by Shandi Boyes
“Hey!”
I’d say more if Fien responded to the woman’s clutch with the devastation she displayed when I pulled her away from Maestro. She doesn’t repel away from the lady like she did me. She startles, peers at her wide-eyed, then nuzzles back into her chest.
“While I get Fien settled, show Roxanne to the guest bedroom so she can get cleaned up.” She spins away, takes one step, then whips back around. “The downstairs guest bedroom. I reserved the one on the second floor for Audrey and Dimitri.” After dragging her crystal blue eyes down Rocco’s blood-stained body, she purrs out, “You can stay down there too if you’d like. There are enough towels on the bed for both of you.”
“Oh, we’re not… we aren’t…” I lose the chance to get out my stuttering reply that we’re not a couple when she spins back around and stalks away, taking Fien with her.
Although my focus should remain solely on Fien, I kill two birds with one stone by asking, “Will Dimitri be okay with this?” I’m battered and bruised, but I am not so far down the rabbit hole I can’t continue to fight to ensure Dimitri’s wishes are being met. He has only just gotten his daughter back. I don’t want her palmed from person to person like she was bounced state to state the past twenty-two months.
While rubbing at a kink in his neck, Rocco shrugs. “Dimitri isn’t a fan of India’s, but the fact she’s Audrey’s best friend means he has no choice but to put up with her.”
“Oh.” Now the disdain on India’s face makes sense. She’s defending her friend from the woman who kept her husband ‘occupied’ during her captivity.
Bearing in mind the circumstances, she’s handling Dimitri’s betrayal better than I would if it had occurred to Estelle. I wouldn’t offer her husband’s mistress to sleep in my guest room. If she was still breathing, she’d be in the doghouse.
Mistress. Yuck. The word alone makes me sick to my stomach, much less wondering if that’s how I’m now viewed.
“No.” Rocco adds a finger waggle to his abrupt reply to the question in my eyes. “I have some random dude’s puke on my shirt and a ton of adrenaline to work through. I’m not up for an in-depth conversation on the uprising of deceased wives.” He doesn’t say how he usually expels his excessive energy after a raid, but his eyes most certainly do. “So how about we get cleaned up, fill our bellies with food, then tackle the shitstorm that comes with Audrey’s rebirth?”
When I nod, cowardly bowing out of a fight I know will be the shitstorm Rocco is worried about, his lips curl at the ends. “Do you want a piggyback ride, or would you like me to carry you to your room wedding-night style?” His smile grows when confusion strains my features. “I know you’re hurt, Princess P, you know you’re hurt, and so the fuck does Dimitri. Why do you think he was so torn up about leaving you?”
I know what he’s doing. He’s trying to confirm that Dimitri cares about me in some weird, warped way, but in all honesty, his question cuts me up a little. I don’t want Dimitri’s attention because I’m hurt, I want it because he genuinely cares about me.
“Wedding style it is,” Rocco says with a snicker when nothing but silence teems between us for the next several seconds. “It’ll get more of a rile out of Dimitri, and we both know how much I like stirring that fucker.”
Stealing my chance to reply, Rocco scoops me into his arms, gropes my butt in a way that isn’t close to being appropriate, then charges down the hall like a groom dying to see what negligee his bride is wearing under her dress.
23
Roxanne
“The faucet is as finicky as shit, but if you like your showers scalding, you’ll be happy.”
Rocco balances his drenched shoulder onto the doorjamb separating my room from the attached bathroom before running a towel over his wet head. For a woman unprepared for guests until ten minutes before we arrived, India laid out the welcome mat. My room is made up as if it’s the presidential suite at a ritzy hotel, the bathroom is brimming with toiletries that took care of the gory scent bounding out of Rocco the past three hours in less than ten minutes, and we devoured a feast fit for a king.
I could almost pretend I was whisked away for a weekend of indulgence if the right man was humming in the shower the past five minutes.
