Page 43 of Unleashed
“I’m afraid not even the Bible can prepare you for loving a Del Rossa brother.”
I snicker, wiping away some lingering tears.
“Have you heard from him?”
I shake my head and swallow.
“You called him, though, right?”
“I tried to…once. Before I knew I was pregnant.” My finger finally tears through the white paper napkin. “Anthony talked me out of it. Said Isaia would drag me back, that he’d never let me go. I was raw, terrified, and I listened.” My voice dips. “Isaia never called either. I don’t know what to think.”
“Do you want to see him?”
“He’s the father of my child. I suppose I have to.”
Molly leans on the table, her eyes soft but sharp in that way only she can pull off. “I asked, do youwantto see him? Forget about the pregnancy. What do you want, right now, this very moment?”
A hollow laugh slips out, then fades as longing throbs through me at the thought of being with him—seeing him, feeling him. I lick my lips, allowing my mind to run wild with the idea. “I want him to storm through those doors,” I murmur, hating the way it cuts. “I want him to look at me like I’m the only fucking thing keeping him alive. I want him to wrap me up so tight I forget what it feels like to be scared, what it feels like to be without him. I want Isaia.” My voice cracks. “I love him so much, it hurts, Molly.”
I shake my head, swiping at tears. “God, what a cliché, right? You hear that line in movies, read it in books, but I never understood it until now. It actually hurts. In my chest, in my bones, like a bruise that never fades. I can’t breathe sometimes, because the love is too heavy to carry.”
Molly reaches across the table, her fingers slipping over mine. She doesn’t flinch at the mess I am, doesn’t look away. “That’snot cliché, Everly. That’s your truth. And it’s ugly and beautiful all at once.”
Tears burn my eyes. “It feels like I’m bleeding for him, and the worst part is—I’d keep bleeding if it meant I could still have him.”
“At least you’re not lying to yourself about it. You love him. You hurt for him. That’s real.”
“And so are his lies.” The words taste bitter. “His deception is real, too. He let me believe my best friend was dead. He let me cry for Anthony. Allowed me to mourn him while knowing he’s still alive. What kind of man does that?”
“A Del Rossa.” Molly doesn’t even blink. “Rules don’t apply to them. Whole damn world could be on fire, and they’d still make up their own.”
I let out a hollow laugh, bitter at the edges. “I thought…with me, he’d be different. That he could love me enough to change and leave this world behind because he knows how much I hate it.” I shrug, shoot her a half-hearted smile. “Guess I’m not done with the clichés.”
Molly tilts her head, eyes sharp in that way that always makes me feel like she sees more than I want her to. “If he changed…would he still be the man you fell in love with?”
The question cleaves through me, and I know the answer before she even finishes asking. I fell for Isaia’s chaos. For the obsession that made me feel like the only woman alive. For the darkness he didn’t bother to hide, the hunger that didn’t play by anyone’s rules but his own. I fell for the way he looked at me like I was air, like he’d die without another breath if it didn’t come from mylungs. For the way his hands on my body felt like both a warning and a promise—cage and anchor, restraint and surrender.
I fell for the danger in him, the violence simmering under his skin, because it meant I was the only one who could soften it. I fell for his love because it wasn’t safe or neat or polite—it was fire, wild and reckless, scorching everything in its path. And I let it scorch me. I wanted it to. Because no one else ever made me believe I could be someone’s whole world.
That’s Isaia. My undoing and my shelter. My monster and my salvation.
“I don’t know anything anymore. I’m afraid I no longer know the difference between right and wrong.”
Molly leans back, crosses her arms, and justlooksat me. “Okay, then, riddle me this. If you’re so unsure, so torn up about it…why the hell are you here?”
My brows pinch. “What do you mean?”
She gestures around us—the diner, the clatter of plates, the hum of life. “Chicago. His city. His family’s city. You could’ve gone anywhere.Anywhere.And you land here?”
“I came here because of you.”
“I’m flattered. Really, I am. But that’s bullshit.”
“I don’t?—”
“You knew the odds of running into him here were great. Or at least one of his brothers, a Del Rossa wife, maybe.”
I swallow hard, heat prickling behind my eyes. “I didn’t… I just—I had nowhere else to go.”
