"I enjoy taking care of you," he murmured. When he grabbed one ankle, I flinched. I should have known he missed nothing when it came to me, and armed with the knowledge he had, he would have turned to analyzing every mark on my body. He pulled a little harder, waiting until I relented to give him my foot. The tube in his hand turned out to be scar cream, and he rubbed it on the soles of my feet. Holding me steady while I squirmed, he seemed immune to my ticklishness. "What were you planning to tell me happened here?"
"I hadn't worked that out yet," I admitted as he massaged it into the raised, fleshy scars.
"And what actually happened?"
"It doesn't matter. It's over now, so there's no point in us rehashing all the details—"
His head snapped up, his jaw clenched and nostrils flaring like a cornered animal. "It's worse than strangling you?"
I dismissed him with a chuckle that sounded as fake as it felt. "I don't know what gave you that impression." He switched to the other foot, but his eyes never left my face.
"Why else would you not tell me? After strangling you, I would think anything else would be inconsequential to admit. What the fuck happened?" His thumbs pressed into the arch of my foot more harshly, his annoyance pushing him to that ledge I knew he walked daily in his business life where he became a ruthless king.
"Lino—"
"I will find out, Samara. So help me God, I will fucking find out. And if it doesn't come from your mouth, I'll lose my damn mind. I rarely get angry with you. Do not test me." I knew he meant every word, knew that now that he knew there was something to find he would be relentless until he learned the truth. It didn't matter that I'd never gone to the hospital, that there was no official record. Linda knew, and Jasper suspected.
"I stepped on glass."
His glare was nothing short of pure fire, but the words stuck in my throat. "Samara," he warned.
"The night I told him I wanted a divorce. He wasn't pleased. I didn't realize he was drunk, or I would have waited. He was always quicker to outbursts when he'd been drinking, but he hid it so well. I never even suspected until he got close enough for me to smell it on him." Finished with my feet, Lino's hand ran up the back of my calf, the barest of pressures that I could barely feel through my leggings. I knew the restraint it took for him to touch me so gently, knew that he overcompensated and tended toward overly soft touches to avoid hurting me. "I fought him off. Tried to get away, and we broke the floor-length mirror that we kept in the corner of the bedroom. When I got away, I stepped on the glass in my hurry to run out. I ran all the way to Linda's, so the glass was deep by the time we dug it out."
"Hence the scars," he sighed.
"Hence the scars," I returned, thinking for just a moment that he might let it be.
"You said you were sick. Said that it was the stomach flu, which is the only time you won't let me near you. I knew you were lying, but I thought you just needed time after coming to terms with the divorce. I gave it to you like an idiot." The breath hissed out of him, like he couldn't believe he'd given me space I had needed.
"I did need space. Giving it to me was the right thing to do," I murmured in my best attempt to soothe him. "No matter what caused me to need that space, nothing changes the fact that I needed it."
"He hurt you? Aside from the glass, you said there was a fight?" I winced, closing my eyes to avoid looking at him. "It's my job to take care of you. I need to know, vita mia."
"He said I was his. That I would only ever be his, and he wanted to prove that. So he grabbed me, pushed me down and—" I paused with a grimace. No matter what I did, how my face contorted, the words just wouldn't come. I'd never said it out loud, never admitted it. Linda had known from my injuries, known from the way I'd winced when I lowered my body into the bathtub that Connor had taken something I hadn't freely given.
Lino went solid, his hand freezing on my calf and fingers digging into my leggings like he just couldn't restrain himself any longer. "Say it," he whispered, staring at my face. "I need to hear you say it, Little Dove." His voice was broken, even with the rage contorting his features.
I closed my eyes, shutting out the vision of his anger. It was the only chance I had of ever admitting what haunted me in my sleep. Or what had haunted me. I hadn't had a nightmare since I started sleeping in Lino's arms. He always had been my safe place.
My home.
"He raped me," I admitted, fighting back the burn of tears behind my eyelids. I had to hope the explanation was enough, because I wouldn’t be able to suffer through all the painful details. Not with him.
