Page 10 of Under His Embrace

Liam cleared his throat as he started the car and pulled up to tail the other SUV Chloe rode in. “The man I killed in there didn’t say a word.”

Thank you.I appreciated his changing the subject and not bombarding me with questions about how I reacted to seeing Chloe. He was curious. He had to be, but he wasn’t pushing.

“Neither did the man I chased down. He wanted to take his intel to the grave.”

Liam nodded. “I don’t have much experience to make this call, but they didn’t seem like Giovanni soldiers.”

“No, I don’t think they’re Stefan’s soldiers.” I frowned, staring at the SUV in front of us, knowing it wasn’t just any ordinary car but one that held the woman I once loved. “Nor do I think they were bikers from the Devil’s Brothers MC.”

“Agreed. They could be independent contractors, too.”

I nodded. “Let’s say they were. Who hired them to hit us?”

Liam shrugged. “I’m not sure. I haven’t been here long enough to know.”

He had a good point. “And it didn’t look like anyone from the Domino Family, either.”

“Which means it’ll be interesting to hear what this eyewitness can tell us, that new employee who escaped.” He glanced at me. “Will you be able to question her?”

I rubbed my forehead, feeling the start of a tension headache creeping in. “I will.” A bitter grunt escaped me. “When it comes to Chloe, it seems that she will be a living reminder of how I’ll always do my duty above all else.”

“What does that mean?”

It means I was torn from her because of my job once. And I bet it will forever stand between us.

“Who is she? Come on, man. Talk to me. I’ll try to help. If you can’t handle being near her, then I’ll step up where I can. But don’t keep me in the dark.”

Eva and Romeo were aware of how she broke my heart. Dante wasn’t ignorant either, but when it happened, he’d been too busy to get too involved with checking on me.

“That woman was the sweet girl I fell in love with when we were teenagers. We both grew up in Beckson, and we were together in high school.”Junior high, too.“She was my life, but as I got older, I knew that I would be expected to move to the city and work for Dante. I knew that I was expected to get busier with more official roles for Dante in the heart of the organization, just like Romeo was.”

“But you didn’t grow up near Dante and the others?”

I shook my head. “My mother wanted to be closer to her sister-in-law, my aunt, who was in long-term care here. I lived with her since my father died, but it was understood that I was always a part of the Constella organization.”

“Okay. Then what happened?”

She ran.

I zoned out for a second, watching the SUV ahead of us, knowing her days of running were over for now. We wouldn’t let her go until we were finished with her.

“I wanted her to come with me to the city, but her parents were against it.”

Liam huffed. “What, they didn’t approve?”

“No. Not at all. Judge and Mrs. Dawson were self-righteous pricks who did not ever approve of their only daughter dating someone like me, affiliated with the Mafia. She was always arguing with them, insisting that we loved each other and that we should have the chance to be together after she graduated high school. I was done already, just waiting for her to come with me to the city. I came back every weekend to be with her when I was training with Dante and the soldiers in the city. I promised to bring her with me, away from her parents, but she was too scared of their control and displeasing them.

“Instead, she ran. She took off and I never heard from her again. She had a few scholarships to consider, but I don’t know where she went. The day I begged her to consider coming to the city with me, she told me she couldn’t do it. Then she was gone. She didn’t choose me.”

Afterward, I reacted poorly. I immediately shifted to a life of sleeping around and being the ultimate playboy. Flings and one-night stands were supposed to erase the grip she had on me, but it never made a difference. I belonged to her, even though she discarded me and the love we shared. No woman ever compared to her, and she was the measuring stick I held everyone else to. A lifetime of sleeping around couldn’t remove her from my mind. The memories of her lingered until this day.

“Damn.”

I grunted a wry laugh. “Yeah. That sums it up.”

“Then how—or why—did she end up working for a Constella business?”

“I doubt she planned it like this. My guess is that she didn’t know A&J Deliwasa Constella front business. If she did, she’d keep a wide berth. Her parents poisoned her to think all of us in the Constella Family are nothing but evil.”

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