Page 45 of Soulmate of the Mafia King
I laughed, pain searing through my lung. He was right to be scared of her. If she could take down Zahur, she could handle anyone.
“Well, I guess that depends,” I said. “Lyle, you got a new dirtbag for us?”
“Um, no,” he said. “I didn’t, you know, know for certain what I should be looking for.”
I blinked. “What? You thought we’d stop after Zahur?”
Lyle looked deliberately at my side.
Stan shrugged. “I didn’t know if we were doing this for Paige. I could see stopping now, if we were.”
My stomach churned. I’d trust these guys with my life, but for a dizzying second, I felt like they didn’t know me at all.
“This might have started for Paige,” I said slowly. “But I don’t know if I could go back to what I was before. Could you guys?”
“Nope,” Teddy said quickly.
Everybody turned to him.
“What?” he said. “Are you telling me you haven’t been changed by the shit we’ve seen? They’re not product; they’re people, and it makes me sick to think about what I used to handwave.”
I blinked. I’d known Teddy for a while now, but I’d never heard him make a speech that impassioned about anything other than the difference between C4 and TNT.
“Took the words right out my mouth,” Stan said after a moment. “I got back into the life because I thought the life needed me. With this work, I’m happy to admit I need it. Right a few wrongs.” He smiled. “Make a few new ones so the balance never settles.”
“I like that.” I grinned at my second.
“I’ll keep an eye.” Lyle typed something into his own laptop. “Once you’re off house arrest.”
I laughed until my chest ached, then shooed them out before Paige or Miranda could catch me out of bed.
CHAPTER 35
PAIGE
Itrudged up the stairs after a long day at the shelter, exhausted but pleased with the work. Cat had begun helping with dinner after weeks of refusing to come down during mealtimes at all. I’d take the progress. And Miranda had sworn to me on the way in that she’d stopped Tom from ever leaving the room. I pushed open the door quietly, trying to catch him out of bed if he was.
Tom sat, propped up with a few pillows, in the middle of our bed with the TV on. I smiled. “Did you survive your first day of bed rest?”
“Somehow.” He switched off the TV. “But it’s a lot better now that you’re here.”
I dropped my bag and headed for the bathroom. “I’m proud of you. I really thought you wouldn’t be able to?—”
On the tile floor sat a discarded suit. And not the one he’d been wearing when we got home yesterday. I turned slowly back to him.
“What?” he asked innocently.
I snagged the tie off the floor and held it up. He went pale.
“I’m sorry!” He held his hands up. “Do you have any idea how boring daytime TV is?”
“Way less boring than being dead!” I marched across the bedroom, tie still in hand. “How much work did you do?”
“Only a little, I swear!” His mouth tugged playfully up at the corners.
I struggled to hold onto my scowl. I wanted him safe, maybe above all else, but God, his hand-in-the-cookie-jar look was kissable.
Luckily, Tom saved me from having to humiliate myself by kissing me first. I pulled back like I hadn’t been craving the taste of his mouth.
