Kayne was normal.
He wasn’t a Caruso.
Or a Luciano.
Something that Dominic would never be.
Something that Maria would never be.
But, for one night … she could be. That was what got her out of the car and into his apartment.
Being a Caruso was a death sentence. Either it put you in the ground or it killed a part of your soul that no mansion or Louis V was worth the toll it took. It for fucking sure hadn’t been worth Leo’s eye.
“Here.” Kayne led an exhausted Maria carefully to his couch. “Sit down.”
Maria fell down on the couch, taking in his apartment. It was so small and homey, and it shocked her that she liked it as much as she did. The best thing about his place was the shivers that she had been suffering from for the last week were gone … it felt like she’d finally started to warm. Not even a cold Maria had been a match for a freezing hospital room.
Lifting her legs to the couch, she curled like a warm kitten on the ugly material, sinking into the thick padding. “I like your home.”
“I’m afraid it doesn’t compare to yours,” he said, taking a seat beside her.
“Big houses can trick you into thinking they are a home when they’re not.”
Throwing an arm over the back of the couch, he got comfortable. “Well, you have to like a couple of things about it.”
“Yeah, my closet,” she answered honestly about her favorite part of the museum she lived in. “And Leo, but he isn’t there right now.”
“How’s he doing?” Kayne’s tone became so serious that she could almost feel his own anger.
“Not good.” Her beautiful baby brother had been touched by the ugliness of their family business. “But he will live.”
With a price.
The hand that was on the back of the couch came down to sweetly sweep her hair behind her ear. “Is there anything I can do?”
“Yeah …” Maria bore her emerald eyes into his gold ones at his tender touch. They had only stolen kisses here and there and held hands out in public, but now she needed more. “Hold me.”
In answer, he lifted her onto his lap with his big arms.
She snuggled in, trying to get closer, as if she could crawl inside him and live there until she died. “I don’t think I’ve ever been so cold.”
Kayne smiled. “You told me last week you don’t get cold.”
“Well, I was wrong.”
“It’s going to be okay,” he tried to soothe her, letting his fingertips lightly stroke the hand she had placed on his chest.
Maria liked the feeling of being in his arms and the way his heart beat in her hands. She tried to let herself creep inside the hole she’d been digging in him and did so deeper, making a place just for her. His fresh scent only drew her deeper.
“Maria …” Kayne twirled a finger over her soft hand, drawing out his next words. “There is something I need to tell—”
The sudden ping of her cell phone had them both freezing.
Maria fished her cell phone out of the coat that she was still wearing, looking at the text from Lucca.
Come home. We need to talk.
“Is something wrong?” Kayne asked.
“You mean something else?” She held the button that shut off her phone. “No, it’s just Lucca wanting me to come home and talk. We’ve hardly spoken since the accident, and when he wanted to send me home with Nero, I told him no. He’s probably regretting that he let me leave and wants to tell me which bodyguard he’s going to replace Jerry with.” Maria gave a harsh laugh. “Poor sucker won’t live a month. I’m batting two for two. Both of my bodyguards have been killed in the span of no time.” On their date, when she had left Jerry at the bottom of the elevator in the skyscraper hotel, she had confessed that he wasn’t her cousin after Kayne’s constant questions.
He narrowed his eyes. “It was your bodyguard that had been killed? Maria, listen to me—”
Placing her hand over his mouth, she stopped him from voicing his concern. “I’m safe. At least I am right this minute, and that’s all that counts. I just don’t want to get into another fight with Lucca or my father when they tell me I won’t be leaving the house until One-Shot is found.”
“One-Shot?” His body tensed at hearing the name.
Her pain and being so comfortable with them had the words slipping out. “The person who’s trying to kill us, one Caruso and Luciano at a time.”
Kayne’s face turned tortured. “Maria ….”
She would be the one tortured if Lucca found out that she was spilling family secrets. Dominic would be right in line behind him.
“Please …,” she begged, shushing him and tiredly laying her head on his chest. “I can’t deal with anything else right now.”
“You don’t know what you’re asking, Maria.”
