“That won’t matter as much as you telling us and the jury your experience, painting the picture. Both that night and the other night when you served drinks.”
“And what about her safety?” I asked. “Wouldn’t this be putting a target on her back?”
“You’ll be staying at the residence where I picked you up?” Maxx asked.
She turned to me and I answered. “Yes.”
“I’ll have two men stationed outside,” he said.
“Do I have to testify?” she asked Lewis.
“They can always subpoena you, but I hope they wouldn’t, considering your safety is in question.” That last part was said to Maxx.
“I wouldn’t want to subpoena you if I didn’t have to,” Maxx said. “You have means to get out of the country, a home to go to. I’d prefer a cooperative and willing witness rather than a flight risk.”
“Are you threatening my client?”
“What if…can I go back to Italy? I’d like to see my sister,” Lina asked. “If I agree, I mean.”
“Lina, you’re not testifying,” I said.
Maxx ignored me. “You’re not under arrest. And if you’re a cooperating witness, I don’t see why not, although protection there is out of my control.”
“She doesn’t need your protection,” I rebuked.
“With all due respect, one man may not be enough for the Markov army,” Maxx said.
That night flashed before my eyes. “With all due respect, where the fuck were you and your men when Markov ordered her gang raped?” I asked through clenched teeth, remembering the intensity and the emotions of that night, the physical strength that had come from it.
The attorney cleared his throat as Maxx and I stared each other down.
“I’m sure you both mean well,” Lewis said.
Maxx took in a deep breath and leaned back in his seat, blinking.
“My brother and I have resources. I’ll keep her safe.”
“Ms. Guardia, I’d like you to consider testifying. Think it over. Decide for yourself. You can put these people away or let them free to hurt others.”
“Isn’t that your job?” I asked him, standing. “Let’s go.”
Maxx sucked in a heavy breath.
“Lina, let’s go.”
Lewis and Lina rose. I took Lina’s hand as we walked out of the office and straight out of the building.
23
Lina
Damon openly held my hand as we walked out of the FBI office. Mr. Lewis drove us back to Damon’s apartment, where we unloaded what few possessions I owned.
“Want to get something to eat?” Damon asked.
“Sure.” Although I didn’t feel hungry. I felt…uncertain. “Damon?” I asked as he reached the door.
“Yes?”
“I think we should talk.”
He hesitated, but then nodded once and walked back into the room. “What do you want to talk about?”
“That night.”
“I already told you, I’m not sorry about it. If you think I feel guilty or something—”
“A man died.”
I watched his throat work as he swallowed.
“Do you think I don’t know that?”
I went to him, took his hand, and lifted it a little, so I could touch the bandage. “Will they put a hard cast on it?”
“The doctor didn’t think it would be necessary. It’s a hairline fracture.”
I let his hand go and looked at him. “Your bones are too stubborn to break.”
He made a sound with his exhale but didn’t say anything else.
“Damon, do you want to talk about it? I mean, I know you were angry with me, and today I could see your anger at Maxx—”
“He knew all along what Alexi planned to do with you, and he went along with it, Lina. He was willing to have you become collateral damage.”
“I don’t know his intentions or what he thought, and honestly, I don’t care. We’re safe. Alexi’s behind bars.”
“And now the FBI wants you to testify against him and a slew of Russian mobsters.”
“Maybe I should. I can’t be afraid of them, and if I can help put them away, shouldn’t I do it?” I paused, glancing away, remembering. “You weren’t there for the other party, Damon. You didn’t see what they did.”
“I don’t care about any of them. I care about you. You’ve been through too much already, and I don’t want to see you get hurt any more than you already have been.”
“I won’t. You’ll keep me safe.”
He wrapped his good hand around the back of my head and drew me into his chest, his lips coming to the top of my head.
“I came too close to losing you. I can’t let that happen again.”
