Page 73 of Fierce Secrets

But watching him shift from lover to protector so instantly—I wasn't afraid of the violence that lived beneath his skin.

This was the man who'd kill for me, die for me, burn the world down to keep me safe. And finally, I understood what that meant – what it meant to be loved by someone like Leo Donati.

I wasn't afraid anymore.

CHAPTER 26

LEO

Seeing Meredith at the villa was its own special kind of torture. The sight of her sent conflicting emotions through me – desire warring with guilt, need battling with the knowledge that I should stay away. Her presence here was my fault, the danger circling her a direct result of my weakness, my inability to maintain distance when it came to her.

The thought of her with other men, dancing and grinding, had been too much, and I'd had to go to the club myself, needing to be there to protect her.

Protect her.

That's what I'd told myself it was. Not my need to possess her even after I'd told myself I'd respect her wishes. Staying away from Meredith now, after what we'd done, after I'd finally tasted her, it was impossible.

The knowledge that Andrew Sullivan was our blackmailer had infuriated me. Yes, I'd been annoyed she'd kept it from me – I could have handled the situation immediately, eliminated the threat. He was no rival family or an enemy we'd made who was a proper threat. He was just a desperate man, but desperate people were also sometimes the most dangerous.

But I understood her hesitation. She was scared, overwhelmed by the cascade of truths crashing down around her, destroying the careful illusion of normalcy we'd maintained for years.

She was afraid of what I'd do to a seemingly innocent man hitting hard times. So I was being civil and handling it with care, Gray having offered his thoughts on how best to approach it. We were keeping an eye on him from afar, seeing just how deep this ran, and making sure Meredith's beliefs were true. That he was only a desperate man. A lowlife piece of scum for the things he'd done and been charged with, but he was no killer.

But until I knew that for absolute certain, I was taking no chances.

As for Meredith, I'd put distance between us immediately, heading to the office of the villa to be alone with my thoughts while my people dealt with the situation going on.

A frame job. Go figure. Setting the Malatesta onto me by dumping the body was bold, and stupid. Whoever it was didn't care that it looked obvious, they were counting on the fact that the Malatesta were a volatile family. We'd had an alliance with them, one I'd forged and nurtured as soon as I'd started taking over this city. Best to keep your enemies close, as they say, especially ones as unpredictable as they were. Fiorenzo Malatesta, the head of the entire family, was a reasonable man, unlike many others of the name. An alliance with him was beneficial, and he got his money and turf out of it unscathed and protected from the other families we had slowly eradicated or ran out of the city, those unwilling to form an alliance.

But even with his position, he'd not been able to control all of his family, especially not Tullio Malatesta, father of the deceased Cosimo Malatesta. I'd heard that the brothers had clashed over the decision to work together to find the true culprit, while Tullio had wanted my head on a spike.

I smirked at the thought. Such an attempt would see the end of the entire Malatesta family in less than twenty-four hours, and Fiorenzo knew that. He'd be doing his best to maintain order and stop his brother from acting out. As he should, as head of the family.

But I wasn't going to rely on him to keep this contained. People acted out and hurt those they cared about most when they were hurting. When they'd lost the ones they loved.

I glanced at the office door, wondering if Meredith hated me for putting her in danger. This was not like me, going to her at the club to guard her like a dog would with a bone. She was not mine, she'd decided that, even after saying the words.

And yet, I'd let my emotions cloud my judgement, and now she was paying the price with a target on her back.

I closed my eyes, letting out the heavy sigh of regret and frustration. I'd fucked up, big time. If my father found out, he'd likely reconsider having given me full run of the city in his name. I'd been meant to take over when he was no longer head of the family, and this was my way of proving I could manage that. I'd done wonderfully, until Meredith.

He'd be livid I'd risked so much all because of a woman.

Then again, the only thing I'd truly risked was her life. And that infuriated me even more. So much for always being logical and cold, seeing the bigger picture.

A knock on the door interrupted my thoughts, and I wondered if Roman or Gray had news.

"Come in."

Had I hoped secretly that Meredith would be the one to enter? Maybe, but recognizing her soft footfalls behind me still made my chest tighten.

And then we spoke. I'd answered her questions that she asked, knowing she needed to hear it from me.

It was hard to stay at the desk as she stood before me. Here she was, so strong as usual despite everything, all soft curves in those sweats and that oversized t-shirt, and my control nearly shattered. The casual outfit shouldn't have affected me so much, but all I could think about was how she'd look in my shirts.

I wanted to fix everything, to make her mine completely, to wake up to her every morning and hold her every night. But I'd promised to respect her wishes, even if it killed me. And I'd messed that up. For that, I deserved to lose her. I'd put her right in the line of fire.

I'd considered not telling her everything about Gray's importance to me, not wanting to reveal he was my weakness in a way, but this was Meredith – the woman who'd owned my heart since we were teenagers. I'd promised her no more lies, so I'd admitted the difficult truth to voice: her brother was my link to humanity in this dark world I lived in. Along with her, in a way.

---