She raised her face from his chest to look at him. “Can I ask you a question?”
“Yes,” he said huskily.
“Do you see us having a future together? Like a normal couple?”
“Nothing about you is normal, Maria Caruso,” he admitted to her softly.
“I could be.” Exasperated, she dropped her head back to his chest, trying to get herself to believe her words.
Kayne lifted her chin with his fingers until she was forced to look at him. “Then you wouldn’t be you.”
About to get off his lap, she had yet to hear the words she wanted to hear. Kayne kept her in place, though, not letting her leave.
“That doesn’t mean I couldn’t see us having a future together. I can see one for us too damn easily; that’s the problem.”
Now that was.
She relaxed back into him with a smile. “I can help you grade papers, decorate your house ….”
He laughed. “What’s wrong with my house?”
“We’ll discuss that another night.” Trying to sweet talk him into telling her that he was falling in love with her when she was half-asleep might not be the brightest idea. “Never mind. It’s very … cozy. And did I mention warm?” She kept her smile, still snuggling against him.
Kayne went back to stroking her hand. “Maria, you’re going to be a lot of work, aren’t you?”
“Yes.” She yawned sleepily, not feeling bad for him and his future one bit. “Now, be quiet. I want to pretend for the rest of the night, just for one night, that my last name isn’t Caruso. Can you do that for me?”
“Can I pretend to be someone else, too?” His whisper could only be heard as the pouring rain suddenly ceased.
“Yes.” She started to drift off. “Who do you want to be?”
“Me. Just me.”
Lifting her into his arms, Kayne carried her to his bedroom. Setting her on her feet, he took off her coat and her shoes, placing them to the side. Then he turned down his bed before lifting her to lay her down on the soft mattress.
Joining her on the bed, he covered them both, wrapping them up in warmth and the façade that they could stay forever like this.
Instead of kissing her like she expected him to do, to send their pretend perfect world into another dimension, he used an arm to hook around her neck, placing her beautiful head back on his shoulder. Quietly, they lay next to each other, motionless, their breathing slowing, the emotional turmoil of the last week easing so that she actually got a full breath that wasn’t filled with sorrow about Leo.
Maria had expected him to kiss her.
He didn’t.
She had expected him to seduce her.
He didn’t.
As night fell, she wanted to stay awake, but her body and mind wouldn’t let her. She wanted to make love with him, like she had in her dream, but with a better ending this time—her satisfied and without Dominic cutting in.
Tonight, it was just about them and new beginnings. A new beginning that she didn’t give a damn about what Lucca or Dominic thought about her relationship with Kayne. She was going to create a new world just for them, and neither Lucca
nor Dominic would be allowed inside.
“This is nice,” she mumbled, rolling to her other side to give him her back so he could hold her tightly from behind. She was downright toasty and started falling asleep; it felt so fucking good. Promising herself she would be here like this every night, it was worth every Christian Louboutin shoe she had. Hell, it was worth giving up her walk-in closet.
Kayne twirled a lock of her hair around his broken pinky. “Tell me something you’ve never told anyone else.”
Maria thought for several moments, listening to the proud heartbeat behind her head. Lowering her voice to a mere whisper, she said something she had never thought she would say. “I’m going to tell you something I’ve never told another soul on this earth ….”
Kayne quit twirling his pinky, waiting for her biggest secret.
“I have a heart.”
“Maria, I already knew that,” Kayne told her with a smile.
“I didn’t.” Her black heart ached. “Not until Leo almost died.”
Kissing the top of her head, he held her tighter. “Go to sleep.”
That was when she felt it—the butterflies fluttering in her stomach. Finally, something than just a heartbeat had happened around him, assuring her that she had made the right choice to get in his car.
Liking the feeling of lying next to Kayne, other than they would need to get a king-sized bed with how big he was, she kept herself awake just for a moment longer, fighting the urge to sleep because, once she did, she was afraid she just might wake up and the butterflies would stop, and then this might all be over ….
“Maria, I’m going out for a jog. I’ll be right back. I’ll bring you some breakfast when I come back,” a soft voice whispered into her ear sometime before the morning light.