Lino's fingers spasmed on my leg before his touch disappeared altogether. My eyes flew open as the bed shifted with the loss of his weight, and I watched as he slammed the bedroom door behind him. "Lino!" I cried, wanting to chase after him. But I knew that even in his happier moments the past few days, getting out of the bed on my own was the fastest way to piss him off so I straightened to kneel, staring at the door like it would burst open any moment and I listened.
The distinct sound of thumps sounded from a few rooms down, and his anguished roar echoed through the walls. I lifted my hands to my face, pressing them against my lips to steady the tremble as my tears finally broke free and streaked down my cheeks in a flurry of desperate emotion. I wanted to fix it and needed to fix the pain I'd caused.
But I couldn't. I knew better than anyone that there was no fixing this.
The door opened slowly as he stepped back into the room, his face blank as he sat on the edge of the bed with a sudden drop of his weight. I stared at him, unable to go to him and make it better and just trapped by my own self-hatred. My eyes landed on the bloodied knuckles of both of his hands, the skin torn to a mess and his hands trembling despite his empty expression. "Lino," I sobbed, reaching out a hand to hover over his in horror.
"Come here," he whispered, his voice matching the emptiness of his face. I nodded, crawling forward on my knees until they touched his thigh. His face turned to mine suddenly, and the expression in his eyes nearly sent me flinching back. They were full of anguish, full of rage so intense that my heart stuttered in my chest.
Then he touched me, grasping me around the waist and with a hand behind my neck. He lifted me up and into his lap so that I straddled his legs, and his arm crushed me against his chest. His face went to my neck, tucked into the curtain of my hair as he breathed me in, and I cried into his shoulder.
He stayed like that for what felt like an eternity, just holding me while my brain raced with trying to figure out what was happening. "He was already dead for what he did to you, but now he'll suffer before I finally grant him the mercy of death." His breath tickled my neck, feeling menacing in the face of his declaration.
"No," I hissed. "I don't want that—"
He pulled his face from my neck, staring down at me in disbelief. "After everything he did, you're still protecting him?" Lino's rage boiled over the top, written in every feature of his harsh expression.
I reached out hesitantly, grabbing him around the nape of his neck. "I'm protecting you," I said in a ragged whisper. "He isn't worth the risk, the stain on your soul or the possibility that you could be caught. I won't lose you because of him."
He looked at me like I was insane. "You think it will leave a mark on me? Hurting him?"
"Of course, it will. Murder is murder, Lino. No matter what he's done—"
He let out a breath that was ragged. "Making him hurt the way he hurt you will be the greatest honor of my life." He pulled back suddenly, lifting me off his lap so he could stand and left me sitting in the center of the bed, wondering what the Hell had just happened. When he came back, his knuckles were washed clean of blood, though the ragged strips of flesh still looked raw and painful. When he reached out to pluck me off the bed, I didn't argue. I just wrapped my body around him again and let him carry me out of the bedroom and take me downstairs.
"What are we doing?"
"I'm making you dinner." He plopped me into one of the
stools at his massive island, and I watched as he pulled frozen puff pastry from his freezer. I smiled at him knowingly, because puff pastry meant one thing.
He was cooking me bourekas.
My head spun with the sudden change of atmosphere when he grinned at me. He only made me bourekas when he wanted something.
I just didn't know what it was.
Twelve
Lino
The last thing I wanted to do on the heels of Samara's confession was leave her side. There was no doubt in my mind that she was opening herself up to the future we had, even if she wasn't ready for the words themselves. Her body spoke for itself, and the way she instinctively wrapped herself around me and sought me out in her sleep told me everything I needed to know.
Samara and I were on the same page.
She was mine. Mine to protect and mine to love. Mine to worship and adore. Mine to touch and kiss and fuck.
Just like I was hers. Hers to look to for shelter and affection. Hers to wrap around her delicate little finger.
But the knowledge of what Connor had done to her was just too much for me to handle. She needed to be free of him, and I had the ability to make that happen. I just had to leave her side to do it.
