Fractured Freedom(55)

“What?” Her confession had me halting her. “Were you … When did the miscarriage happen? Did I hurt you?” Suddenly, my mind was trying to calculate whether I could have hurt her, if she would have been in physical pain, and I almost heaved up my fucking breakfast.

She slapped my chest. “No. Of course you didn’t. You never hurt me. I don’t think you’re capable.”

“I don’t think you know what I’m capable of.” She hadn’t seen what I did behind closed doors for the mafia, how I’d broken bones for the government, sniped men off rooftops, studied every technique of torture there was so we could get the intel we needed for our country, for our family, for our power.

“You made me feel better than I ever thought I could again. I’d tried for a whole month to get myself off after the miscarriage, and nothing worked. I thought I was broken.” I took a deep breath, and she took one with me, then wiped under her eyes. “I need this job, I need this life, and I need to get over this thing I created between us all those years ago. I lost our baby, but I shouldn’t have lost me too.” Her voice shook like she was trying to be strong, like a scared puppy facing down a wolf.

“Okay, Lilah.” I nodded like I could work with it, like I could help her get over us when I still wasn’t. “Okay.”

She let out a shaky breath and whispered, “Count to seven.”

I replied, “All the way to heaven, Lamb.”

We breathed together, and I swore I’d try to help her.

Deep down, I knew, though. Lilah was still mine. We were going to be together … even if it meant I had to go through the hell of her damn Eat Pray Love agenda.

I carried her back to my hotel room. She’d never been in it before, but it looked exactly like hers. I set her down on the bed and went to get a big t-shirt of mine for her. Then I nodded toward her shirt. She didn’t even hesitate. This wasn’t about sex, it was about comfort. I needed her comfortable and she trusted me to give her that.

She raised her arms and I slid the t-shirt over her head before undoing the drawstring of her pants. She lifted her hips slow, those hazel eyes on me the whole time. Then she murmured, “Thank you.”

“Any time, Lamb. Now, get some sleep.”

I would have stared at her the rest of the night had I not gotten a call.





17





Watch Him Watch You





Delilah





I don’t know how long I was asleep in his room before I came to. ER shifts drained me, and dropping the bomb of the century depleted any of the energy and emotion I had left.

The weight I’d carried had been lifted, and I’d fallen into my first deep rest in years.

Now, Dante knew.

He knew why we weren’t compatible, why I was broken, why I wasn’t as perfect as everyone made me out to be.

I stirred in his bed, half thinking I might find him lying beside me. When I cracked one eye open, though, I found the room dark, so I checked my phone.

It was ten at night already; he’d let me sleep all day. I glanced around the bedroom and heard the shower running.

Heat crept through my body, even though I knew we were past that. Dante had held me as a friend, desperate and broken in his arms, just hours before. The moments came rushing back like a tidal wave, trying to push me down and drag me out to sea.

Some would probably say I was mourning something I never had, but what they didn’t understand about the miscarriage was that my brain had started planning even if I didn’t know whether I’d keep the baby or not. I still dreamt about them. I’d researched the baby’s growth and stressed over her or him. My future shifted as I pictured my life with them in my arms.

Then something in my body I couldn’t control ripped it away. Maybe I’d done something wrong … but whatever it was, I couldn't get my baby back.

Dante hadn’t looked at me like I was crazy. He’d held me, told me he wanted to protect me, that I was like family to him.

The word family crushed my heart, though, because to him that meant I was the kid sister, I was another person he wanted to protect. But I reminded myself that’s all we could be, close family friends. My mental health was too fragile, and he was too much of everything I wanted.

If I lost something like that again, I wouldn’t survive.

Even so, hearing the water on the opposite side of one door, knowing he was washing himself, picturing the soap sliding over each of his muscles and down his smooth skin, my body reacted. It always did when it came to him, especially after he’d let me sleep all day. He’d taken care of me. I knew I was safe here with him.

I sat up in bed, willing myself to leave without looking around. Yet, I was a product of a big household that was extremely nosy. My mom and dad read our diaries, they taught us to look inside everything, and we pretty much dug through each other’s business like there was gold at the bottom of it.

I didn’t have to even scan much of the room to see what I saw, though. His clothes were bundled in the corner, full of mud and a dark red stain that could only be blood.

As I tiptoed over to his clothing, I heard a crash in the bathroom and a groan. It didn’t take me more than a second to run to that door. What if he was hurt? What if he’d gone and done something and was gravely injured? He was an Armanelli doing undercover work.