Page 44 of Unleashed
“You chose here, Everly. You wanted to come here. Not for me. Sure as fuck not for the pizza.” The corners of her mouth curve upward. “You came here because of him.”
My chest tightens, breath stalling halfway, because she’s not wrong.
Molly rests her elbows on the table, her gaze pinning me like she can see straight through every wall I’ve tried to put up. “You came here because some part of you hopes he’d find you. Or that you’d find him.”
Tears blur my vision, the neon lights smearing into streaks of red and white. “Do you think I’m that pathetic? That after everything he’s done, I’d still want him to come crashing back into my life?”
“Pathetic?” She snorts softly. “No, babe. You’re a girl in love with a man who burns too hot for this world. You don’t just walk away from that and never look back. You don’t stop craving the fire just because you got scorched.”
“I don’t even know if I want to see him again. Half of me wants to run, and the other half…” My throat tightens. “The other half is already searching for him in every shadow.”
“Exactly.” Molly’s voice softens, but it doesn’t lose its edge. “You’re here because Chicago is his gravity, and you’re caught in the pull whether you want to admit it…or not.”
Molly’s words stick, and I can’t shake them. She’s right. I knew exactly what I was doing when I got on that bus. I knew Chicago wasn’t safe, not for me, not for the baby. Isaia’s city. Isaia’s family’s city. Every block, every shadow carries the risk of running straight into him—or worse, into the enemies that follow him like vultures.
And still…I came.
I tell myself it’s because I had nowhere else to go, because Molly’s the only one I could call. But deep down, I know that’s not the whole truth. I came here because part of me wanted the risk. Because part of me would rather stand in the middle of Isaia’s fire than keep drowning in silence.
It makes me reckless. It makes me weak. But it also makes me his. And suddenly, it’s like I feel him. Like he’s close. Like his gaze is warm breath against my cold skin, the back of my neck prickling with awareness.
I look out the window, into the darkness—wishing, hoping, longing for him to be there. The idea of him watching me—fuck—it thrills me in ways it definitely shouldn’t. This is not a game anymore, not with a baby involved.
But I can’t deny it. Wondering if he’s out there, somewhere among the beat-up cars and broken streetlights, it stirs me alive in a way only my husband can.
“Isaia…”
Chapter 14
ISAIA
She’s in Chicago.
Here. In my city. My streets. My air.
And instead of running to me, she’s sitting in some rundown diner like she doesn’t know what it does to me to see her. Like she doesn’t feel me watching.
It makes me want to put my fist through the glass, drag her out by the wrist, and remind her who the fuck she belongs to. It makes me want to bare my teeth at every person who so much as breathes in her direction.
The second I found out she’s in town, I lost my fucking mind. I tore through a bottle of bourbon, smashed a glass against the wall, ripped the goddamn curtains off my window because the thought of her breathing the same air as me and not being in my arms drove me insane.
I was ready to throw caution to the wind. To forget everything Nicoli said to me, every warning. All I wanted—all I still want—is to be by her side, between silk sheets, with my hand on her belly, whispering promises of how I’d be the best dad I can be toour child. The best husband to the only woman I’ve ever loved so deeply, it’s the color of my blood.
The only thing that stopped me was Nicoli’s voice still rattling in my skull.Better she hates you and lives than you hold her hand while someone lines up the shot.
I hated him for saying it, hated myself more for hearing it. Hated the fact that I can’t be with her. But I couldn’t stop myself from being close to her, at least. So I’m here. In the shadows. My nails digging into my palms, blood pooling in crescents where skin splits, because it takes everything I have not to rip those doors open and drag her home. Every word Nicoli said, every ounce of discipline my father has ever beaten into me, I’m clinging to it like it’s the only rope keeping me from drowning.
And still—it’s not enough.
Because I’m here anyway. Watching her. Breathing her. Starving for her.
My pulse hammers as I drink her in through the window, neon light painting her skin in flickers of red and white. She’s smaller than I remember, but sharper too. Like grief and fire carved her into something even more dangerous, even more beautiful. And all I can think is that she’s close enough to touch, close enough that I could step out of the shadows, cross the street, and have her pinned against that booth before she even gasps my name.
I clutch the vial I still wear around my neck when Molly walks in and rushes toward her. And I’m fucking hissing at the ache in the pit of my stomach as I watch Everly burst out in tears. Her pain rips me open. I see it in the way her shoulders curl, the way her hands tremble when she grabs at Molly like she’s drowning and finally found something solid to hold on to.
That should be me.
I should be the one holding her together when she falls apart. But I’m not. What if I’ll never be? What if she won’t ever let me touch her again? What if this—the shadows, the distance—is all I’ll ever have left?Fuck!This is all on me. Every ounce of her pain is my fault.
