Page 141 of Fall into Savagery

I nodded. “Yeah, why do you ask?”

She shrugged. “You were a little quiet during dinner.”

I raised one eyebrow at that. “I’m always quiet,kotyonok.”

She smiled and leaned closer to me, taking my lips in a quick kiss. I held still.

Catalina was shy.

Much more so than any of the women I had been with before. There was always something about her that made me feel very protective. Not just because I loved her, but this shyness …

Fuck me, but her shyness got to me worse than I cared to admit.

So it was always a nice surprise whenever she initiated anything with me.

I opened my eyes and took her in when she pulled away.

“What do you think about me calling my … my dad?”

“Francisco?” I asked, trying not to show any reaction to that.

She nodded. “I have been thinking about it for a while now. I want to get to know him. And what’s more, I want Roberto to be in my life. Do you think that makes me naïve?”

I frowned. “Why, baby?”

She shrugged. “Because I want so badly to believe that he’s different from Agnello. That when he said he loves me, he was telling me the truth.”

I tucked a strand of her long brown hair behind her ear. “I don’t think that makes you naïve. If it makes you feel any better, I think he’s different.”

She smiled and relaxed further into me. “It does. Thank you.”

“Not something you need to thank me for,kotyonok.”

She looked at my chest, her fingers playing with the collar of my shirt and messing with my mind.

“I know,” she said softly.

I didn’t say anything for a moment, letting my eyes take in every single one of her delicate features. “We’re down to the last of Agnello’s operation,” I said.

I felt her finger pause. “Oh?”

“We haven’t done anything with it because we want to give you a choice.”

“A choice? On what?”

I noticed movement from the doorway, but ignored that. “On whether or not you want to be the one to burn it down.”

“Where is it?” she asked, though I knew from her voice that she had already guessed.

“The house you lived in for nine years in Arizona.”

She blinked. “Go back there. To that hellhole?”

I shook my head. “Go back there, with your head held high, knowing you have the protection of three vicious monsters who would kill for you.”

She took a deep breath. I wished I could read her thoughts to know exactly what she was feeling. “What if I can’t do it? What if I can’t burn it down?”

“Sure you can,” Nikolay said from the opened doorway.

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