"Okay," I whispered.
As soon as he stepped away to deal with some other minor injuries, I turned back to Scar. Gripping his hand in mine, I finally allowed myself to break.
Everything hit me. My resounding relief over not being raped. My hope that Scar would wake up soon. The terror I'd felt when I first heard those gunshots. "Why isn't he in the hospital? Shouldn't he have a breathing tube or something?" I whispered when Matteo wrapped his arms around me. Tears fell steadily as I sobbed, leaning over Scar.
"Draws too much attention. Besides, it's not the first time he's been shot, Angel. He'll pull through just fine. Doc didn't even have to put him under."
He quieted, continuing to hold me through my breakdown.
Just held me.
Like he didn't have a million other things he needed to be doing, his hands slid under my shirt and caressed my stomach with nothing but relief in his touch.
We sat there for hours, despite Matteo trying to draw me away to bed. "I can't leave him. Not again," I said every time.
After the room emptied, everyone else finding their way to their beds, that was the moment when Scar's groan echoed in the silence. "Scar?" I whispered, hoping to God he'd open his eyes.
"Hey, man," Matteo smiled into my neck.
"Ivory," Scar groaned, jolting where he laid like he might sit up.
I touched his shoulder, applying just enough pressure to keep him lying down. "I'm here," I whispered. "I'm fine. Thanks to you." The sniffle I made sounded particularly pathetic in the quiet room.
"I'm going to go grab some guys to help him into a guest room, Angel," Matteo murmured, ducking out and leaving me to stare at Scar.
"Don't cry," Scar mumbled. "Hate it when you cry."
"I thought you were dead. Adrian dragged me through the house, and you were just there. And there was so much blood."
"He got to you?" Scar's voice went taut.
"I'm fine, Matteo came quickly because of the tracker." I nodded, watching as his eyes went to the bruise on my face.
"Not quick enough. He make him suffer?"
"Ivory killed him," Matteo said, pride infused into his voice. "Bloodthirsty thing." I chuckled, completely appreciating the fact that Matteo seemed determined to turn my killer status into a joke. It somehow made it feel less real. Less like I'd stabbed a man four times like a vicious monster. "Come on. Let's get you to bed so the guys can help Scar to his bed. He needs to sleep."
I nodded, pressing a kiss to Scar's cheek as Matteo guided me away. "You're lucky I trust him. Otherwise I'd kill him for the way you're fawning over him," Matteo grunted, and I laughed all the way to bed where Matteo rolled me underneath him and held me for the whole two seconds it took for me to pass the fuck out.
Epilogue
Ivory
Not being able to drink at your own wedding was shit.
Like seriously.
I guess I should have just been glad that I wasn't sporting a huge baby bump, still in my first trimester. Matteo had been kind about it, agreeing not to drink with me.
Damn right I'd taken his offer. If momma couldn't get drunk than neither could he.
I smiled at the thought, staring up at my husband as he twirled me around on the rented stage on the estate property, the rose garden to our backs.
There had never been a discussion about where we would get married, we never even talked about whether the wedding was still on after everything that happened with Adrian Ricci.
I never once considered leaving Matteo. After all, I was a killer now too, regardless of the circumstances. I could have let Matteo kill him for me, I'd known that even at the moment. But something dark within me knew that I needed to do it myself.
Matteo had never once looked at me as anything but his equal since that day, and even though I often suffered from horrifying nightmares, I wouldn't have changed a thing.
Lino twirled Samara around the dance floor beside us, laughing despite the shadows under Samara's blue-grey eyes. I knew that her ex-husband was giving her trouble with the divorce, but Lino refused to talk about it much.
To be honest, I got the impression Samara didn't tell him much. He'd never done well with hearing the specifics of her relationships. I suspected he kept her as solely a friend for similar reasons to why Matteo had pushed me away.
I hoped he'd change that when her divorce completed. They'd always been perfect for each other, for as long as I'd known them both.
