Page 100 of The Merciless King

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

BRAXTON

I stand in the shower and let the water roll down my back. Gianna is still asleep, and I didn’t want to wake her even though it’s mid-morning.

I heard her tears, and they ripped my chest apart.

It took all my willpower to stay quiet.

What can I do?

Tell her I’m in love with her too?

Oh, and how I’m running an operation which will soon expose the Baldassare’s to the federal government. That her family took my cousin, and she’s likely been kept in a crate like an animal without food or basic human rights?

Fuck, I wish she wasn’t a mobster’s daughter.

I wish she was a free woman not promised to someone else—whoever the fuck the guy is—and had shown me some semblance of disgust for what her family does.

But she hasn’t.

A fact I can’t forget.

Gianna has never had a chance in life to live freely and be all she can be. She lives in a cage.

I watched her at dinner and saw her reaction as she took in all the things that are out of reach for her. She doesn’t believe it’s possible.

It probably isn’t.

Take me with you.

Then she told me she loved me. Jesus Christ, my heart exploded into tiny shards and cut me from the inside out. How could I do this to her? How could I break her heart... and mine?

The temptation to climb back into the Ferrari and flee to Manhattan, basically kidnapping Gianna, was right there. Right damn there.

Except, I need to find Amy.

And I couldn’t ignore her other words. I wish it was not such a heavy price. There was a heavy depth to them, and I know without question they are her truth.

More than once in the past twenty-four hours, I’ve tried to work out how I could take her with me. Even the idea of it could get me killed.

Gianna knows that.

If you don’t take me home, my father will kill you.

Choosing me would mean giving up her entire family, all her friends, and this life.

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