Page 88 of Don't Lie To Me

He shakes his head sadly. “He must be on to us, he hung up just too soon.”

With a sickening thud, Onyx’s fist slams into the drywall, the impact echoing in the silent room, a fine layer of dust raining down. “Shit,” he curses, his body radiating with anger.

Romeo comes toward me, but I push him off, needing space, and move toward the window. “On to us, like watching us right now?” I look out through the large window, a shiver slithering down my spine as I glance over the running water and shipping containers. Apartments line the other side of the docks. This area is highly populated; he could be anywhere watching us.

Reef stands, coming behind me. “I hope not. It would be hard for him to see anything with the angle of the building, unless he has some massive telescopic lens and was across the other side of the docks in one of those buildings there.”

“You’re safe here with us, doll face. He’s not going to get his hands on you.”

“Maybe we close these just in case.” Reef presses a panel on the wall and large blackout blinds roll down from the ceiling to cover the windows.

I watch them slide all the way down, blocking out the night and the moon and everything else. The room blurs and my head spins, and I take hold of Romeo’s arm to stop myself from hitting the ground.

“Are you alright?” he asks, his voice low and filled with concern.

“I’m fine.” I straighten my shoulders and regain my composure. “Big day tomorrow. I’m going to bed,” I say, then move slowly back through the living room so I don’t go over like my body is telling me to.

“Go with her, she’s not okay,” I hear Onyx tell one of them, but right now, I’m feeling too strange to fight them on it or even look over my shoulder to see who he was talking to.

As I make it to the hallway, I take hold of the wall for support before I feel large arms assisting me. “I got you, wildcat,” Reef’s voice washes over me like a warm blanket. He helps me to my bed, and I collapse down onto the comforter.

With gentle hands, he helps me pull the soft, downy blankets up and over my body, the fabric light against my skin. When I’m covered up, I feel him staring down at me, and I know he’s not sure what to do. Hell, I’m not sure what to do.

I stare up at him, the spinning starting to ease as I focus on his pretty face. “Stay with me, I don’t want to be alone,” I whisper, knowing it’s probably a mistake, but right now I don’t care.

Without missing a moment, he quickly removes his pants and shirt before joining me in bed. He wraps his arms around me, his touch warm and comforting, holding me close. “We will get this asshole. I have a team working on it. Your brothers are all hunting him down as well. He will slip up, and when he does, he’s a dead man.”

“He called me Ava. You were right, he’s after her. What the hell was my real father involved in twenty-one years ago? Something so dangerous that someone is still afterme now?”

“The investigation at the time showed he made a mistake. Got involved with the wrong people, and from what the boys and I have been able to piece together, we can see it had to do with you. Apparently, years ago, when he was a rising politician, he wanted to win an election, but he didn’t have the influence or the money to make it happen, so he signed a deal with the devil, Romeo’s papa. It was a blood oath. At the time he didn’t even have a daughter, he didn’t think it would come back to bite him in the ass. When your father was elected as the vice president, Emilio Moretti came to visit and make his presence known, but your father wouldn’t let him in the mansion he was now living in with you and your mother. He didn’t want to be associated with a known mafia family now that he was so high-profile. That was the first part of his undoing. It’s also why years later Emilio came for youand forced Syd to sign that damn marriage contract with Orlando. We think Emilio worked out Syd and Katrina had you and he was using his business relationship with Syd to manipulate him into giving you up to him like you should have always been.”

“And now someone in the Moretti family is after me because they want revenge on my dead father and Syd because of what happened that night?”

“They want what they are owed, the daughter of the vice president. You have pure bloodlines and would make the perfect wife.”

My body stiffens. “I’m never going to be anybody’s wife.”

“We will make sure of it.”

“You guys know the Moretti family. Surely Romeo knows who is after me. Does he have other brothers who would have been next in line after Orlando died, or an uncle or something? This should be easy to work out through process of elimination.”

“He has a younger brother, one his papa is grooming to take over the empire because Romeo refuses, but he’s never stepped foot in America. He’s also already married. His papa is the type to be out for revenge for a broken contract if he thought he could get it. But he wouldn’t mess with you, playing games like this. He would have killed you already if that’s what he wanted.”

“That fills me with so much assurance.”

“I’m sorry, Sloane, I’m trying to tell it to you straight. If we knew more, he would already be dead.” His hand dusts up my arm, his touch everything.

“Distract me. If you’re allowed to.”

He wraps his arm back around me but doesn’t say anything.

“I can’t think about this anymore tonight, it’s making me feel sick. Take me someplace else, please, Reef,” I ask, when he doesn’t respond.

He brushes my hair over my shoulder so my neck is bare, his lips pressing into my skin softly. “I won’t let anything happen to you.” He rolls us so he’s on top of me, staring down at me.

The way he looks at me makes my heart backflip. Then his lips are on mine, and he kisses me with so much passion I feel it all the way through my body. His hands cup my cheeks as he devours me. Our connection is so different to the others. I feel so close to him already.

Tenderly he removes my camisole, sliding it up and over my head. Then his hands are everywhere, feeling over my tits, my stomach, then all the way down to my sleep shorts. He tugs them off quickly, desperate to get his hands on me.

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