a second and then letting it go.
“Safety’s on,” Nico tells her with a shrug. “I kinda have too high a rank to go off shooting myself by accident,” he teases.
“Oh,” she simply says.
“Is she blushing?” Chase asks. “I think I got me a new crush to dream about at night. Don’t tell Stell I said that though.”
“Asshole,” he mumbles at his brother.
By now, Isabella isn’t screaming anymore. Her body isn’t flailing anymore but what’s left of her is still burning brightly in a heap on the cement flooring of the warehouse with Stella still watching.
Ariana has the gun pointed at Cristian’s head now. Her hands still shake.
“Ari, please?” Cristian begs, his hands held up to fend off a bullet he has no chance of slowing down should she pull that trigger.
“You don’t have to cross that line,” Stella tells her. The two women stand side by side now.
“She doesn’t,” he agrees. Not that they can hear him. “I need to be with her,” he says into the room but mainly to Brooks. “She needs me.”
“Doors not locked,” Brooks replies with understanding. Fucking asshole could have said that from the get.
Derrick fucking beats him to and through the door, of course. As his brother swings the door open, a single gunshot is heard. He steps through the threshold in time to see she’s put a bullet in the same knee she intended to before. He shoves Derrick out of the way and rushes to her side.
He pulls her into him, tucking her head into his shoulder while his other hand clamps over her trembling hand and the gun.
“You don’t have to do this,” he whispers over Cristian’s wails of pain. “If you want him dead, I can do this for you. I can carry that weight. He is nothing,” he tells her.
She pulls away from him and her beautiful eyes meet his. They hold his gaze and they search his soul.
“I love you, Ari. You don’t need to search for that truth.”
“Adam,” she whispers his name in one breath. Her small hand reaches for his cheek and he comforts her by leaning into it.
“I don’t know how,” she whispers.
He feels her hand raising the gun. For a second, he thinks she’s trying to release her fingers but she’s only squeezing it tighter, holding onto it harder.
“And I don’t know why you would love someone like me. But I love you, Adam.”
“You don’t need to do this to show me,” he tells her, understanding her intention.
“No, my love. I need to do this…for me,” she replies.
Whether it’s her finger or his that pulls the trigger, he can’t be sure. It doesn’t matter to him anyway. His main concern is that she’s not going to fall apart when she realizes what they’ve done.
He looks at the result at the same time she does. The bullet went through Cristian’s hand and in through his eye. Karma must be a bitch because Cristian didn’t get an instant death. He’s suffering like his bitch of a sister, though not as horribly. He’s on the ground convulsing and seizing with a pool of blood spreading.
Pity.
“Damn!” Nico exclaims. “Almost splattered my favorite Ferragamos, King.”
What the fuck is it with these Mazzillis and their fucking shoes?
Ariana draws nearer into him and his arm holds her tighter. Caging her. Her hand comes up to clasp over her mouth to stifle whatever sound she’s making.
He turns her head into his shoulder again, trying to shield her from what’s to come, and holds her head still before he finishes Cristian off with one single bullet to the head and zero fucks about the bastard.
Ariana’s trembling arms wrap around his waist.
And all is nearly perfect again in his world. She’s his. Next to him.
Forever.
My angel. Mine
Chapter Thirty-Seven
“Why hasn’t Stella forgiven him?” she asks her dark king.
Her head is resting on his chest after another of their intense lovemaking. His fingers are twirling around at the strands of her hair, calming her to sleep.
Lovemaking. That’s what it’s become now.
He hasn’t played since she’s returned to the estate in his arms that night two weeks ago. He hasn’t seemed like he’s wanted to either. She hasn’t seen so much as binds in his bedroom since she’s been back. She didn’t mind the play. But this? She loves this just as much too. It’s both soft and hard. Gentle and rough. This is passion.
This is what she’s craved for through her doped-out haze.
“Stella,” Adam starts to say with a sigh before he continues. “She’s complex. The