Page 21 of Cardinal

"I'm guessing you want me to wear it and never take it off?" I asked with an unsure voice and expression while I studied the thing closely. "It's not really my style…"

"But it is for your safety." He added in a firm voice. "I won't always be around for people to know you are under my protection. This is my symbol within the mafia, so everyone will know who you belong to while you have it on your body."

Involuntarily, I shivered at his words. He probably didn't mean anything to them, and hearing him say I belonged to him broke open a dam of heat within me. Strangely, I felt happy at the words, and it made me feel safe knowing I belonged somewhere. It was stupid of me to feel and think too much about it, though, because he probably didn't mean it like that or anything close.

Bunching my hair up, I slowly turned around and peered back at Luciano with an eager smile. "Put it on me, please?"

The way Luciano's eyes darkened with his widening smile sent another rush of heat down my body where it settled in areas I never thought I'd feel for a long time. I thought I'd be fearful of getting such a hungry gaze from a man, but for some reason, I felt a need to run into Luciano's arms and press my body right up against his rather than the adrenaline rush to run far away.

It felt so wrong, yet so right. I shouldn't be eager to get close to a man after what I went through. Well, in a way, I wasn't. The thought of being within arm's reach of any male made me want to hurl and curl away in a corner until I became nothing. I was disgusted with myself at how much I craved Luciano; it was a constant tug-of-war within me.

Unable to help it, I shuddered at the feeling of his rough fingers brushing against my collarbone and neck as he looped the delicate chain around and secured it. The weight of the pendant sank into my upper chest like a weight, or at least it felt like it. Turning around, I looked up at Luciano intensely with wanton eyes and heavy breaths.

The air between us thickened with unadulterated heat with our locked gazes. Inhaling deeply, I watched Luciano's jaw tense before he swept a hand across his stubbled jaw with the faintest of growls. Then, slowly, his hand reached out and settled around my neck, his thumb brushing against my thrumming carotid as I offered more of my neck to him.

Then, nothing. Confusion and disappointment crashed into me like a freezing tsunami when he dropped his hand from my neck and stepped away from me. "Don't take it off, and have a good day at school, Juliet."

Disappointment sank into me more when he used my name instead of principessa, something he had been calling me quite a bit recently.

Swallowing the lump in my throat, I smiled flatly at him and nodded. "I'll try. Thank you for the necklace."

Feeling rejected, I quickly made my way out of his office with my head down.

Asshole.

I should have listened to Luciano.

"Juliet." The usual calming voice of Gale, paired with his touch, nearly gave me a damn heart attack when I jumped away from him as if he were a monster.

Holding his hands up, he looked at me with a worried frown. "Juliet, you need to go home before you faint." Slowly, he approached me with caution. Hesitantly, he reached out and hugged my stiff body tightly. "What's wrong? What happened? You go silent over the whole break, then you come back a whole different person and refuse to tell any of us anything."

Sighing heavily, I softly pushed Gale away. "I-I can't… It's too much for me to bring up again right now." The notion of it seemed simple enough, but I already had a trip to Hell and back when I had to tell my therapist everything.

Luciano's home, where I felt remotely safe, was the only place I would accept having a breakdown. "Maybe later… Not here, though." I mean, Luciano did say I was free to bring whoever over, that it was now as much my place as it was his.

Exhaling heavily, Gale's frown deepened as his hands twitched at his side. "Alright, but you still need to go home, Juliet." He strained out flatly.

I wanted to shake my head and argue with him, but I was too tired to. It took so much energy to make it to lunch without going into a panic attack or jumping at every person who approached me. The fight in me was nearly nonexistent now.

"Do you need me to call your par—"

"No!" Not even the full mention of my parents got my anxiety spiking again to where my heart raced and tightened in my suffocating chest.

Frantically, my hand scratched at my chest until Luciano's pendant dug into my palm from gripping it so hard. It was the only thing that has kept me rooted in reality so far.

Luciano. I needed to get back to Luciano.

Chapter 13

Luciano

What is wrong with me?

Okay, that was a fucking loaded question. So, correction: what was wrong with me when it came to Juliet.

I needed to distance myself from her, but that proved rather difficult with how she sought me out for comfort. I could have been heartless and denied her, but seeing her frown and cry pulled out the little humanity I had within me.

I tried to ignore her a few times, but the moment her small body pressed up against mine, and those acid-like tears burned my skin, any resolve I had disappeared within seconds. Somehow, I always ended up with my arms tightly around her with my hands doing some idle comforting, and my mouth moved on its own accord with my uncontrolled thoughts to spew sugar coated words. Well, more like sugar coated reality.

---