Total pages in book: 135
Estimated words: 139088 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 695(@200wpm)___ 556(@250wpm)___ 464(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 139088 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 695(@200wpm)___ 556(@250wpm)___ 464(@300wpm)
It felt like my lungs froze because that was really bad.
“Oh my God,” I whispered.
“Yeah,” he agreed.
“And so the sit-down with Rocco…” I let that trail off.
“For me, it was to get him, once and for all, to get off my fuckin’ back. For him, it was to convince me, once and for all, I needed to take my sister’s side in this mess. Shit got heated. Honestly, I don’t think Rocco would ever harm me. If anything would lose him Gypsy, it would be that. But he had some gung-ho piece of shit with him who didn’t like we’d started shouting at each other, and the only thing I’ll cop to with that is that it was getting heated, but not that heated, but the motherfucker did something about it.” He blew out a disgusted breath. “It was Rocco who drove me to the fucking hospital.”
And now the flesh had been put on the skeleton of my understanding of this, and I liked it even less.
“Since I’ve been shot, she’s tried to call and text,” he said. “Gypsy,” he explained. “I’ve blocked her.”
“Understandable,” I replied cautiously.
“So now she’s got some fuckin’ mobster passing messages to my woman?”
I could tell things were deteriorating with how rough his voice was getting, how close the air in the room suddenly seemed, and how green his eyes were becoming.
“I don’t think she’ll do that again,” I said, though I wasn’t sure, since Dimitri had decided he’d soften my return message to Gypsy.
It might be time to find out if I liked borscht.
He twisted to reach an arm to grab his phone from the nightstand.
Oh shit.
When he twisted back, I wrapped my fingers around his wrist to stop him.
“Dimitri said he’d tell her she needed to give it time before she reaches out again.” I shifted closer. “And honey, you know how this works. I now get what it means to you that I’m having chats with someone like Dimitri Alexeyev. But he’s…he likes the Angels. He’s not a threat to us. He came in peace. When we do the things we do, you professionally, me not so much,”—I gave him a trembling, nervous smile at reminding him I was an Angel, which was what broke us up (not really, but you get what I’m saying)—“we rub up against people like this. It’s part of the job.”
I watched his chest expand, then release.
I watched it do it again.
“I’ll be your go-between with her if you need me to do that,” I offered.
With his deep-breathing exercises, the air in the room was becoming less suffocating, but I screwed the pooch with that.
“She doesn’t fuckin’ get near you,” he said through his teeth.
“Okay,” I replied immediately.
“Alexeyev buys me some time, I’ll take it.”
“All right.”
“And then I’ll deal with this.”
“Your family, your play. But will you keep me in the know?”
His brows darted together in annoyance. “Of course.”
The perfect response.
I leaned in to kiss his jaw, pulled back and said, “Thanks.” Then I asked, “You blocked her?”
“I had it in my head I could save her. Like you with Dream, I wasn’t giving up. One of her crew put holes in me, it came clear it was time to give up.”
This was heartbreaking at the same time understandable.
I knew my expression said that with the way his gaze moved over my face.
Eventually, he held my eyes as he tugged his hand from my grip, dropped his phone and sifted his fingers into my hair.
As he pulled it forward, the curls wrapping around his fingers, I lost his gaze so he could watch.
He then twisted his fingers in my hair and bent to touch his face to it.
One could say, my man really liked my hair.
“Didn’t wash your pillowcase so I could smell this when you were gone,” he muttered into it.
God!
I loved him so fucking much.
“Time to go down on me now,” I decreed.
His fingers still tangled in my hair, he wrapped them around the side of my neck and returned his gaze to mine.
“I cannot tell you how fuckin’ happy I am we’ve sorted our shit.”
“Agreed.”
“So happy,” he continued, “I want all the crap festering around us done. Go to your meet with your girls tomorrow. I’ll arrange to talk to Cheyenne when you do. And I’m not clear for work until next Thursday, but I’m going into the office on Monday to talk to the men about what they’re doing about my family, and to tell them what I need them to do.”
“That being?”
“Making it clear I’m off limits and the family ties between me and any of them have been irrevocably cut.”
I wished those ties were such that I hated that for him too, but they weren’t.
This was healthy.
So all I could do was nod.
“And just to say, I like your bed,” he went on. “Your apartment has tons more personality than my pad. And when we used to be together, I didn’t get to be here very often. I want that time back now.”