s one less ally.”
“I didn’t know Ciro was an ally.” Last time I checked, he was a competitor.
“All the gangs have forged an alliance ever since Icarus started his campaign. We leave in fifteen minutes.”
“They know for a fact that Icarus will be there?”
Francesca raised her eyes from her gelato and looked at me.
“Nothing is fact, but it’s a strong possibility. He butchers his own meat.”
Francesca put down her half-eaten cup as if she could hear Don Russo over the line and the crowd around us.
“I’m headed over.” I hung up.
Despite the beautiful Mediterranean tan she sported, she looked pale as snow.
“We’ve got to go.” I rose to my feet, grabbed her cup, and threw it away without asking if she was finished.
She came to my side and walked with me as we headed back to the villa. “I can make it the rest of the way on my own. I have a key. You can take a taxi to headquarters.”
I stopped to face her on the sidewalk. “You’re sure?”
She nodded. “I’ll be fine.”
Time wasn’t on my side and I had a job to do, and I appreciated that Francesca understood that.
She looked at me like she had more to say, but she decided to keep it to herself.
“I’ll be okay, baby.”
She nodded. “I love you.” She moved into my chest and hugged me tight.
I squeezed her back and rested my chin on her head. “I love you too.” It was still surreal to hear her say those words to me, to understand that I went from being a terminal bachelor to a practically married man who worshipped my woman like I was in a fucking cult.
“You tell me the second you’re on your way back,” she said as she pulled away and looked me in the eye with a stark expression of sadness.
“I will.”
She reluctantly let me go, releasing a sigh of defeat when she did.
I turned away immediately and waved down a taxi, unable to stand that sadness for a moment longer. I hated hurting her and putting her in this situation, but this was how it would always be.