Groggily, she opened one eye. “It’s still dark outside.”
“If I don’t get my run in, I’m too tired to do it after work.”
She didn’t answer, her mushy brain already trying to fall back asleep.
“I love you, Maria Caruso.”
Did she imagine the kiss on her lips or the words her ears had heard as he left?
She would ask when he came back ….
Twenty-Two
Kayne
Feeling the early morning sunlight warm her skin, a smile touched the curve of her lips as she envisioned the man she had fallen asleep next to and whose face hadn’t left her, even in her dreams.
Maria gently opened her eyes, ready to look upon him once more. However, she was only met with an empty bed. Reaching her tanned hand out, she touched the spot he had lain in when her eyes had closed hours ago. It wasn’t even warm, making her wonder if it had all been a dream after all. The only proof she had that he had been there were her memories and the indention of the bed beside her.
He left me … without saying goodbye?
She sleepily searched for her phone before finding it and hitting the name of the man who had brought butterflies to her impervious stomach at thoughts of the night before. Maria put her phone to her ear, hearing the white noise before the tone of the ringing assailed her eardrum.
bRRing …
The butterflies that had been floating in her belly seemed to stop fluttering, beginning to sink.
bRRing …
She sat up on the side of the bed. Something didn’t feel right as those butterflies slowly sunk to the pit of her stomach, which had seemingly become softer overnight.
bRRing …
Maria clutched her phone tighter while she held it feverishly to her ear.
bRRi—
At the answering of the phone, the pit of her stomach cleared and her irrational fears vanished. She waited for his voice to grace her ears. However, it wasn’t a single male voice she heard yelling. It was two. One belonged to Kayne Evans and the other to Dominic Luciano; both voices clearly distinguishable—
BANG!
As she abruptly stood up from bed, the phone wasn’t the only thing she clutched; it was her black heart she held, trying to keep it from hitting the ground, unlike the phone on the other end of the call. She heard it smash the ground.
She shakily held the phone to her ear, hearing the final sounds of death that departed from her ear and from this earth. In her other hand, she held her chest so tightly that her manicured nails dug into her smooth flesh.
When raindrops began hitting the window, where light had been shining through only moments ago, it were as if the gates to heaven had opened, welcoming home the heaven-bound soul who’d just been taken.
Going into shock, her mouth open, but no words dared to pass her lips while she stared out at the ominously pouring rain.
After several eternal-like moments, she finally heard movement on the other end of the line. It was the quiet whisper of breath she heard, telling her someone was there, alive … listening.
“Hello …?” She found her voice that was now as unsteady as the knees that held her up and the clouds in the sky.
The breath on the other end of the line echoed louder and louder until the rain and every other sound dropped away, silence magnified like the ringing that had stormed her eardrum when she had first placed the call.
Her heart pounded to the rhythm of the roaring heavens above as she gravely waited to hear the voice of the man who had lived, knowing that the next voice she wouldn’t hear would be the one that she would never, ever hear again. The wretched part was that both men had crept into her dark heart over these past few months, and it hadn’t been until last night when she’d been able to choose which one she desperately wanted to hear next.
Kayne.
Maria opened her mouth to speak the name of the man she was beginning to fall in love with, but before she could form the name, a solemn voice stopped her, making her fall to her knees, along with her shattered heart.
Any butterflies left in her stomach turned to ash, and the dusty remnants floated down to the abyss.
Death had decided her destiny.
Coming Soon
Picking up the shattered phone that had fallen to the ground, he heard her unsteady “Hello…?”
He gripped the phone with blood-soaked hands that even the rain wouldn’t be able to wash away. Staring at the dead body before him, he breathed heavily, trying to catch his breath after their confrontation. He knew what it would do to her when she heard the sole voice coming through the line.
But Dominic did it anyway ….
“Hello, Maria.”
The Sweetest Death
I couldn't think of a better death
Than to be licked
Alive
By you.
Sarah Brianne
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YOU ARE NOT ALONE.
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Maria (Made Men Book 7) Page 14