Page 66 of Taunt Me (Dark Odyssey 2)

“I’m coming with you and here’s why. I have my own offer for you.”

She stills. “What is it?”

“I’ll make the payment and you give me a month. One month with me to make you fall for me again and have the life we could have had. One month with me.”

“Gabriel you want to do the same thing everyone else has done to me. How could you?”

I shake my head. “I’m not doing that at all.”

“So if I say no you won’t help me?”

She really doesn’t get it at all, does she?

I cup her face. “That’s not how this goes doll. In both scenarios I help you. However, in the one where you give me a month. I live and he gets the chance to. No one worries about a blood war.”

Realization dawns on her pretty face. “What do you mean? I …”

“Charlotte, it’s a hard thing for me to allow a guy who abused my girl to live and think he can come back for more. So what I’m saying is if you don’t want me that’s fine, I will go and kill him and I’m pretty certain he’ll kill me too. What I won’t do isnothing.I will not sit here and do nothing. Not like last time.” I draw a breath. “You give me a month, a month of everything, and if at the end of the month you decide you want to go, you go. Live the vanilla and I’ll leave you to live it. I can’t change who I am, but I can do this. What is your answer? Will you give me thirty days?”

Her eyes hold mine in place and she takes a step toward me. “Yes.”

That yes gives me the strength I lack right now.

I lean forward and press my lips to her forehead.

I meant what I said, she’s mine.

Mine to protect and I’m going to make fucking sure that at the end of that thirty days she tells me ‘yes’ and stays with me.

I’m not letting her go this time and I won’t fucking allow anybody, psycho or otherwise, to take her from me.

Chapter Twenty

Gabe

At eight westep through a warehouse door into a large storage facility on the other side of the docks.

I’m with Charlotte. It’s just the two of us who walk in but I have backup,andI didn’t travel light.

Charlotte and I enter and my eyes land on the motherfucker Tobias ahead of us, sitting on a chair like it’s his throne.

He’s not sitting the way a king would though, he’s sitting with one leg hooked over the arm and the other dangling in front of him, lazy and carefree.

The smile on his face when he sees me is the kind you greet an old friend with, except he has a fucking feral look in his eyes.

I know we were being watched too. Same as Charlotte said earlier.

It’s taking everything in my power to keep from killing him right here and now for what he did to her.

But …

I know what that will do. I absolutely know what that will do. It would mean death to everybody. All my people. It’s possibly a worse threat than when Antonio dished his threats on me, just for how useful and valued Tobias is tohispeople. The Antonellas would wipe us out.

“Gabriel Giordano this is an epic moment indeed. Oh wow. I’ve been so excited all day to see you.” Tobias looks from me to Charlotte. Charlotte who looks away from him, instantly wary and afraid. I can’t imagine what she must have gone through with this sick fuck.

I don’t want to.

“Cut the shit, Tobias.” I raise the briefcase I’m carrying, showing it to him. “I have the money. One point five million. I want the tape.”

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