I wrapped my arms around his waist, gripping his shoulders from behind. “You won’t. I won’t walk away. I won’t let anyone drag me away.” I stepped back a bit. “If either one of us leaves, it’ll be you, Damon.”
“What?”
I pulled back further and bit my lip, my gaze shifting from one of Damon’s eyes to the other, emotion swelling inside my belly to look at him like this. To openly look at him like this and not have to conceal my feelings.
“I’m not going anywhere, Lina.”
“What about in six months? The church will expect you back. We had Florida, and now we’ll have six months?”
“I’m not going back. I told Father Leonard this morning.”
He let me go and scratched his head before moving to the couch and sitting down. I followed him. Instead of sitting beside him, though, I knelt on the floor before him, my hands on his thighs, looking up at him. He touched my cheek then cupped the back of my head. I remembered what had happened downstairs. In the church. Before the altar.
“I talked to you about my doubts. I’ve talked to Father Leonard, to my dean at seminary. It just never occurred to me to turn that doubt around, spin it on its head, and look at it from the outside in.”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean, I have no doubt about you. I’m one-hundred percent clear about you.”
But that wasn’t enough. “You told me once you loved me but that you had to go. You chose to let me go, Damon.”
“I chose wrong. I am devoted to you, Lina.”
I stood on my knees, and he leaned down to kiss me, wrapping an arm around my middle and lifting me so I straddled his legs. He looked up at me, keeping his gaze locked on mine as the fingers of his one hand trailed up along the inside of one thigh up to the lacy panties he’d bought me. There, he flicked my swelling clit, making me catch my breath. He grinned and hooked a finger into the crotch of my panties to push them aside as he raised the front of my skirt with his other hand so that I stood with my crotch at eye level, my sex exposed to him.
“I like your smell.” He leaned in to inhale deeply. “And I like your taste,” he added.
His tongue flicked out and licked the length of me as I gripped his shoulders.
“And you’re right, these clothes are horrible.”
He pushed me backward so that I stood. He rose up off the couch, tugged the sweater over my head, and shoved my skirt to the floor. I stood in panties and bra before him. He looked me over, tucking the lace cups of the bra beneath my breasts as he kissed me, pinching my nipples until I moaned against him.
He drew back and gave me a grin.
“Take my cock out, Lina.”
He pushed me down on my knees. I undid his jeans and shoved them and his briefs down, taking out his cock.
“Get on all fours, and lick it. Get it ready to fuck your tight little cunt.”
I did. Damon sat back down on the edge of the couch. I got down on all fours and sucked him, his cock thick and hard and making me want.
He let out a moan and gripped my hair, moving me over his length.
“You like me telling you to suck me off, don’t you?”
I gave him a grin, taking him deeper.
“You like me telling you to get on
all fours?”
I nodded as he dragged me off him and raised me up so I straddled him again. He took one nipple into his mouth, sucked it hard, drew it out, bit it a little. When he released that one, he did the same with the other as his fingers worked to drag the crotch of my panties aside. He then gripped my hips and held my gaze as he sheathed himself inside me.
“This feels…so good,” I said, closing my eyes, savoring that sensation of being stretched, filled up by him. He began to move me, leaning back against the sofa, one hand wrapped around the back of my head as he kissed me long and slow, tongue tasting tongue, lips upon lips. My belly fluttered, and my heart skipped a beat. As much as I loved this closeness, this joining of our bodies in every possible way, I had to take care of something.
“Condom,” I said, not fully breaking our kiss.
He groaned, stilling inside me as he reached down into his pocket and withdrew his wallet. He took the condom out and unwrapped it. I slid off and watched as he rolled it over his cock. He looked at me for a moment, a question in his eyes, but I impaled myself on him and closed my mouth over his mouth, and we made love. Straddling his lap, his cock deep inside me, we made slow love.
