Page 34 of Protecting Charity

I climbed on the hood of a car and searched as far as my eye could see. Where the hell did he go? Not one person walking towards their car. Not one headlight turned on. Nothing. He vanished like a fucking ghost.

"Saw who, Charity? Get down. You're making yourself an easy target."

Shit, he was right. I crouched down and climbed off the car as a bullet hit the cement pillar, causing dust to cascade to the ground. The suppressed shot rang out just milliseconds later. The height was perfect for where my head had just been.

Time slowed to a near standstill.

They say that you never hear the sound from the gun that killed you. The bullet penetrates the brain faster than the sonic boom can travel. I fell to the ground with my hands covering my head, waiting for more gunfire, but there was nothing—just one lone shot. Someone was so confident they thought it was all it would take. Luca pressed his body over mine, and I tried to shove him off. There was no way he'd be protecting me when it was my job to protect him.

"Charity, stop."

"You aren't going to fucking die for me," I yelled.

I shoved him one more time, but it was no use. He put all his weight on me, and there was no making him budge.

"No one is dying. He's gone," Vito said while standing next to us. His gun was drawn and ready.

Luca rose off me, and I stood to look around. "Fucking coward," I screamed at the unknown assailant. "Next time, get up close, fucker."

"Charity," Luca yelled.

"What? He wants to come at me then be a fucking man and stand before me," I said loud enough for my would-be assassin to hear me.

Luca grabbed me by the back of the neck, hunching me over, and forced me to move to the car, where he shoved me in the back. The top of my head smacked the other side of the vehicle, jarring my teeth together, causing my head to pound from the impact.

"Who was that?"

He slid in beside me, and Vito took off. Tires squealed as we rounded the corner to exit the parking garage. My hands shook from adrenaline as thoughts raced around in my head. My chest clenched with the realization that there was no way that man was my brother. He wouldn't do that. Was ICF retaliating? How would they know who to retaliate against? Wasn't that enforcer off the books? Nora, Tom's wife, knew about Oisin. She had to recognize that he was dead by now.

Maybe she was trying to have the job finished.

"The man who broke into my house. The man who saw me outside of Jose's."

Luca punched the seat in front of him and began his customary rant featuring every Italian expletive he could think of. Vito pulled up in front of Luca's home.

"Why are we here?"

Luca got out and walked into the house with me close on his heels, demanding an answer to my question.

"You aren't going back to your place, not until I know what's going on."

"No, that's bullshit."

He spun around and backed me up against the wall, never connecting with my skin that itched for his forceful touch.

"You don't fucking tell me what you are going to do. I own you, remember?" The vessels in his neck bulged as the tension rose between us.

"You own me because I allow it, Luca. I have all the power in this relationship here. The moment I no longer want to be in your grasp, I stop doing my job, and you put a bullet between my eyes. I control my inevitable ending."

He scoffed. "You're delusional."

"I'm practical."

"No, you're delusional if you think I'd ever let you go so easily." His hands slid into place around my throat just as I needed, as I craved and pleaded. "I didn't sit back and watch you for years, unable to touch you, just to end you as soon as I had you." His fingers tightened, trapping the pumping blood beneath his powerful hand. "Don't think for a second you have the power. I'd rather put you in chains for the rest of your life and have you hate me than ever to let you go."

His confession threw me over the edge of disrepair. He cracked me with one sentence. I'd rather accept those chains for the rest of my life than to never have him again. I had every intention of keeping myself by his side, whether he liked it or not.

I suddenly understood why he lashed out so aggressively against me, now. Fear. Not of me, but of what could be. I pressed against his tight fist, wishing it would cut the air from my lungs as he held me back. I would win this time; he'd have no choice but to concede and give me what I lusted after. The flash in his eyes told me of the fits of hunger he tried to bury there, but I saw it as clear as day.

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