Page 9 of Unleashed
“What? I’m serious, man. His wife is out there with the best friend she thought was dead and the man who orchestrated an action sequence like a fucking Jerry Bruckheimer movie, and here?—”
“He’s in love with her,” I mutter, cutting him off, and I swear to God, Caelian’s face contorts into this unnatural mix of shock and disbelief.
“That’s it. You’re getting that fucking lobotomy.”
“Don’t think for one second I don’t want to go over there and drag her ass back to me, because I do, with every fiber of my being. But Everly…fuck, man,” I rub the back of my neck, “she’s different. I know if I push too hard?—”
“You’ll push her away,” Alexius completes the sentence and gives me a knowing look.
“Yeah.” I sigh. “So maybe…maybe me being here is me giving her space.”
“Or maybe it’s you being in the middle of some mental episode,” Caelian quips.
“Or—” Nicoli meets my gaze. “It’s you delaying the inevitable.”
Man, those words hurt. Why? Because it’s true. Maybe me being here is less about me putting her needs first, and more about me putting my fears front and fucking center. Theideaof her never forgiving me is preferable to the reality of losing her for good.
God, it’s like beast-like claws just hacking away at my chest, ripping through flesh and bone, exposing a living, throbbing heart already hanging by a thin thread. It’s agony beyond comprehension. But it’smyagony. Agony I deserve.
“I need a cigarette.” I stand, and Caelian frowns, pointing at the ashtray.
“This ghastly thing ain’t for decoration, dumbass.”
“And time away from you,” I bite back as I stomp out, straight to the foyer and out the back.
The air outside is cooler than I remember. Not cold, but it bites just enough to remind me I’m alive.
I step onto the patio and drag the pack from my pocket, slipping a cigarette between my lips as I make my way toward the edge where the garden spills out like a memory.
I grew up in that patch of green. Used to race through those rose bushes like they were walls of a maze. Nicoli chased me once with a BB gun for stealing his knife. Caelian knocked me into the koi pond when I dared him to jump it. Alexius pulled me out, then tossed me back in after my incessant whining. Good times.
That’s what this garden is—roots, chaos, and echoes of a simpler kind of war.
I drop down on the top step, elbows on my knees, cigarette glowing between my fingers. My eyes trace the rows of trees beyond the roses, but all I see is her. Everly. That tiny crease between her brows when she’s thinking too hard. The softness of her laugh. The way she kisses like she means it—like she needs it. How she loves me so freely. Accepts my darkness and molds it into something that’s beautifully and undeniably hers.
It’s killing me not to go to her.
Everything in me is wired to protect her, to possess her, to hold on to her and never let go—even if she begs me to. It’s like I’m fighting against my own nature not to go to her, to beg her forgiveness, to plead for her to come back to me…and then take her when she doesn’t.
On that island, while I killed more people than I’d ever admit to out loud, every drop of my existence screamed and pulsed and oozed to get to her. I was a fucking beast, a man without conscience because his heart had been taken away. I had every intention of tearing through this entire fucking country to get to her and then lodge two bullets in Paladino’s skull—the second just to make double sure this time. Fuck, how I wished I’d killed him the first time. At least she’d forgiven me forthat.
But did she really?
“Fuck,” I mutter, placing the cigarette between my lips, inhaling deep.
“Your brother told me you were home.”
I glance over my shoulder at Leandra standing a few feet behind me. She’s in tailored slacks and a silk blouse tucked neatly at the waist, sleeves cuffed just so, with delicate gold hoops catching the light as she moves. Not a hair out of place, not a thread unintentional. Graceful, poised, and every bit the wife of Alexius Del Rossa—even in her calm, casual elegance, there’s power. But that’s the thing about Leandra—she doesn’t just survive chaos. She tames it.
“Did he also tell you I’m on the verge of completely losing my shit?” I take another drag, let the smoke burn its way down.
She walks over slowly, arms folded. “He said you were brooding. I told him you don’t brood—you plot.”
That earns a faint smirk from me, but it’s gone as fast as it came. “Not this time.”
Leandra sits beside me on the step, quiet for a moment as she stares out over the garden.
“I like seeing you here, Isaia,” she says softly. “It means you listened.”