My nipples rubbed against the fabric of his shirt, my clit against his belly, the rough hair there, and he held me tighter, one hand around my waist, snaking up to my shoulder to press me deeper onto him, his mouth sealed over mine, not kissing, but together, tongue’s touching, breath mingling, sighs growing heavier as he lifted me up and lay me on the carpet, never pulling out of me. He kept his face an inch from mine, and I watched his eyes, his blue, blue eyes as they shone and darkened, the pupils dilated, thrusts equally measured, deep and hard until he buried himself inside me, and I felt the first pulsing of his cock. His eyes closed for a moment. And when he opened them again and I watched him come, I came too. I came slow and long, and he stayed inside me long after we’d spent our energy. He just looked at me and I at him.
I missed him the instant he slid out of me, knelt to relieve himself of the condom. Something flashed across his face then. That question remembered. He stood and pulled up his jeans. I sat up, adjusting my bra and panties.
“I came inside you before.”
He had. When I’d told him I needed him close. That I didn’t want a condom that day he’d punished me. The day he’d told me he loved me just before he’d walked out.
“You told me you’re clean, but I never thought to ask… Lina, are you protected?”
When I didn’t speak, he took my silence for my response.
“Shit.” He sat back on the couch and ran a hand through his hair. “I just assumed when you said no condom—”
I went to him and sat beside him, making him look at me. “It’s okay, Damon. It was one time. It’s fine.”
His face hardened. “It only takes one time,” he snapped.
I leaned away, surprised at his tone, so opposite the tenderness of moments ago. Like he’d just erected a barricade between us. A fucking brick wall. And it hurt.
“Where are you in your cycle?”
“I needed you close. I knew you were leaving—”
“Lina, where are you in your cycle?”
I shook my head, looking away, counting. “I’m due any day.”
“Fuck.”
He rose to his feet and grabbed my wrist roughly, making me stand with him.
“Get dressed. We’re going to get a test.”
“What? Now?”
“Get dressed!”
“Fine!” I stomped toward the bed where my bags lay and rummaged through one to find a sweater, a pair of jeans, and some boots. I also grabbed a jacket and faced him. “Let’s go get that test!” I didn’t even look at myself in the mirror. I probably looked like I’d just been fucked. I pulled the door open and stepped out onto the landing, but he caught my arm. I turned to face him. “What? You’re in a rush, so let’s go!”
“Lina.”
He dragged me back inside and closed the door, pushed me against it, and planted his hands on either side of my face so he boxed me in.
“I just wasn’t expecting—”
“Don’t worry, I wasn’t trying to get pregnant with your baby.” I shoved against him. “Let me go.”
“Stop.”
I placed both hands on his chest and shoved. “Let me go!”
“I didn’t mean you’d try to get pregnant. Didn’t mean you’d trick me.”
“That’s what it sounds like.” I glared at him, hating this, wanting to cry and scream and rage all at once. I wanted this, him, so fucking badly. Why couldn’t I just have it? Just this one thing for me? One fucking thing.
You stole him. He wasn’t meant to be yours.
My shoulders slumped, and I wrapped my arms around myself. “I wouldn’t do that to you. I just needed to be close to you. It was going to be the last time.”
He exhaled and leaned away, then touched my face, lifting it so I looked at him. He kissed me, first my cheek, then my mouth.
“I want to do this right with you. I was surprised, that’s all. I’m sorry.”
I nodded, and he leaned in again, elbows caging me in now as he grinned a wicked grin.
“I liked coming inside you. I liked feeling you on me. Bare. Just you, nothing between us. I want it again. I want you again, like that. But we have to do it right.”
I studied his face, unable to drag my eyes from his. He kissed me again, this one more sensual, lips tender.
“I will never get enough of you,” he said.
“I will never get enough of you.”
24
Damon
Negative.
I breathed a sigh of relief, but there was something else too. Something like…possibility. I’d never thought about having children. I wasn’t thinking about it now, but it was something that could happen for us now. A reality.
Taking Lina in my arms, I held her, looking at her. “You make things possible,” I said.