“Do you think they’ll ever pull their heads out of their asses?” I asked Matteo, making him vibrate with laughter.
“I think,” he whispered, “that if she dances with one more man who isn’t him tonight, he might just do it tonight.”
Sadie caught my eye and grinned, tormenting Duke by making him dance with her. “I agree,” she chuckled with emphasis. “If you don’t want them to dirty up all your surfaces, you might need to get your shank hand ready.”
“Sadie!” I hissed, throwing my head back on a laugh. Dad’s eyes found mine, shining as he watched me. I looked away as my own tears threatened. He’d already turned me into a blubbering mess during our father daughter dance. There was no way I could let him do it again. Even Uncle Adam had given Matteo a pat on the back, the two of them reaching an easy friendship despite the differences in the way they approached the law. With me knowing the truth, Adam was the first to relent that I was a big girl, and only I could decide about what crossed boundaries for me. Sadie twirled Duke away, drawing eyes from our other guests. I didn’t have the heart to tease Duke that he should be leading.
It would take a very strong man to lead Sadie anywhere.
I loved the girl to death, but she was terrifying.
And stubborn.
And both things had saved my life, all the relentless lessons she’d given me for self-defense, drilling me with the most dramatic and outlandish scenarios she could come up with. Without her, I could easily have died.
Without her, I wouldn’t have a husband and a baby on the way.
We owed her everything.
"Has it been everything you wanted?" Matteo whispered, smiling down at me. The stars twinkled in the night sky, the lights hanging from the house and worked into the rose garden echoing the romantic feel.
"All that matters is you're my husband. But yes. You’ve given me everything I could ever dream of having.”
"Well then, my wife," Matteo growled. "I think it's time that we went to bed." He swept me up into his arms as I giggled, hiding my face as our guests stared at us.
“Oh God,” I cried, kicking my legs. He didn’t care. Matteo’s feet carried us to the house and inside, ignoring the hooting and cheering behind us.
“Go get him, girl!” Samara shouted, shrieking when Lino moved to grab her.
The house was empty, except for a few guests waiting in line to use the bathroom. “There’s no one to save you now,” he teased, taking the steps slowly.
“Who said I wanted saving?” I whispered, pressing my face into his neck and breathing him in.
If there was any one thing that comforted me above all else, it was the way Matteo smelled.
Like him. Like his soap.
Like me.
I’d never considered myself possessive aside from Matteo, but if he ever smelled like another woman or touched another woman, I just might need my shank hand.
He set me down in our bedroom, turning me to face away from him. Matteo's hands drew down the zipper at the back of my dress, oh so slowly.
Teasing me.
My own fingers released the clip that kept my hair pulled to one side, reveling in the way Matteo's lips skimmed the back of my neck. The A-line dress pooled at my feet in a puddle of white. I turned, facing Matteo so he could get the full experience of my lingerie. He'd been nothing but gentle since my concussion, making love to me every chance he got but never giving me the rougher parts of him I loved.
I wanted to test his control, feel it snap. The strapless corset hugged my growing breasts
perfectly, and I backed onto the bed with a little smirk on my face. Rubbing my thighs together, I watched Matteo loosen his tie and strip off the jacket of his tux. His smirk matched mine. I should know, since I'd learned it from him.
Watching him strip off his tux was a thing of beauty, revealing sculpted inch after sculpted inch until he wore nothing, and I had to fight the urge to pounce on him.
My pregnancy was a gift and a curse to Matteo, giving me a sex drive impossible to keep up with.
He gave it a good run for his money, but I worried that I'd distract him from his work. He climbed into the bed with me, sliding into the cradle of my thighs and taking my mouth in a passionate kiss. Those kisses melted any resolve I could have ever put up, any wall I could have ever built between us.
Those kisses were love.
Pure, untainted love.
No secrets, nothing standing in our way.
