Page 125 of Devious Kingpin
My eyes darted around the room until they landed on Dante studying me with a clenched jaw and a frown. His muscles bulged as if fighting his instinct to prowl through the room and toward me.
Before he could do that, I lay back down and turned my back to him.
The nightmares were back.
* * *
The next morning, I woke up to an awful grinding noise.
Glancing at the clock, six a.m. stared back at me. I shifted on the bed, burying my head under my pillow. I needed to mute all these sounds so early in the morning.
Footsteps sounded against the floor. Firm. Heavy.Familiar.
“You’re awake.” Dante’s deep voice came from somewhere near.
“And you’re still here,” I grumbled. “What the fuck? It’s six in the morning.”
“The door’s getting fixed.”
I couldn’t believe the man stayed here all night. I slept restlessly without his heat around me, and each time I woke up, I couldn’t keep my eyes from darting toward the door. Dante was still there, in the same position. It was kind of eerie that he hadn’t moved.
But I didn’t offer to let him sleep in the bed with me. Instead, the letters he gave me lay next to me.
“I got you some coffee,” he added, his voice a warm timbre, clouding my senses. I ignored it. “It’s the way you like it.”
I groaned. I didn’t want him to be nice or thoughtful. He fucking drugged me. I wanted to murder him, not drink the coffee he bought me.
Rising into a sitting position, I begrudgingly took the offered coffee. A travel cup with a Starbucks sleeve around it so I wouldn’t burn my fingers.
“You went to Starbucks?” I questioned, narrowing my eyes on him. The two men struggled on the other end of the suite to set the door on its hinges. The accusation was clear. He left me alone with two strangers.
“No, I called them to bring it up here.”
“Oh.”
Okay, I couldn’t hold that against him. I took a sip of the coffee and my eyes fluttered shut. The liquid warmed my insides as it traveled down my throat. There was nothing like that first cup of coffee in the morning. And considering all the shit that happened, I’d take what I could get.
“Once they are done, you can go,” I told him, my fingers wrapped around the sleeve of my cup.
“No.”
My eyes snapped to him, locking with that dark gaze.
“It’s not your call to make,” I remarked coldly.
My chest felt like it was in a vise each time I thought about what he had done to me. He might have set me free, but he had also set me back.
Maybe that was the reason I kept fighting him at every turn for the past two years. My sixth sense warned me.
Only to end up here. I sighed heavily.
What he had done was too close to what I went through ten years ago. I fought a shiver that threatened to wrack my body. I refused to be that weak, vulnerable girl again. I was stronger now.
“You can be mad at me,” he stated calmly. “You have every right to be.” A soft snort left me.Nice to have his permission, I thought sarcastically. “But you’re my wife and I’m going to follow you around and keep you safe.”
My eyebrow rose. “Don’t you have work to do? A syndicate to run and all that.”
He ignored my tone and sarcasm. “I’ll handle everything remotely. And I have people that work for me. They’ll take care of any in-person stuff.”
