Page 52 of Love Him Like Water

I watched as his gaze fell on me, taking in the blood on my shirt, on my chin, my mouth, and the bruise sneaking up my cheek, likely getting darker with each passing minute.

It was fury first. A bright, blazing anger that burned in his eyes, that tightened his handsome features, that had a muscle ticking hard in his jaw. Even his hands weren’t immune from it, curling into tightened fists, wanting to crash into something, someone.

But, slowly, I watched as he worked to tamp down the rage, fight it back because it was useless in this situation.

Then, my heart aching at the sight, I saw the concern etch his handsome features, softening his eyes, making his head cock to the side, his hands unfurling.

“Oh, mouse,” he said, his voice a soft caress as he moved closer, dropping down to his knees in front of me.

I hated myself for it, for being so weak, for having such shaky walls when it came to him, but all was suddenly forgiven in that moment as his hand reached upward, touching my cheek with a gentleness that a man who was all hard wouldn’t be able to pull off.

Cinna was wrong.

He wasn’t just hard.

It was that he saved whatever soft he had for me.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

Renzo

“Fucking what?” I barked as Rico stepped into the room.

I had someone by the front of his shirt, lifting him up off of the ground like a fucking rag doll.

He’d dropped himself down there the second I entered, his face twisting up, his eyes watering, as he begged for forgiveness for trying to fuck me over on a deal that had just been finished the day before.

I’d been afraid the pathetic sack was about to kiss my fucking shoes, wrenching him up the ground to face me.

But that was when the door flew open, and Rico rushed in, his phone to his ear.

“Boss?”

If I wasn’t so pissed about a missing ten grand that this asshole with the tears streaming down his face thought he could hide from me, I might have heard the clipped note in Rico’s voice and immediately listened.

“Renzo!” he barked.

And this time, I noted something close to panic in his voice.

Panic?

In Rico?

A man who once casually walked into a building with no fewer than six loaded guns pointed at him with a cigarette dangling from his lips, and a swagger in his step?

Who’d walked out of that same building a few minutes later, blood covering his shirt and shoes from the bodies he’d just sent to their maker.

That Rico was panicked?

I dropped the fucker’s shirt so hard that he crashed to the ground, letting out a sniveling whimper as I turned to face Rico.

“What is it?” I asked, voice more serious.

“Lore.”

“What do you mean it’s Lore?” I asked, stepping toward him.

Then he said three words that had my fucking heart seizing in my chest.

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