"I don't deserve you," he murmured, trailing lips down over my collarbone. "But I will spend the rest of my life proving that you're mine, anyway."
A smile graced my face, watching as his fingers worked the little closures at the front of my corset. "You don't have to prove anything, Teo," I whispered. "Because I choose you. Always." His eyes flashed to mine, relief and longing mixed in those pools of blue. I hadn't realized how much he needed those words. How much I'd hurt him by saying I needed to choose him, as if it wasn't a foregone conclusion.
To Matteo, it had been a condemnation, a denial of the love that vibrated between us like an electric current.
But I'd have loved him for the rest of my life, even if I couldn't be with him.
Always.
He was inside me, part of me in every moment.
And I knew that nothing would keep him from me. Not even a rival gang member. He tore the corset away, yanking the panties away until they tore beneath the force of his desperation as that control snapped.
I reached a hand between us, guiding him inside me so we moved in tandem. He surged inside, filling me to the brim and filling my ears with the sound of his pleasured groan. I wrapped my arms around his shoulders and drew him down to kiss me, lifting my hips to accept his thrusts. "I love you," I whispered against his lips, staring into his eyes like I might connect with the deepest parts of his soul.
"I love you too, Angel." One of his hands came up, cupping my nape as we shared the air between us, and his other palmed my ass in his hand. His chest touched mine, brushing against my breasts and stimulating the oversensitive flesh.
There was nothing but us, nothing but his skin on mine and the place where we connected. His lips touched mine, tongues tangling in an intimate embrace that sent me spiraling over the edge until I dragged Matteo with me. Heat filled me as he came, and it was in the moments after sex that I whispered the name of our child.
"Luna if it's a girl."
"Luca for a boy," he murmured, pressing his forehead to mine as we laughed.
"How did I get so lucky?" I teased him, thinking he'd scoff at me like he always did.
"Love finds a way," he whispered back, shocking me with the easy smile that took over his face.
That it did.
For more of Matteo and Ivory, download the exclusive extended epilogue for a glimpse into their life 1.5 years later. Get it here.
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Continue on for a sneak peek into Forgivable Sins (Bellandi Crime Syndicate #2).
Coming soon.
Forgivable sins chapter one
Samara
I ran.
I ran harder than I ever had. My bare feet left a trail of blood with each step.
Slipping on the hardwood, I skidded into the door with a painful thump that made my already tender stomach concave from the force of the doorknob. Blood coated my fingers, and I whimpered when I couldn't get a grip. It wouldn’t turn. Wouldn’t open.
A groan and thud sounded at the top of the stairs where I'd left the bedroom door wide open in my effort to make a hasty escape. "Samara! You stupid cunt!" he roared at the top of his lungs, and I whimpered again, finally dragging my nightgown up to wrap it around the knob and pull it open.
Out the door. My feet thudded against the pavement, sprinting for the neighbor's house. Pavement turned to grass, the stab of each blade in the cuts on my feet echoed with the frigid night air stabbing at my lungs as I gasped for breath. I fell on the front step, finally screaming for Linda to open her door.
He was coming.
Drunk. Desperate.
"Linda!" I screamed, banging on the door again.
She gasped when she tore it open, and I fell inside into a puddle of nothing but blood and bruised flesh.
"Samara!" he yelled again, but the door closed and locked, cutting off the rage in his voice.
Safe. Safe behind closed doors.
For now.
My eyes snapped open, and I shot to a sitting position in bed. My empty bed, with my new mattress.
It didn't matter. Every time I opened my eyes, I still saw the broken mirror on the floor, the blood on the base of the lamp I'd used to smash him over the head. Too fevered, my body felt slick with sweat as I shoved the blankets off. I curled my legs in, crossing them and trailing a finger over the scars on my feet. Thick, hideous white lines that covered the soles.
It had taken hours for Linda to pull out all the pieces of glass.
