Page 261 of Syndicate of Sin Bundle

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chiara

I stared out the police car window, watching the rain fall outside of it. Alessandro sat in the backseat with Karrie, talking about how the Sicilian Mafia would either dissolve quickly or be taken over by a rival family. His fight was over, but mine was far from it.

Dad was still out there, and I had to find him before he found me. I didn’t know how I was going to do it without my family after me. They knew I was going to go to Alessandro’s place. They knew I was with Alessandro and his posse. They knew that I was full of rage and wouldn’t stop until they all died.

My eyes became teary for some reason, but I blinked the tears away. This wasn’t a time to cry. I had no right. I hadn’t been through hell and back, like Alessandro had. I was just some spoiled brat Mafia boss’s daughter who hadn’t known shit until about twelve hours ago.

“Finally,” Alessandro said to Karrie. “Finally fucking killed the bastard.”

I glanced at him through the rearview mirror to see the relief on his face. He looked over at me, and our eyes met for a brief moment. He was bruised and beaten badly from the torture, his eyes black and bloody. I mustered up my best half-smile, to which he responded with a frown.

After glancing away, I pulled into Alessandro’s apartment building lot. We walked to the elevators, waited in the stuffy room to get to the top, and made it into his apartment.

Escaping and stopping someone like that must’ve been hard for him to do. It’d taken years, but Alessandro hadn’t stopped until he got all his revenge. I was a proud friend to him and even these two girls. I didn’t know either of them, but they’d fought hard for something they believed in.

“What’s wrong?” Karrie asked as Alessandro patched himself up.

I was happy for Alessandro, but I was sad for our relationship… if I could even call this little thing that.

Now that he had gotten his revenge, I didn’t know if he’d go back to Italy or not. Would we even talk anymore? After all the shit we’d been through, he probably wanted me out of his hair and to relax while he had the time.

“I should go,” I whispered, not knowing why I was saying this at all.

But something inside of me told me that I should leave. Alessandro and the girls should celebrate this achievement, and I had absolutely no place here, especially if he didn’t want anything to do with me.

Besides, how could I stay around someone who I wanted to love … when he didn’t want the same thing? Was I supposed to act as if I didn’t love the fuck out of him? Like we were just coworkers in a really, really bad job?

“No,” Alessandro said, narrowing his eyes at me. But he still didn’t move or smile or make any slight adjustments to his behavior to make it seem like he wanted me here. “Stay.”

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Alessandro glanced over at me, and I looked away from him and walked to the window to stare down at the city, feeling quite … vulnerable. Dad was still out there with a handful of his guards who were stupid enough to protect him with their lives. But that wasn’t why I felt so unguarded. It was because Alessandro knew exactly how I felt about him, he knew why I’d saved him, and he probably even knew that I loved him.

Dad had always told me to be guarded, to never trust anyone … but that was all I seemed to want to do when I was with Alessandro. I wanted him to capture me with his tongue, whisper all those sweet nothings in my ear, tell me that he loved me, too, even if he didn’t really mean it.

“Leave,” Alessandro said to Karrie and his medic, washing some blood from his hands.

I heard quick footsteps, and then the front door shut. My eyes fluttered closed quickly, and I sucked in a deep breath, breathing in his scent. He stood directly behind me, wrapped his hand around the front of my throat, and pulled me closer to him.

“What you did was dangerous,” he said into my ear with such anger and annoyance in his voice.

Rage built inside of me as I turned on my heel and shoved him away from me. But he caught my wrist before I could do anything.

“Screw you, Alessandro. If I hadn’t saved you, you’d be dead.”

“Karrie told me you were worried about me,” he said, a smirk crawling onto his face.

I tried to shove him back again. But he pushed me against the window, his lips brushing against my ear.

My breath caught in the back of my throat. “Fuck you, Alessandro,” I whispered, unable to get anything out but that. I balled my hands into fists yet relaxed as his lips pressed against the crook of my neck. “A fucking thank you would be nice,” I said through clenched teeth. Yet a thank you wasn’t what I wanted.

He picked me up off the ground–albeit with a bit of a stumble from his injuries–and my legs instinctively wrapped around his torso. “You looked fucking sexy with that gun in your hand,” he said, nibbling on my earlobe. “I’m hard, just thinking about it.”

He rocked his hips into mine, and I sucked in a deep breath, feeling his hardness press against my core.

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