Page 91 of Can't Stop Watching
"Yeah, I did." I continue stroking Lila's hair, finding the rhythm soothing. "Well… she was four years older than me. The golden child to my black sheep. In dad's eyes, anyway."
The words come easier than I expected, like blood from a wound that needs draining. It turns out that, with Lila, I don't mind post-sex talk either. Something about the weight of her against me makes the words easier to find, like she's grounding me to a reality I usually avoid.
"Juliet..." My voice falters, and I clear my throat. "She got lost in the glitz of it all—the drugs, the endless parties, the 'right now' that never becomes tomorrow. Cocaine was her poison of choice. She'd disappear for weeks, then show up at my door looking like death warmed over." I stare at the ceiling, focusing on a small crack so I don't have to focus on the memories. "She married this Carvetti thug, real piece of work. Angelo. Had mob connections that made my father's look like amateur hour. I wanted to put him in the ground myself. Still do, even though he's rotting in Rikers where he belongs."
I take a breath, steadying myself against the tide of rage that still rises whenever I think about that bastard. Despite myself, the ceiling above us becomes a movie screen for memories I usually keep locked down tight.
"She tried rehab, over and over. Three different facilities. Seven attempts total. But it never stuck. The life always pulled her back." I swallow hard, the familiar knot of failure tightening in my throat. "She'd get clean, start putting herself back together. Then Angelo would show up, or one of her party friends, and..." I make a gesture like something vanishing. "Back to square one. Last time she got out, she seemed better. Called me every day for two weeks. Then nothing."
My voice drops to a near-whisper. "She overdosed two years ago. Left a note saying she was tired. Just... tired." The word hangs there, simple and devastating in its finality. I can still see her handwriting, the slight slope to the right, the way the pen had pressed harder into certain words. Evidence I couldn't look away from.
Lila's hand rests over my heart, warm and steady through the storm of memory. Her touch anchors me to the present when the past threatens to drag me under.
"I'm sorry," she says softly.
"Don't be. She made her choices." The words sound harsh even to me, but they're armor I've worn so long they've fused to my skin.
"You loved her anyway."
Damn this woman and her ability to see through walls. "Yeah. I did."
I've told women about Juliet before, clinical facts delivered like a police report. But never like this, never leaving me... exposed. Like Lila's watching me perform open-heart surgery on myself.
It's fucking terrifying, and somehow necessary. Sex with Lila isn't just physical release. It's catharsis. She's excavating parts of me I bricked up years ago, letting light into places I kept dark for survival.
I've spent a lifetime patching wounds with oblivion: alcohol, violence, work. But Lila's touch feels like actual healing, not just numbing. And that scares me more than any firefight I've ever been in.
Because… because this tastes a lot like love.
29
DANE
Iwake up feeling something I haven't felt in years, maybe ever. Contentment. Like I'm not carrying the weight of other people's sins on my back for once.
The sheets beside me are empty but still warm. Lila's scent lingers—that mix of lavender and something uniquely her that I can't get enough of. On her pillow, a folded note in neat handwriting:
Gotta meet Tessa at 8. Didn't want to wake you. Last night was...incredible doesn't cover it. Call me later? - L
I run my thumb over the ink, picturing her writing this, maybe watching me sleep before she left. The thought should disturb me—vulnerability while unconscious is something I've spent years training against—but with her, it doesn't.
Stretching my arms over my head, I inventory the marks she left—small crescents from her nails on my shoulders, a bite on my collarbone. Battle scars worth having.
For the first time in forever, I slept through the night. No jerking awake at 3AM with my hand reaching for the gun undermy pillow. No dreams of desert sand packed with blood or Gianna's pleading face.
Just... peace.
Paradoxically, that scares the shit out of me.
Men like me don't get fairy tale endings. We don't get the girl. We're the wolves in the forest, not the princes in the castle. The universe doesn't work that way.
I head to the shower, letting the scalding water pound my shoulders while I think about Lila handcuffed in my doorway, completely surrendered to me. The trust in those green eyes. Christ.
What kind of person keeps surveillance equipment in the apartment of a woman he's falling for? The same kind whose father helped bury bodies for the Carvetti family, that's who.
I step out of the shower and catch my reflection in the fogged mirror. The wolf tattoo on my ribs seems to mock me.
Does Lila understand what she's gotten herself into? Do I even understand what I'm doing with her?