Rocco hasn’t let up on his endeavor to force a response out of Dimitri one bit the past three hours. He attempted to feed me strawberries dipped in chocolate, wipe away the dribble of a juicy steak from the bottom of my lip while chewing on his own, then sat so close to me, even if I wanted to forget I was only just freed from a baby-farming trade, I couldn’t.
The only good that’s come from his constant attention is not having the time to think about how much has changed in the past three days. I said to Dimitri I wouldn’t walk away from him as the woman I once was, but even I didn’t have a clue how honest my statement was.
I’m not close to the woman I used to be. I don’t necessarily believe that’s a bad thing. However, I’m confident walking away from Dimitri will hurt, nonetheless.
Ignoring the pain stretched from my heart to the lower half of my stomach, I maneuver out of the cross-legged position on the floor I’ve been huddled in the past hour, then pad to Rocco’s half of the room. He watches me, forever on alert, but seemingly at a loss on which direction he should take this time around.
We haven’t stumbled anywhere near the shitstorm we feel brewing on the horizon. We bunkered down instead, preferring to ride out the storm in a shelter instead of walking into it without fear as we suggested only hours ago. It’s cowardly for us to do, but when you’re facing a storm as brutal as this one, only a fool would pray for impact instead of doing everything possible to avoid it.
“I really wish you’d let someone take a look at your foot,” Rocco says when I stop to stand in front of him. “The ice helped with the swelling, but for all we know, it could be a twisted wreck beneath the surface.”
“It’s fine,” I assure him for the hundredth time this evening. I can barely feel its throb. Not only has the swelling settled, nothing can compare to the pain in my chest. It’s as bad as it comes. “We iced and strapped it. What more could it need?”
“Oh, I don’t know,” Rocco answers, unaware I wasn’t asking a question. “Perhaps a splint… or how about some pain medication? That might help, too.”
“Truly. I’m fine. I swear to you.” I run my hand down his arm, genuinely grateful for his company the past three hours but more than ready to have a few minutes of solitude. “While I shower, why don’t you head down and release some of the excess energy that has you bouncing around like an Energizer Bunny.”
He smiles before shaking his head. “I’m good. I like hanging out with you.”
His reply warms my heart, but it does little to weaken my campaign. “I need some time to process everything.” When his brows pinch as confused by the angst in my tone as me, I make out it isn’t as big a deal as it is. “I need to use the bathroom… in private.”
“Oh…” His pupils dilate to the size of saucers before he adds a second, “Oooh,” into the mix, this one longer than his first.
Even mortified, I nod my head to the humor-filled questions in his eyes. I’d rather he believe I’m about to stink up the place than continue my struggle to hold back the wetness in my eyes. Just like I don’t stand out in a crowd, I’m not one of those girls who can pull off devastation without bloodshot corneas, scary suitcase-size bags under my eyes, and a heap of snot.
India’s residence is gorgeous and regal—just like her—but its walls are paper-thin. Rocco and I hear her staff’s incoming arrival long before they knock on the door of my room. The knowledge makes me grateful my room is in the equivalent of the basement. I’ll be out of the loop with what’s going on, but since that includes reuniting couples, my inquisitiveness is more than happy to face the injustice.
After tugging on a pair of gray sweatpants sans underwear and a crisp white tee from a bag one of India’s staff brought down earlier, Rocco rejoins me next to the
carved wooden door that leads to the bathroom. “If you need me, call out to Smith. He’s always listening.”
The realization that I’m being forever watched usually comforts me. Regretfully, this time around, it doesn’t. It isn’t that I believe Smith will tattle on me, I’d just rather our reunion occur without the awkwardness it is already going to be filled with.
In a last-ditch attempt to rile Dimitri, Rocco presses his lips to my temple. It isn’t a quick half-a-second peck. His lips linger long enough for me to hear the gurgle of his stomach when nothing but heartbreak teems between us.
I appreciate what he’s doing, and I love that he still has my back even with Dimitri’s wife resurrecting from the grave, but I also hate it. Audrey is fighting for her life. Now is not the time to force her to glove-up for someone she never truly lost. At the end of the day, no matter what happens, she is Dimitri’s wife and the mother of his child, and I am… nobody.
