Demand (Careless Whispers #2)(25)

“And yet,” he bites out, his fingers flexing at my waist, “you didn’t call me.”

“You said only to call if it was an emergency, and Gallo being an * is not an emergency.”

“Last night, Ella.”

“Exactly. The note you left said you were wrapping up loose ends from last night, and I don’t want you to think I don’t know the definition of an emergency. That’s like the boy who cried wolf, nor do I want your men to think I represent a distraction.”

“Let me worry about my men.”

“I’m not going to do that; not now or ever. If you want a puppet who’ll burden you with everything and care about nothing you do, then I’m the wrong choice for you, Kayden. That’s not who I am, or who I hope we are together. You didn’t have to come here. I would have called you the moment things turned in the wrong direction.”

“What part of once it’s gone wrong, it’s too late, don’t you understand?” he demands. “Why didn’t you go to Adriel?”

“Aside from the fact that he’s been vocal about me being a distraction you don’t need, and the reason I was worried about your men?” I don’t give him time to reply, getting to the real issue. “Gallo said that any interference by Adriel, you, or anyone, would mean not only me visiting the police station, but Giada, too. And I wasn’t willing to let her run her mouth in an interrogation room.”

“He had no legal right to do that—which you’d have known, had you called me or gone to Adriel.”

“It’s more complicated than that,” I say, hesitating to bring up Giada when he’s this angry.

“Define complicated.” I hesitate a moment longer and he is not willing to wait. “Ella—”

“Gallo claims Giada sent him text messages last night that were damning enough to ensure that you couldn’t stop him from questioning her or me. She swears there are no messages, even though I told her Matteo would find out if she was lying. But I couldn’t take the risk that there were texts.”

“And yet you tried to handle this on your own.”

“I did handle it, Kayden. I’m not arrested. I’m not at the station and on Niccolo’s radar any more than I was before today. You don’t owe the police chief yet another favor, and no one has told one single Underground secret. I’d be back in the castle trying to throttle Giada right now, if you hadn’t just yanked me into a dark hole.”

“There’s a bigger picture here that you need to understand—but that isn’t a conversation we can have when I have men and business waiting on me at the castle.”

He reaches for my hand and I grab his jacket. “Wait. Please. If this is about my past—”

“It’s not.”

“I didn’t betray you, Kayden. If it’s about trust—”

“One of my men died last night, Ella,” he says, his low voice rough, almost guttural. “The last thing I needed today was to find out that you were with Gallo, when we don’t know what Giada told him. One wrong word, one careless whisper, and he will take you and my men down to destroy me.”

“I promise you, when you have time to listen, I handled him well.”

“Even if you did, you took a risk that didn’t have to be taken. You didn’t know what trigger to your past he might hit, or how you would have reacted.”

I physically flinch. “And there it is. My amnesia. The monster in the closet we denied last night.”

“Not a monster, and there is no denial here. Just a fact that we both have to consider for everyone’s protection.” His cell phone buzzes with a text, and he reaches inside his jacket pocket to glance at it, before returning it and refocusing on me. “We need to get back to the castle.” He takes my hand and leads me out of the alcove. There is no pause or opportunity to adjust to the freezing cold weather. I shove my other hand in my pocket as we head down the path, his black-laced biker boots crashing against the brick street and seeming to echo with more than his unappeased anger. There is a shift in him now, a drive that is all about power, control, and purpose, that silences anything I might say. Something is happening and he needs to focus on it, not me, which was my intent all along.

It’s on that thought that Kayden turns us around the corner, directing us down the walkway that leads to the front of the castle, not to the back, where I’d exited. We’ve almost reached the plaza, and our point of entry, when a twenty-something man steps directly into our path, and I jolt. Kayden reacts to my reaction and the visitor, pulling me closer, bending both our arms at the elbow and aligning our hips, possessive, protective. And just like that, I feel like us again, not the divide, not the doubts I realize now that his reaction to my action has stirred in me.

The stranger speaks to Kayden in fast, clipped Italian, never looking at me. Kayden issues an equally clipped reply, and the man departs immediately while Kayden puts us back in motion.

“Who was that?” I ask.

“One of the neighborhood crowd,” he says. “Niccolo might own the rest of the city, but I own this neighborhood and its ears and eyes.” He halts us in front of the castle. “And Gallo’s aware of that fact.”

Realization delivers a painful dose of the big picture Kayden had hinted existed. “He threatened me to ensure that I didn’t call you, knowing that someone else would. He wanted to cause trouble between us.”