"I need to ask you something," I murmured, setting my fork down. Samara sliced at the last grilled tomato of her breakfast, narrowing her eyes at me as if she'd had enough of my questions.
"What's that?" she asked.
"What did he want when he attacked you the other night?"
The tension left her body in a sudden burst of relief when she decided that line of conversation was safe. Well, relatively safe compared to the other topics we'd covered since the attack. "Money," she admitted.
"What happened to his trust fund?" I gathered up my plate and made my way to the sink to rinse and drop it in the dishwasher.
Samara scrunched her nose up when I turned to look at her while I waited for the answer. The motion lifted her glasses up just slightly, and I wanted to take them off and kiss the lines they hid on her nose. "He burned through that about a year ago."
"The gambling." I nodded, knowing it made sense. Even if his trust fund had been massive when I'd looked into him when Samara started seeing him. "Was the money to gamble more? Something else?"
"I don't know," Samara whispered, chewing the last bite of her toast thoughtfully. "I didn't care enough to ask."
"Okay, I'll touch base with my guy and see if he has anything for me. Then I need to go out for a bit today. Enzo's going to come monitor things here while I'm gone." She stood, bringing her plate to me with her expression, silently daring me to say something about it.
"That isn't necessary. I'll be fine on my own," she argued. "I don't need a babysitter."
"He's not a babysitter. Enzo will be here for your protection today, and I'll talk to Matteo about having a man on you at all hours. Let him pick someone he trusts." I took the plate from her hands when she bent down to put it in the dishwasher. Doing it for her and kicking it shut, I raised a brow at her before I swept her up off her feet and brought her to sit in the living room. I'd have much preferred her to stay in bed, but I couldn't have Enzo looking at her in a bed.
Nope. Just no.
"I can walk," she pouted as her grey legging covered ass hit the cushion of my leather sofa.
"And I can carry you."
"Is Enzo going to carry me around too?" I gritted my teeth, knowing from the innocent expression on her face she had no clue just how much she risked by prodding at my jealousy that way. I'd done what I could to hide it from her since high school, anyway. Once I'd forced myself to stop chasing her dates off, I had no choice but to accept that she would date. That she would take men to her bed, eventually. Men that weren't me.
"No. He's not. The only way you leave this couch is to go to the bathroom, and it isn't far. Aside from that, Enzo brings you whatever you need." I stood, staring down at her and daring her to fight me on it.
A mischievous smile spread across her face, making my breath stall in my lungs. She was so fucking beautiful it hurt sometimes but knowing that we walked along the precipice of her finally becoming mine helped to ease that pain. As soon as she was ready, I'd have all that beauty staring up at me while I made her mine in the way she'd always been meant to be. She grabbed her favorite pillow, the one I kept specifically for her even though it stood out like a sore thumb in my living room. With my clean, almost industrial lines and tan and black furniture, Samara's deep purple throw pillow and matching fuzzy blanket were probably the only personal touches in the house.
Before I'd become a celibate man waiting for Samara's divorce, more than one woman had looked at them with accusing eyes. I'd never explained, not when I didn't owe any of them the truth, that they belonged to my married best friend. They all knew that the only space they could fill in my life was purely sexual, and they were okay with that. I'd been nothing but honest about being unavailable, and many women were willing to use me to meet their own needs.
Quid pro quo.
Laying out on her side like the unintentional siren she was, she stretched and nuzzled her face into the pillow. The most beautiful part of Samara was that she had absolutely no idea the effect she had on men. Part of that was my fault for chasing boys off so much in her formative years. "What if I need something from my suitcase? Should I send him up to the bedroom?"
"Yes," I grunted, but I knew she was going somewhere with it.
She bit her lip, confirming it with that subtle mix of shy and playful that was so endearing. The playful side of Samara rarely came out with anyone else, always so concerned with what someone might think of her to drop her guard. But not with me, with me she always spoke her mind, always felt comfortable to just be who she was. I loved knowing that I gave her that, that in the face of all the goodness she brought to my otherwise dark, work-centered life I could give something back to her.