“Huh?”
“Nothing.” I kissed her. “I never thought about having babies, a family of my own, that’s all.”
She smiled. Her stomach growled. Her cheeks flushed red. “You had mentioned food earlier?”
“Let’s go. There’s a really good sandwich shop around the corner.”
We walked hand in hand to the shop and took a seat at a booth after ordering at the counter. Lina ordered an avocado BLT, and I, feeling suddenly ravenous, ordered a spicy salami and roasted vegetable sandwich with a large order of fries to share. The food came pretty quickly, and we started eating.
“Your birthday’s coming up, isn’t it?” I asked, remembering.
She nodded and gave me a big smile.
“In two weeks, I’ll be legal. For real.”
“How do you want to celebrate?”
She shrugged a shoulder, picked up a fry, and dipped it in mustard. “Depends.” She looked up at me. “I want to go home.”
“Home?”
“Italy, I guess, is home. I don’t have another one. I miss Sofia and Charlie and believe it or not, even Raphael.”
I laughed outright. “I’m pretty sure he’d get a chuckle out of that.”
“He’s a good guy. When you get to know him.”
“He is.”
“So yeah, if I can, I want to celebrate at home.”
She chewed a bite of her sandwich and studied me. I knew she had questions, and I waited for her to ask.
“What about you? What do you want?”
“I want to put this behind us and go back home too. Start over. Every time I think about it, about you, it feels right. I haven’t felt this way for so long. Maybe never. At least not since the fire.”
“Where did you get the money to pay the price Alexi was asking, anyway?”
“I have a share in the family business. Raphael made sure to split it equally between us all, Zach too, if we ever see him again.”
“Zach. I don’t know anything about him.” She read my face. “You�
�re worried.”
“Apart from a postcard with three words on it, I haven’t heard from him in nearly two years. His calls were already growing more and more spaced out, but this is too long.”
“Any idea where he is?”
I shook my head. “Some covert mission. At least, that’s what the military keeps telling us.”
“What were the three words?”
“What?”
“On the postcard? You said there were three words.”
“I’m all right. I guess it’s four words, technically. He signed his name. That’s all.”
“There has to be something you can do.”
“Raphael and I are both trying.”
“Do you want the last fry?” she asked.
“No, go ahead.”
“What about the money you paid Alexi? Will you get that back?”
I shrugged a shoulder. “It’s all tied up in the investigation.”
“I’m sorry.”
“I’m just glad it’s behind us. Let’s not talk about it anymore.”
“That’s a deal.”
“Finished?”
“Yeah. Maybe we can get a cookie on the way out?”
“Two. I’m not sharing.”
She ate ravenously, and it was good to see. Good to see her relaxed, no longer stressed. And she could stand to put on a few pounds. It would come, though. Might be better if it happened before she went back to Italy. The tattoos would be shocking enough for Sofia to see.
Lina devoured her cookie, and when I offered her half of mine, she took it. It was a mild day, and as we walked down the street, I noticed the two undercover agents who walked nearby.
“Damon, I have a question.”
“Ask it.”
She stopped and turned to me. People moved around us, but I was pretty sure she didn’t see them.
“What happened at the church the other day…on the stairs before the altar…”
I nodded for her to continue.
“Are you angry with him? God, I mean.”
“No.” I took her hand, and we continued walking. I squinted into the sun. “That day, after that night at the penthouse, Father Leonard picked me up at the hospital. I don’t remember the ride or talking to him much, not until we sat down in that pew. He asked me if I wanted to talk about it, and I did. I told him everything. Everything—including what had happened between us. It was in telling him that I knew I didn’t harbor guilt. Only anger. I knew you’d come at some point, and I’m not sure how long I sat there until you did, but I wanted to see you in the church, I guess. It doesn’t make any sense, because I’d already made my choice. Actually,” I turned to her for a moment. “It wasn’t ever a choice. This was my path all along.”
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