Incapable of holding back my devastation for a second longer, I briefly lean into Rocco’s embrace to accept a comfort I don’t deserve before I dash into the bathroom as fast as my quivering legs will take me, shutting the door behind me.
With my eyes shut and my heart in lockdown, I squash my back against the carved wood, my tears not permitted to fall until the squeak of a second set of hinges sounds through my ears. When that occurs, my sobs are devastating. I’ve been holding them in for days, so I expected nothing less than pure carnage when I finally permitted them to fall. They howl through me on repeat, not slowing even when the wetness flooding my cheeks becomes too much for my swiping hands to keep up with. I cry and cry and cry until the hottest water won’t remove the red streaks from my cheeks, and I fall asleep on the tiled floor, alone and heartbroken.
I lost the man I love, our child, and my principles in one night. Nothing could have prepared me for this—not even falling in love with a notorious mobster so outrageously, I’d do it all again in a heartbeat just to see the light in his eyes shift for the final time.
Fien owns Dimitri’s heart.
Before Audrey stepped into his path, I was responsible for its beats.
Now I don’t know which way is up.
24
Dimitri
I stop peering at my bloodstained hands when the voice of a man on the brink of exhaustion rolls through my ears. Ollie is wearing smocks like a real-life doctor. They’re as blood-stained as my hands, and the knowledge it is the blood of my wife curtails my mood even more than not being given an update on her condition in hours.
I’m always a little unhinged after a raid. It causes a rush of adrenaline you can’t get anywhere else—adrenaline I had planned to unleash on Roxanne until the wee hours of tomorrow morning. Instead, I’m sitting in the corridor that replicates a dungeon, waiting to see if a doctor kicked out of med school can fix the hack job someone did to the mother of my child.
I still can’t believe Audrey is alive. She never showed the fight she displayed tonight once during our relationship. She was the meekest woman in the room, the one who forever shied away from controversy. I never suspected she would be able to survive the ordeal she was forced through. That’s why I only ever searched for her body. I was convinced she was dead.
Shows what I know. Before Roxanne, I had never experienced the gut-tingling, ball-tightening, infuriating sensation I get when she enters the realm, but you’d think I would have felt a least a little bit of Audrey’s gall. She’s my wife, she carried my flesh and blood in her womb, so how could I not know she was alive, fighting to come back to me?
My frustrating debate is pushed back for another day when Ollie stops to stand in front of me. He called my name multiple times, but since I was so caught up in my thoughts, I didn’t acknowledge his presence.
“Sorry, what did you say?” My voice is so rough, I don’t recognize it. It’s brimming with agitation and a heap of the adrenaline I’ve yet to disperse.
While raking his fingers through his shoulder-length hair, Ollie slots into the chair next to me. Considering we’re in a residence, it should be odd acknowledging there’s a fully functioning operating theater in the basement. However, since it’s India, a freak in her own right, I’m not half as shocked as you’d expect.
We need to bunker down for a couple of days until the heat dies down. Although I would have preferred for that to occur anywhere but here, the realization that India has a house full of servants and access to every medical field there is had me changing tactics.
Supposedly India is in favor with an oil tycoon who has a hankering for the underworld. With the right amount of money, anyone can join some crews’ ranks. That shit doesn’t fly with me, though. I’d gut him just on the belief he can do what I do without earning it.
You don’t get to where I am by throwing money at people. It’s messy, gritty, and more fucked in the head than he’d ever understand. And more times than not, it occurs without the love of a good woman.
Perhaps that’s why I can’t sense Audrey as I can Roxanne? Audrey and I never shared those three little words I thought I would have to torture out of a woman before she’d ever give them to me voluntarily. Not even the day we wed saw them exchanged. We swapped rings, ate cake, then I fell into bed with a couple of hookers while Audrey went back to the honeymoon suite alone.