"So he should just go rummage through the suitcase with my underwear in it if I need a sweater?"
I think I growled, ripping the sweatshirt off my head and tossing it at her. She giggled, looking shocked as she stared up at me. "What if I need socks?" she pressed. With a hiss of frustration, I turned to leave the living room. "I suppose I should probably put on a bra?" she called, making me turn back to look at her. Her arms crossed over her chest, trying to hide the breasts that were fairly large for her 5'4" frame. Samara was all tits and ass, a body made for men to drool over. I'd known of course that she hadn't been wearing a bra. I could feel it when she curled into my side in her sleep or when she'd been snuggled in my lap or laid out underneath me. I just hadn't let myself think about the fact that I could have my hands on the breasts I'd spent my teenage years dreaming about with just a tug of her t-shirt. Having seen them in the shower, perky with dusky nipples that made my balls ache, didn't help anything in the slightest.
I turned back, racing up the steps to bring her a bra and socks. I rummaged through her suitcase, wondering if Linda had specifically chosen the laciest underwear she could find or if Samara just didn't own a lot of variety. I both hoped and dreaded that it might be the latter. I'd spend all my time inside her.
The woman would be the death of me. There was no doubt about that.
✽✽✽
Talking with Campbell had only made my already bad mood that much worse. His initial probe into Connor's finances had revealed that things were likely far worse than even Samara knew. They'd kept separate bank accounts at his insistence when they were married, and it appeared that was probably the only thing keeping Samara from outright bankruptcy. Not only that, but the fucker was in deep with Tiernan Murphy. A ruthless loan shark who operated in the void Matteo left, he gave money to people with families and kids who depended on them and didn't give the first shit about the fact that it frequently blew back on innocent people. Since Campbell hadn’t been able to find a single trace of Connor anywhere, I knew I’d have to call Ryker in to help.
I'd already planned on going
to see Judge Ed Ryan, but the new information about Connor's debt made that trip even more urgent. It wasn't beyond Tiernan to expect a wife to settle her husband's debt on her back, and if the fucker took a step into Samara's space, I knew I'd start an all-out turf war.
Judge Ryan was as tough as they came and typically favored the Bellandi's. As much as he hated all the crime in the city and the rising gun-violence, he was also practical enough to see that while Matteo operated outside the lines of the law; he kept the city from delving into absolute chaos. Men like Tiernan Murphy wanted that chaos, and Matteo was the only thing standing in his way. Not to mention, Judge Ryan had a daughter a few years younger than Samara and I. I knew he would do anything to protect his precious girl, and if I could play to that sensibility and paint a vivid picture of what Samara had suffered at the hands of her ex, I stood a decent chance of getting her divorce granted that day.
A quick call confirmed he was home, and it gave me the perfect opportunity I needed for my request. His home was opulent, the elite of Chicago's one percent. The Ryan family came from a long line of benefactors to the city. Ryan's lack of a son to pass it all down to had once been the gossip of Chicago, but he'd slowly navigated himself away from the family business in banking and served as a judge, raising his daughter to give back to the city and put the city first in her life.
The tenacious young woman ran a charity for the city's children, orphaned by gun violence. She had a soft spot for her kids, and the city worshiped her for all that she did to help them. With her long raven hair and bright green eyes, she was the pretty poster child every nonprofit could only dream of.
The problem had quickly become that some stains on the city were determined to use her to control her father. He wouldn't tolerate it. Hired security to protect her and consulted with Enzo regularly to keep the security systems and training for her personnel up to date. She was the revolution, and not everyone wanted that to come.
One of the guards I knew by name let me in through the front gate, and another I didn't recognize opened the front door once I pulled the BMW up to the end of the drive. "Mr. Bellandi, he's expecting you," he called. I hurried to make my way inside the mansion as the guard closed my door. It would not be in my best interest to waste Judge Ryan's time. There was nothing he hated more than waste.
Forgivable Sins: A Dark Mafia Romance (Bellandi Crime Syndicate Book 2) Page 7
