Coming Home (Morelli Family 6)

“Why is that interesting?”

“He fucked my girlfriend back in the day. I’ve always wanted to return the favor.”

“You have a girlfriend?”

Laughing again, he says, “Aw, man. I thought Vince was being paranoid, but you are a faithless little slut, aren’t you?”

My jaw drops. “Excuse me? No, I most certainly am not. I don’t want to be here, I want to be at home with my family, and I wasn’t asking because—I don’t even know why I asked, it was just a natural response.”

“If you were thinking about fucking me, maybe.”

I shake my head in disgust. “Your whole bloodline is so infuriating, I can’t handle it. You all need to stop procreating and do future generations a huge favor.”

“It’s okay. I get it. We’re pretty hard to resist.”

“Only physically,” I reply icily.

“In all honesty, little one, I wouldn’t advise you to pull something like this again. Even if you came across a house that didn’t have someone connected to us inside, you don’t want to lure Mateo out here. He doesn’t have a lot of friends in Vegas. He comes here, he’s gonna have problems. You just might find yourself weeping over a casket instead of planning a wedding.”

My blood runs cold hearing that from someone who isn’t Vince. I know literally nothing about the Vegas Morellis. All I’ve ever known about them was that Vince’s dad lived down here, that he moved here after Vince’s mom died and Vince stayed behind in Chicago. I assumed Mateo had power throughout his family, given his position at home, but what if that’s wrong? What if, like this Rafe guy says, Mateo doesn’t have power here? What if coming here to save me is dangerous for him?

Rafe makes it back over to Vince’s house and takes me inside, but after a walk-through, he doesn’t find anyone to return me to. There’s no one home but me.

“Wasn’t very smart of him to leave you unattended,” Rafe remarks, taking a seat at the kitchen island and tucking his gun away in his jacket. “I’ll just wait here with you for someone to get home—you know, in case the burglar comes back.”

I roll my eyes. We both know there was no burglar.

“Why don’t you make me some breakfast,” he says, kicking back and lacing his hands together behind his head.

I give him a skeptical scowl. “Seriously?”

“Do I look like a man who jokes about his protein intake?” he asks, lifting an eyebrow. His comment compels me to look over his torso, and while it’s all dressed up in a sharp white dress shirt, it’s not hard to see the outline of muscle underneath. “Eggs, scrambled. Chop chop.”

I can’t help laughing, but not with humor, I’m just completely fucking flummoxed.

I also turn around and go to the fridge, finding the eggs and plopping them down on the counter.

“Got any bacon in there? Make me some bacon, too.”

I roll my eyes as hard as I can, but I also turn back to the fridge and look for bacon.

As I’m preparing this strange man’s eggs we don’t really talk, but his presence is strangely comforting. He pulls his phone out and scrolls through it, reminding me of Mateo in the morning when he reads his paper and drinks his coffee. My heart squeezes painfully. I miss him so much. I don’t want to meet new Morellis; I just want mine. I don’t want to have to learn scary new hierarchies, and I definitely don’t want to consider Vince’s actions potentially putting Mateo in danger. I would die if anything ever happened to him, especially if it was because of me.

My stomach is sick just thinking about all this. Suddenly I’m overcome with the desire to remove the threat, to make this Rafe guy like Mateo. I don’t even know how much influence he has here, but he feels like someone who carries a lot influence. I’ve known him for all of ten minutes, all he’s done is circumvent my escape attempt, and I just made him breakfast.

“He isn’t so bad, you know,” I tell him, as I spin around to slide his plate across the island.

His brown eyes move to mine curiously, like he hasn’t the faintest idea what I’m talking about. “Who?”

“Mateo. I don’t know when you last interacted with him, but it sounds like it was before Beth.”

He shakes his head, grabbing the fork and digging into his food. “Nah, I met Beth. Game-playing little cunt. Not surprised he killed her.”

“Jesus Christ, you have a mouth on you.”

He flashes me a slow grin and winks, then takes a bite.

My tummy fills up with flutters.

I need to spend absolutely no time with this man once he leaves today.

“Okay, well… my point is, Mateo is in a committed relationship now and there’s no risk of him fucking anyone else’s girlfriend ever again.”