Fuck, I was an asshole. I still am. I just don’t see Roxanne taking my shit. I was coked out of my head, but I still recall the way she ripped the blonde hooker away from me by the strands of her hair. She wanted to kill her, and in all honesty, if she had a weapon, I reckon she would have.
I scrub my hand across my mouth, hiding my inappropriately timed smirk before locking my eyes with Ollie. The way he stares at me reveals he knew my thoughts were elsewhere again, not to mention his shoulder bump. He did the same thing when he confirmed what Audrey’s pregnancy test said, except back then, he was consoling me instead of livening me up.
“Is she going to make it?”
An unusual patter hits my chest when Ollie dips his chin. “She isn’t out of the woods just yet, but I don’t see her recovery having too many issues.” As he balances on the edge of his chair, air whizzes from his nose. That’s a telltale sign he’s nervous. “We had to remove Audrey’s uterus, ovaries, and part of her spleen. She won’t be able to carry any more children.”
I’m not stunned by his confession. Whoever got to Audrey made it clear if she survived the second time, she would be unable to bear children. They hacked up her uterus even more than they did when removing Fien from her stomach.
“Were there any signs she had… umm…” Who the fuck made me this whimpering, blubbering imbecile? I’m Dimitri-fucking-Petretti. I do not stutter.
“No,” Ollie says with a shake of his head, saving me from making a fool out of myself for the second time. “Excluding the scar from when she delivered Fien, there were no indicators that she had birthed other children.”
His reply pleases me greatly. I don’t want Fien to have half-siblings stretched across the globe like I had growing up. She’ll only have one set. The children I’ll have with Roxanne.
My cocky grin slips when Ollie discloses, “She’s been asking to see you.”
“She’s awake?” I don’t know why I sound shocked. My dead ass exposes how long I’ve been sitting on a hard, plastic chair, not to mention the annoying tick of my watch. I’ve been down here for over five hours. The delay feels as if it is slowly killing me. I don’t just want to discover if Fien’s cheeks are as soft as they look, I want to unearth the reason Roxanne limped when I loaded her in the ambulance Smith got onsite remarkably quick. She wordlessly assured me she was fine several times during our forty-minute ride, but I don’t believe her. She’s too brave to make a fuss and too fucking stubborn for her own good.
“Once you have things wrapped up here, can you take a look at Roxanne for me? I think she did something to her foot.”
Ollie smiles before nodding, forever happy to please me. It makes sense when you see how
much he charges for his services. “I’ll stay with Audrey until she’s out of recovery, then hand her over to India’s crew.”
After slapping him on the shoulder, issuing my praise without words, I stand to my feet.
“You coming?” I ask when he remains seated. I’m almost halfway down the corridor, yet, he hasn’t walked a single stride.
My throat grows scratchy when he shakes his head. “Audrey asked to speak to you alone.”
He smiles a beaming grin when my cheeks whiten. I was only married for a couple of months before Audrey was kidnapped, but even I know things aren’t good when a wife requests to speak to her husband in private.
“She’s pretty doped up. I doubt she’ll be awake for long,” Ollie says with a chuckle.
Needing to leave before I switch out his smile for a fat lip, I push through the doors he broke through a couple of minutes ago, then head toward the room Audrey was wheeled into when she was on the brink of death.
I won’t lie. My footing wobbles a little when I spot her through the window of her room. She’s a little pale, and she has oxygen prongs stuck in her nose, but she is as beautiful as the woman whose trek to the kitchen for a glass of water saved me from making a mistake with India I could never take back.
Audrey can turn the head of any man. She just can’t make my gut tingle.
“Hey, none of that,” I say when the dam in her eyes breaks upon seeing me. “You’re okay. I won’t let anything happen to you.”
I don’t know who’s more shocked when I pull her into my chest so my shirt can dry her tears. I was never affectionate when we were married. Before I held Roxanne in my private jet, I had never comforted anyone.
Believing I know the reason behind her tears, I assure her, “Fien is safe. She’s here, sleeping. I swear to you, she is safe.”