I close my eyes and try to hold my tears back, I beg for them not to fall.
“You lost someone too,” I whisper.
“Yeah, but Niall wasn’t innocent.”
I nod, eyes still closed, still trying to keep everything inside me.
The water moves, spilling over the side as I feel him move closer to me, wrapping his strong arms around me.
“I’m sorry,” he whispers again, and I lose myself.
The tears flood from my eyes, down my cheeks, and join the bathwater beneath me. He holds me, rocks me, and whispers soothing words in my ear.
I feel the emptiness threaten to work it’s way back up, threaten to take over, but Liam keeps it at bay.
His sweet words don’t bring her back, but they don’t hurt either.
Liam carries me from the bathroom wrapped in a large fluffy white towel. He lifts the covers from the bed and sets me down on the silky sheets and climbs in next to me, wrapping us both up in the covers. We lay like that, tangled up with each other until we drift to sleep.
When I open my eyes the next morning, a solid, warm arm is wrapped around my waist holding me tightly. The rise and fall of his breathing is steady next to me and I find comfort in the feeling of his heat against my body and warm breath on my neck.
I wonder how fucked up I must be to find solace in my family's enemy.
Gio came through on his promise and my family thinks I’m in New York. I even bought a plane ticket that I didn’t use. Giuseppe even drove me to the damn airport on Friday where I kissed him goodbye and then called for a Uber.
I’m a liar.
I did a lot of dumb things in my teens and college years, but I think this might be the dumbest.
But as Liam's arm tightens around me and his face presses into the crook of my neck, I have a hard time thinking that something that feels so good can be so wrong.
I carefully extract myself from Liam’s grip and pad lightly to my purse that I abandoned on the dresser. The sparkly cased iPhone is sitting at the bottom of the messy bag, beneath a heap of crinkled receipts and approximately ten thousand lipsticks. There’s no way to avoid making noise as I pluck it out and power it back on.
I tap my foot anxiously as I wait for the thing to come back to life and watch the messages trickle through. When it’s finally done dinging, I have about thirty texts and ten missed calls. I haven’t even been gone a full twenty-four hours.
A handful of the texts are from Adelina, she doesn’t know that she’s my cover currently. I could have warned her, probably should have, but then she would have asked why and I didn’t want to tell her the reason. I’m not ready to voice my destruction quite yet.
One is from an old college friend, and the rest are from my family.
Dad checking in to see if I landed, how was my flight, what am I doing, why aren’t I answering? A few from Gio checking in, telling me Papa is worried. Then, come the ones from Gian, the newest one is probably the most concerning.
I know you’re not in NY.
Gian and I haven’t always been at each other's throats. Once upon a time we were closer, I think. For a long time it was us, Adelina, and her brother against the world. We were mafia kids that formed our own family. Then, one by one the boys started to take their omertas, their oaths, and leave us behind until it was only Addy and I.
I don’t know how he knows I’m not in New York with Adelina, but I don’t feel like playing his game. I type a quick text to my father letting him know I’m safe and having a great time, then I copy and paste it and send the same thing to Gio. I decide to just ignore Gian.
After I hit send, I power off the phone and drop it back into the mess that is my purse.
“What are you doing?”
I spin around and face him. He’s propped up on his elbows, exposing his taut abs and inked chest. The white sheet hits right at the v of his groin and I know for a fact that he has nothing on beneath that sheet.
“What are you doing, Princess?” he asks again.
“I’m not a princess.” I smile teasingly before picking up his white undershirt from the floor and sliding it over my body.
He makes a tsking sound with his lips and sits up straighter in the bed.