Page 110 of Born into Mayhem
I’d laugh at the look he gives me if I knew it wouldn’t hurt so bad to do it.
“Maybe I should always keep you in bed then,amore mio. It’s safer this way.”
“You wish,” I mutter, but he just grins and gives me a wink.
“I absolutely do. I love it when you’re naked and in bed, little viper.”
“I have a feeling it’s going to be a long time before I’m physically capable of doing all the things you’re thinking of right now.”
“You don’t need to do anything. All you need to do is rest and get better.”
“Sounds fun for you,” I say.
“It will be,” he says, and I have to hand it to him because I don’t hear even a drop of sarcasm in his voice. He brushes back a strand of my hair, letting his fingers linger on my face as he traces a line along my jaw and down my neck. “Don’t forget,amore, that your piercing shouldbe fully healed by the time we leave this hospital. You can lay in bed and rest, and I’ll be able to feast on that sweet pussy of yours like I’ve been dreaming about for weeks.”
“You make a really good nurse, Dario.”
He grins before kissing me. “I have many talents,amore.”
“Ah, there’s my cocky man,” I say, making him laugh.
“I’m glad you’re no longer fighting me on that. It broke my heart when you kept trying to push me away.”
“You wore me down,” I tell him.
He grins and kisses me again. “I’ll take you any way I can get you, sweetheart.”
Staying close to my bed, he sits with me until we hear a commotion in the hall. Loud, fast Italian filters through the thin walls, but when I hear the angry Russian, I squeeze Dario’s hand and say, “Brace yourself. He is pissed.”
Before he can respond, the door opens and my family comes rushing in, followed closely by an angry nurse and Alessandro, who’s desperately trying to make up for the furious Russian who just told her to go fuck herself in the hall.
“Mia,” my mom sobs, wrapping her arms around me while my dad rests his hand on my head and kisses my forehead.
“I’m okay, Mom. I promise,” I try to say, but she’s crying too hard to hear me.
“Little witch.” My dad’s voice cracks on the words as he strokes my hair. “We were so scared. We got here as soon as we could.”
Dario’s stepped aside to give them access to me, but he stays close, and when Nat and Dominic walk in, the room really starts to feel small. Dominic starts talking to his cousins in Italian while Nat gets in on the family hug. Sasha stands at the end of my bed and squeezes my foot.
“I’m okay,” I say again, trying to make them feel better. I’ve missed them like crazy, though, and I know how close I came to never seeing my family again.
“You’re not okay,” my dad says. Keeping his hand on my head, he stands up and looks down at me, and I’m incredibly grateful the long-sleeved gown is hiding the cut on my forearm. One of the nurses must’ve removed the stitches while I was out of it, but the red scar is impossible to miss. “You were hurt, seriously hurt,” he says, and then he stops. His entire body freezes when he notices the huge diamond I’m still wearing. When he looks up, meeting Dario’s eyes, I see the rage on my dad’s face, and I quickly grab his hand to stop him from lunging across the bed and killing the man I love.
“Dad, it’s okay,” I start to say, but he ignores me, looking instead from Dario to Sandro and then finally to Dominic.
“What the fuck is going on?” He growls the words, and I’ve never seen him so angry before.
“We had to make everything look believable here,” Dominic says. “She was posing as Dario’s wife.”
“You failed to mention that very important detail when I trusted you with my daughter.” The words are harsh, the tone hard, and this is all going exactly like I’d feared it would. One look to my mom, and she’s reaching over to grab my dad’s hand.
“Honey, it’s okay. Mia’s going to be okay, and you know they didn’t mean for any of this to happen,” she says.
His face softens when he looks at my mom, but I can tell he’s still pissed. “But it did happen,malinkaya.”
“Only because I jumped in front of a guy with a knife.” Gesturing to my stomach, I say, “This was all me, Dad.”
“Why would you do that?” he asks.
