Page 21 of Not Mine to Keep

He nodded. “We go way back.Beforehe became a criminal.”

I lifted my eyes to the cloudless sky. The sunlight poured down over us, bathing us in the kind of light I didn’t feel I deserved.“Non c’è luce senza oscurità,”I said under my breath.

“There is no light without dark,” he translated, staring at me in surprise. “You speak Italian?”

“No.” My posture relaxed, shoulders slumping. “It’s just something Armani likes to say to me.”

He frowned, then narrowed his eyes, and I assumed someone was now on the other line. “We have a problem,” he said. “Three men just tried to kill her, and luckily, I was with her when they came. I tried to keep one alive for questioning, but I couldn’t.”

My attention skated to his leg, and I’d nearly forgotten he’d been cut. There was a subtle rip in the denim, and blood trickled down onto his white Adidas shoe. Not that he seemed to notice.

“I’m hiding the bodies before someone stumbles upon them, but I need a cleanup crew right now,” Alessandro went on.

Cleanup crew?I looked up at him as he held the phone to his ear with his shoulder and began casually dragging a body toward shrubs on the other side of the trail.

“Yeah. Call Armani. Tell him someone’s trying to murder his daughter, and I’ll be the one to get her safely to Italy. That also means you need to clue him in on the fact you think I’m a better fit for his daughter.” He came back for the second body, but at his words, I went before him and waved my arms in the air, letting him know I had no plans to go to Italy. “And tell him if any of his guards come for me or go near her, I’ll lay them the fuck out as a precautionary measure in case one did help send these hit men after her today.” He ended the calland shoved his phone in his pocket. “What’s with the hand-waving? Decipher it for me.” He gave me a genuinely puzzled look.

“I’m not going to Italy, is what,” I bit out as he dragged Dead Guy Number Two into the shrubs.

“Do you want to go into hiding? Because it’s not just your father who is after you now. What do you plan to do? Go to school tomorrow so another asshole can come into your classroom and attack you there?”

My stomach dropped. Fear. Yeah, that four-letter word snuck up on me this time, and fast, at the idea of any of my students being harmed because of me.

“That’s what I thought.” He busied himself with the task of hiding Bad Guy Number Three next, then snatched his phone, probably pin-dropping our location for Gabriel to send a “cleanup crew” our way.

What was this life I was in? Despite having shadows and Armani showing up from time to time, I’d been doing my best to live normally. To pretend I wasn’t who Armani said I was. Land of Delulu and all. What had happened today, especially with three dead bodies in my hometown, made Armani’s dark world impossible to ignore.

But there was still one other issue. One as pressing as the dead bodies ten feet away from me beneath the shrubs: Did I trust Alessandro was telling me the truth? Because what if this was all part of Armani’s plans to get me to marry?

“The only way I can protect you, if you don’t want to go on the run, is to marry you in Italy.” He cocked his head, his brows slanting as if the idea were more painful to him than it’d be to me. “So what’s it going to be? Running? Or are you becoming my wife?” His hands slammed to his hips when I remained quiet. “One way or another, you’re leaving Nashville, whether it’s voluntarily or over my shoulder.”

CHAPTER SEVEN

Calliope

Not a surprise, but Alessandro let me stew in silence on our walk to my house after his ultimatum of physically taking me from my home whether I liked it or not.

After he’d grabbed his suitcase from his rental and we’d made it to my door, I couldn’t help but break the quiet first. “I wouldn’t put it past Armani to kill three men and have you look like my knight in shining armor to trick me into getting married. Maybe he’s not even really dying.”

“Yeah, well, I wouldn’t be shocked, either,” he snapped, irritation in his tone as I unzipped the key from my pocket.

Before I could open the door, he snatched my wrist. “Let me clear the house first. Make sure no one is waiting inside.”

Clear the house?“Fine.” I handed him the key, and I followed him inside.

“You didn’t set the alarm when you left?”

“I never do for walks.”

He grumbled something under his breath while setting aside his suitcase. “Turn the alarm on,” he ordered roughly, removing the dead guy’s gun from the back of his jeans.

I did as he asked and waited for him to check my home for threats.

When he returned and gave me the all clear, hiding the weapon at his back, I couldn’t help but blurt, “Twelve men in the last nine months.” I wasn’t ready to drop my theory yet. “Are you lucky Number Thirteen he’s sent?”

He removed his shoes, as if only now noticing there was blood on one. He’d probably left a trail on my hardwood during his check of the house. “More like the unlucky son of a bitch that—” He let go of his words, replacing them with a string of curses while throwing a hand in the air. “To be clear, I want to marry you even less than you want to marry me.” He tossed his hat on my counter, where it landed on top of the envelope he’d given me.

“You keep saying that. Doesn’t mean I believe you,” I shot back, pushing away from the door but still very much in defense mode. Tense, reactive, ready to swing if necessary.

---