Everything.
“Appetizer first.” She sliced mini bagels and sprinkled a fancy cheese mixture that she’d put together over them, plus some basil and a pinch of herbs. “These just need to broil for a couple minutes.” She opened the toaster oven just as I realized where she was going.
I jerked to my feet. “Carly—” Too late.
The pan clattered to the tile floor, mini bagels, cheese, and herbs flying everywhere. I looked up just as she removed the gun I’d stashed in the toaster oven.
“We can’t pretend, can we?” She held the weapon away from her body and turned to me with desolation in her big blue eyes. “Every time we try to be a normal couple, to just relax for a night, there’s going to be guns, and threats, and d—”
“No.” I wouldn’t let her say it. “Not between us. It can’t touch us.” I rounded the counter to her and held out my hand. “Give me the gun.”
“Why should I? You clearly have enough of them.” She dropped it on the counter. “How can you need so many guns? Why, Gio?”
Shame crowded through me, pushing away the pleasure I’d found with her tonight. And all the other nights we’d spent together. I wasn’t supposed to find happiness again, with her or anyone, but somehow it had happened anyway in the midst of all my focus on the past.
“You’re going to end up dead,” she whispered, and she might as well have been Nostradamus spitting out a damn prophecy. Because I sure as hell felt a ghost walking over my mamma’s grave. “You can’t spend time with men like that, men with no compunction about hurting people, and arm yourself to the teeth and not have it come back on you. The company you keep matters.”
“Carly…” I brushed her hair away from her face and she flinched, turning away.
It hurt. It fucking ripped something open inside me, a wound I’d thought long ago scarred over, and made it freshly bleed all over again.
“I’m not going to your funeral. Do you understand me?” She pivoted to face me with red-rimmed eyes. “If you fucking die, I’m going to hate you for all eternity, and I’ll dance on your goddamned grave.”
Cupping her cheeks in my hands, I tipped my forehead to hers. She was shaking again, with rage or fear or both, and it was all my fault. “That’s probably the sweetest thing anyone’s ever said to me, baby.”
She let out a sniffly laugh and threw her arms around my neck. “I don’t want to lose you. Not when I’ve finally found—”
I covered her mouth with mine, because I knew how she was going to finish that sentence. I knew it because I could’ve finished it myself.
Not when I’ve finally found you.
Seventeen
At eight-thirty-nine the next morning, I sneaked into my apartment wearing Gio’s shirt over my revealing club outfit and a smile. The smile only went two layers deep.
Underneath, I was stressed and exhausted and worried as hell. But the top layer was my just-got-thoroughly-fucked-three-times smile, which served a dual purpose. If I encountered my sister and she seemed suspicious, I’d openly allow her to think I’d been out being debauched. She’d assume it was with Salad Hut boy, and I would let her because I was a horrible human being.
But my sister had left a note.
At the gym training with Fox for the fight.
The fight being the upcoming one in less than three weeks with Gio. The same weekend I was due to quit the club.
I wasn’t going to miss that fight, so I’d just have to find someone to cover for me. Like, oh, Nancy, whom I’d covered for recently. If only she hadn’t just quit in a flurry of swear words. Even so, I would not be deterred.
Mrs. Knox wasn’t home either. She must be opening up the women’s department store she worked at now a few days a week. I had a feeling she’d be going full-time soon. She really seemed to enjoy the job. And good for her. She’d needed to be out from u
nder Fox’s dad’s thumb for a long time now.
I stared longingly at the currently empty bed. I could use some sleep on an actual mattress, with no long, hard dicks to distract me from restful slumber.
Just a little while, I promised myself, stripping down to my brand new, beloved underwear and slipping under the covers.
“Where did you get that fancy underwear?”
What felt like approximately six minutes later, I peeked one eye open to find my sister eyeballing me in a way that was more than a little disconcerting. Of course one of my boobs was half hanging out, but that was due to hasty readjustment at Gio’s that morning.
Gio.