Mafia Casanova - M. Robinson Page 0,58

only one who’d put him in his place? If his father finds out that his son has laid even one finger on your head, he’ll do it himself.”

I exhaled a deep breath, aware of how much truth that statement made. “He was drunk.”

“That’s no excuse.”

“He didn’t hurt me. He scared me.”

“And I’ll make sure to return the favor. He won’t scare you again if he knows what’s good for him.”

“Daddy, please… for Naz.”

“All the more reason.”

“I can’t deal with this. You need to listen to me. You can’t hurt him.”

Out of nowhere, a familiar voice boomed through the office, “He won’t, but I sure as fuck will.”

Shaking me right down to my core. In that instant, I realized the reality of my world.

This wasn’t the end like I expected…

This was only the beginning.

CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

“If only there was someone out there that loved you.” —Scar

Romeo

I listened until I couldn’t listen anymore until my blood burned with a rage so hot, so deadly that I was having trouble seeing in front of me.

Tristian.

Fucking Tristian.

He had everything.

Fucking everything!

And this was how he treated her? Treated his son?

My gut twisted with an anger so foreign that I knew if I didn’t walk out of that room soon, I would decimate it; there would be nothing left of it, nothing left of Tristian but dust as he returned to the very ground he had come out of.

I wouldn’t say his last rights.

I wouldn’t send him to Heaven.

I’d damn him to Hell, and I’d do it with a smile on my face and anger in my soul.

It wouldn’t matter if I damned myself in the process. All that mattered was that Eden was safe, that she got her retribution, that fear was no longer pretending to be love.

God, had I done this?

Was I the reason she was sobbing on the couch?

“I sure the fuck will,” I repeated in case no one had heard me.

Eden gasped, her eyes going wide with fear, then horror, and ending in shame as she turned away like she didn’t want me seeing her at her worst when she believed I’d only ever loved her at her best.

Wrong.

How very wrong she was.

I would take her any way I could have her.

Blind.

Broken.

Half dead.

Aged.

She was mine.

Always had been, always would be, and it took me years to admit it to myself.

I had done what was best.

For my two best friends.

I’d handed him gold, and he had treated it like dirt.

Nobody harmed what was mine; it didn’t matter that his ring was on her finger—she owned my soul, and mine recognized hers as one thing.

Ours.

Blood protected blood even if the person who needed protection couldn’t be the one to do it.

Tears rolled down her pretty cheeks as she sat trembling in her small spot on the couch. I’d never seen her so disheveled, I’d never seen her so scared.

And what was worse?

The light I’d so often seen in her, the one I’d treasured, the one I’d thought holy and sacred… was gone.

Vanished like the mist.

That fucker had blown it out.

How had this gone so wrong?

I crouched down on my haunches, my Glock in my shaking left hand at my side as I reached up my right hand and gripped her chin, turning her head from side to side. “Are. You. Hurt?”

She wouldn’t meet my eyes; I made her, not out of anger but out of fucking need to know she would be okay. I needed it more than air, more than my own soul. I needed her to be okay.

I wouldn’t survive anything but.

Finally, my girl lifted her eyes to mine.

I would rather suffer a million cuts.

A thousand tortures.

Dying over and over again only to be resurrected and killed again, then see the look she had on her face.

“No,” she finally whispered, “I’m not hurt.”

I didn’t release her chin right away; instead, my thumb caressed down her jaw as I promised, “I won’t kill him, you have my word, but he needs to be punished for thinking he can touch you in any way that hurts you.”

I released her then.

She looked down at the hardwood floor.

With a curse, I stood and stomped out of the house in a frenzy of rage, and I hopped in my car. I jammed my foot on the accelerator so hard my leg hurt.

It took me less than nine minutes to make it to their house and see that the lights were off, and his Mercedes wasn’t parked out front.

“Where are you…?” I mumbled to myself, recalling the conversation she’d