Redemptive (Combative, #2)(49)

Behind me, Tiny muttered another “f*ck” and added a “not this shit again,” but I didn’t care and apparently, neither did he. He didn’t try to stop me like he did with PJ, he didn’t tell me to calm down, he just stood to the side, watching, waiting.

Franco smiled, his lips widening, displaying his blood-filled mouth. “I bet her *’s tight,” he taunted, laughing between hits.

“Shut the f*ck up,” I spat.

Rage.

Rage is by far the strongest, and most uncontrollable emotion there is.

Franco lifted his head and spat blood on my face, and that’s when I pulled out my gun and held it to his chin. The motherf*cker had a death wish. There’s no other way to explain it. “I bet she’s a real good f*ckin’ whore for you.”

The rage built, so strong, so fast, I couldn’t breathe. My muscles turned to stone. My willpower turned to dust. Please, I begged internally. “One more f*ckin’ word, and I’ll kill you.”

He had to be insane. “It shouldn’t be a surprise to anyone, I guess…” he said, his voice strained, right before he coughed, blood splattering from his lips. “You are a DeLuca after all.”

For a second, just one split second, I almost let his words get to me. Almost. Then I felt Tiny move, his hand on my shoulder.

Franco blinked once. Twice. Then he smiled. “And everyone knows your mother was a whore.”

I don’t know what came first. The sound of the gunshot, the hot white behind my eyes, or the blood on my hands. But afterward, everything was still. Silent. Blood poured from Franco’s wound, down the solid steel of my barrel and seeped between my trembling fingers.

“Get in the car,” Tiny said, lifting me like a rag doll and forcing me to stand. I walked backward to the car while Tiny stood over Franco’s dead body. I waited until I was next to the car before emptying the content of my stomach, over and over. It was all a blur. I remember nothing after that. Not even how I managed to get in the car.

I came to only minutes away from my house, the shaking gun in my hand the first thing I saw. Slowly, I looked over at Tiny behind the wheel. “Why’d you do it?”

He shrugged.

“It’s your job to protect me, Tiny. Not to kill for me.”

He glanced at me quickly, before focusing back on the road. “I protect you because you’re my boss, Nate. I kill for you because you’re my family.”





29




Bailey


I smiled against the pillow when I heard Nate say my name, and it grew the second I felt his lips on my bare shoulder. “You need to wake up, baby. It’s time for your meds.”

I groaned. I didn’t want to get up. Getting up meant solitude and silence and tiles. So many damn tiles.

The bed dipped when he got up, and a moment later, he returned, sitting back on the edge of the bed. If ten years from now you asked me to pinpoint the exact moment I fell in love with Nate DeLuca, it’d be the moment he lifted the covers from around my waist, careful not to wake me or let the cold air hit me in other areas. The way he made sure to warm up his hands before lifting my shirt, exposing my stomach to him. It’d be the gentle way his lips pressed against my skin after he’d given me my insulin and tested my blood sugar. The care in his touch when he ran the pad of his thumb across the pierced flesh. The way his eyes settled on mine when he realized I’d been watching him, not a single ounce of regret or shame in his features. “Tiny’s coming back with bagels,” he said, completely unaware of what his actions did to me. He peeked under the covers again, taking in my lack of clothes and he smiled. “You might want to get dressed. I’m really not one for sharing, Bailey.” And with that, he stood up and made his way to the bathroom, taking my medicine bag with him.

I slowly got up, the sharp ache between my legs a reminder of what happened last night. I sat on the edge of the bed, my legs pressed together, trying to ease the pain, and that’s when I saw it—a tiny bag filled with white powder sitting on Nate’s nightstand. With a thousand thoughts racing through my mind, I picked it up and examined it. I didn’t know exactly what it was, but I knew it was drugs and as stupid as it sounds considering what Nate did for a living, it still hurt when my heart sank to my stomach.

I checked the seal on the bag and noticed it was open, and when I looked over at where it had been sitting on Nate’s nightstand, all my worst fears hit me at once. The powder was there… not a lot of it, but it was still there, which meant he’d been the one to open it.

I felt Nate’s presence before I saw him or heard him whisper my name but I couldn’t pull my gaze away from the bag, and I didn’t want to look at him because I knew, for sure, that there was no way I could hide my disappointment.

He sat down next to me, his loud, drawn out sigh lingering between us.

“Did you?” I asked. I didn’t need to elaborate. He knew what I meant.

He inhaled slowly, held it for a beat, then said, “I wouldn’t do that to you, Bailey. I know how you feel about that shit.”

I faced him quickly, dropping the bag on the floor by my feet. “You shouldn’t want to do it to you, Nate. I don’t know what happened yesterday. All I know is that it’s bad, but it’s not just about me—”

“I’m in love with you,” he cut in, and everything in me froze.