Page 316 of Bad for Me

“Are you talking about Cain?” I snort. “He’s not deserving of you either.”

“Oh, and you are?” She waves her hand in the air, glaring at me. “Take a look around, Alessio.Youare the one who doesn’t deserve me. I. Don’t.Want. You.”

“You wanted me three years ago when you kissed me at your father’s funeral.”

She laughs. “And you rejected me. I got over it. Now I see what an asshole you are.”

“Is that what this is about, baby girl? You don’t like to be told no? Did I . . .embarrassyou?”

The color on her cheeks brightens to a pretty pink, and I grin. I stand, closing in the distance between her, and my hand cups her jaw. I tilt her head so she’s forced to look at me as I take in how precious she looks with parted, plump lips, wide eyes, and the rising and falling of her chest.

That possessive thought I’ve fought since she pressed her mouth against mine flutters to the surface and takes place as a growl in my throat. I savor the way it makes her tremble. “Make no mistake, Hadley. You’re coming home to me.”

“So you can kill me next?” she asks. There’s no bite to her question. No conviction in her words.

“Why would I kill you when you are the reason I breathe?” I take her hand in mine and glide it over my chest, right above my heart. “Vita mia.” My life.

“I won’t forgive you just because you’re being all intense right now.”

“I didn’t ask for forgiveness for the things I’ve done, and I never will.” I stroke her soft lips with a thumb.

“I don’t choose you. I chose Dario, and you stripped that away from me. Now I’m choosing Cain. Don’t take that choice from either.”

“Dario was a disgusting asshole who was recording you without your consent and selling your porn videos. It wasn’t that he touched you,” I say. “It’s that he didn’t treat you how you deserved. And Cain was using you, too. Ozzy paid him to get close to you.”

She pulls from my touch. “What? Why?”

I move my hands to her back and tug her into my chest, holding her there despite how hard she tries to shove me away. “Because your brother is an asshole. He doesn’t want the responsibility of taking care of you.”

“So . . . he’s trying to offload me to someone else?”

I press my hand to the back of her head and stroke her hair. “Yes.”

“Why? I left home. I’m not his burden anymore.”

I sigh because who the fuck knows what Ozzy was thinking. Certainly not me. Maybe he was looking for quick cash, and deciding selling his sister like cattle was an easy way to gain some. Either way, I’d deal with him when we returned home.

“You’re coming home with me.”

“Boston isn’t my home. It hasn’t been for a long time.”

I brush a strand of hair from her face. “That’s about to change.”

When she peers up at me again, a confused look on her face, I do what I should have done at the funeral. I kiss her back.

7

HADLEY

Three years ago

“Stop crying like a baby,”my brother, Ozzy, said, punching me in the back of my shoulder.

I let out a grunt and tried to catch myself before falling flat on my face. A firm hand gripped my arm, helping me back into a standing position. I gazed up at him. Alessio’s dark eyes peered down on me, his lips screwed up in concern.

“You good,cara mia?” he asked.

Ozzy scooted past us, leaving the kitchen but I didn’t miss the mocking way he repeated Alessio’s question.

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