Page 94 of Vicious Addictions

“I know, and I promise that I will take that secret with me to the grave,” she promises, easing my sudden apprehension. “But that’s not why I brought the subject up. I’m still confused about their whole dynamic.”

“Mina, I know we talk a lot about loads of things, but I refuse to talk to you about my parents’ sex life. Even I don’t want to think about it.”

“No, that’s not it, silly.”

Her soft laugh is the only thing that could lighten my sour mood.

“Then what is it?”

Her expression turns serious as she locks her gaze with mine.

“How can someone love more than one person when you take so much space in my heart? I couldn’t fathom ever loving someone who wasn’t you.”

My heart breaks at the genuine confusion in her eyes.

“I don’t know, sweetheart. I just don’t know.”

She lets out a low sigh and snuggles into me, sleep soon to follow.

“I know that you said that it works for them. That they are happy and thriving, surrounded by all the children their love was able to produce, but I just can’t wrap my head around it.” She yawns. “Maybe one day after I meet them, I will.”

Mina falls asleep in an instant while I’m left replaying her last words in a loop inside my head.

Over the years, I had a front-row seat to my parents’ love story and never questioned how much my mother loved my father, Vincent, and my adoptive fathers, Gio and Dom, all in the same breath.

But now that my heart has found its rightful owner, I could never gift it to anyone else, much less share my Mina with another.

And once we come to an end, my heart will officially be closed for business, locked under heavy iron chains, never to be heard of or seen again.

I might be new to this thing called love, but I know that much.

The next morning, I do my usual routine of sliding out of bed and getting dressed. I then hover over Mina, watching her sleep for a few minutes, wishing that one day she would open her eyes and see me there, still laying by her side.

Knowing that time is working against me, I lean in closer and press a tender kiss to her lips.

“Ti amo, tesoro,”I breathe out the same words I’ve heard my father say to my mother a million times.

Only now do I realize what he meant by them.

Loving someone like I love Mina, is the greatest treasure a man could possibly wish for.

All the money and power in the world pale in comparison.

“Ti amo così tanto amore. Non c’è niente che non darei per trattenerti. E come mi tormenta la certezza che ti perderò. Il mio cuore sanguina per te.Il mio cuore sanguinerà sempre per te.”

And with those words, I take one last longing look at my love and head towards the door.

Usually, when I leave Mina’s bedroom in the early hours of the morning, there isn’t a soul awake to see me do it.

However, today, I’m not so lucky.

“Remus,” I greet, squaring my shoulders, bracing myself for his reaction.

If he thinks I’m going to make some lame-ass excuse as to why I just left his cousin’s bedroom at this hour, he’s mistaken.

He knows why, so why refute it when every cell in my being wants to own it?

Wants to tell the world that Mina is mine.

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