It had taken almost as long to wash the blood off me, out of my hair, out from under my nails.
I still didn't feel clean.
I stood to shower, avoiding looking in the mirror. I didn't want to see my too pale face staring back at me, see the vacant look in my terrified eyes that would stay until I washed the nightmare from my skin.
Washed his touch down the drain. Never to be felt again.
Another day, another nightmare of my doing. My phone chimed with a text message from the bedroom, and I felt my lips curve into a hesitant smile. I didn't need to check it to see who it was from or what it would say.
My daily good morning message from Lino was one thing that drove Connor mad during our too-long marriage. Most days, I said good morning to my best friend before I had my ex-husband. Now it drew me out of the memories, and it pleased me to know that even though Connor was part of my past, Lino remained.
I got in the shower, belting out an upbeat song while I washed away the sweat.
It would be a good day, despite the rocky start.
I just knew it.
✽✽✽
My knee-high boots clicked on the granite tile floors of Lamb & Rowe. Such a stark contrast to the way my bare feet slid across my hardwood floor in my dream.
My memory.
People nodded as I made my way passed, the file folder in my hand filled to the brim with charts and my monthly summaries for my boss. Summaries on all the people who stared at me, nodding in respect tinted with apprehension.
I fought down the urge to smirk, remembering what the bankers had thought when Jasper Rowe first hired me. It hadn't mattered that I had a ring on my finger, because news spread between firms like wildfire, and I had foolishly married a partner in my last firm.
But it didn't matter. My work ethic spoke for itself, and while Jasper and I were friendly, there was absolutely nothing romantic between us. I was his rock, professionally.
I knocked on Jasper's door, letting myself in with no concern or hesitation even before he could respond. "Don't forget you have your lunch with Carson Davis in an hour."
"Good morning to you too, Samara." There was an unmistakable smile to his voice, and I looked to him with a raised brow. His blond hair was perfectly styled as usual, his skin didn’t look like he’d had a rough night partying. So I couldn’t decide what had made him come to work so late. The man worked constantly.
"It's noon."
"11:56 actually," he returned, and I dropped t
he folder on his desk and crossed my arms over my chest. The position made me feel a little more capable of breathing in the black turtleneck I’d put on that morning to accompany my grey wool skirt. He grinned at me and the lightest grey eyes I’d ever seen twinkled with mischief as he leaned back in his chair and didn't even bother to open the file. "Your assessment?"
"Mark Dobson's accounts aren't doing as well as they easily should be with the amount of hours he logged the last month. It might have something to do with the rumors he's sleeping with Jim Clarke's wife during that time."
"That's a very serious accusation based on rumors." Even though his words might have seemed cautionary, the man knew me well enough to know I was far from interested in office gossip.
I nodded to the folder, and he sighed and slid it open. The photos I'd printed from the high-tech security tapes spoke for themselves. "Fuck," he groaned, scrubbing a hand over his face. "If this gets out...."
"I've approved a $3,000 bonus for Mack in the security office in exchange for a signed, additional Non-Disclosure Form that he's not to speak of what we found on those tapes or you will own him for the rest of his life. We went through all the extra hours Mark logged, and I took care of the film from inside and around his office during those hours. The photos are the only remaining evidence that anything untoward happened, and those are the only copies. Once I shred them, my suggestion would be to remind Dobson that if he breathes a word of his involvement with Mrs. Clarke, it would mean he makes the affair public record, and blacklists himself from the other firms in the city following his termination here."
He sighed but nodded. "I’ll need to talk to Kelly first, but she always agrees with you. Pitbulls, both of you."
"I'll call her assistant and get you a meeting on the books for whenever we can fit it in today, and I'll schedule Dobson's termination for first thing tomorrow morning. You had a cancellation with Christopher French, and Dobson is free until 10 a.m."
Bloodied Hands: A Dark Mafia Romance (Bellandi Crime Syndicate Book 1) Page 24