Page 32 of Gunner

He nods, his hand still shoved against the door, still not looking at me. “Somehow, Romeo convinced his father to giveyou to him as a wife. The plan was to have you marry him and then unite your families that way. On paper, it would be a good agreement, ensuring the peace that your father already had with the Rossi family. I couldn’t let it happen. Romeo is nothing like his father. I’ve seen the mess he made of his whores in the past. The world thinks men like me are the monsters? They have no idea. The worst kind are the beautiful ones. The ones that are at home out in the world because they have everyone fooled. Do you know how many women disappeared because of that man? There was no fucking way I could let him get his hands on you. He would have married you, beat you, raped you—all because you’d have been little more than his property. Adolfo might have been a man of honor at heart, a man of the old world and old ways, but he knew what his son was and turned a blind eye to it. His son was his weakness.”

His words make my head spin. My stomach cramps, nausea washing over me until my skin breaks out in a cold, clammy sweat.

I lurch forward, trying to get closer, needing something to hold myself up, but Gunner shakes his head viciously and surges past me. He throws himself down on the bed and bows his head, wrapping his hands around the base of his neck.

“I couldn’t let it happen. It was easy to fuck with the cameras and the men because they trusted me. I caused a disruption.”

“There was an explosion in the house. I heard it.”

“The garage. I don’t think any of those cars survived. They were Romeo’s pride and joy. It was only too pleasurable to light them up. While the men were busy thinking someone was trying to blow their way in through the back of the house, I got you out.It was natural that you be protected. No one questioned why I was rushing upstairs. It was important that you not see my face.”

“You had that black mask on. It didn’t even have eyeholes.”

“It was lightweight around the eyes and mouth. I could see and breathe.”

It’s my turn to cross my arms, now that the shock and sickness is fading. Anger is a much more welcome fuel. That, and adrenaline, will keep you upright and going every single time. “You threw me in the trunk of a car, asshole.”

“I drove out in my own car, mask off, so no one asked any questions. They thought I was heading across the city to Adolfo’s, but I drove you straight to your father instead. I brought you back safely. Demanded a massive sum of money to get out of Italy because eventually, someone would figure out what I’d done and then there’d be a price on my head. He had the funds transferred pretty much instantly. He could have killed me, but I knew of your father, and I’d heard that despite what he did, he was an honorable man. Like Adolfo, he believed in the old code. Blood debts. A life for a life.”

The implications of that crash down around me.

“Look at me!” I thunder, but I’m still shocked when he lifts his head.

“Take out the contacts. Now. I want to see your real eyes when I talk to you.” I’ve asked this before, but now I’m not asking. I’m demanding.

This man isn’t just my stalker.

He’s the man who saved my life.

I waver backwards a step, bumping into the door until my spine grinds against it. The breath punches out of my lungs as he removes the blue lenses. His eyes are soft and dark. Darker than my own. There are no soft gold lights in them, no hazel spokes. Brown so deep they’re almost black.

He stares at me, and as I watch his face, I can see how much practice he has with boxing up and packing away his emotions. It’s not shutting down if you don’t feel them in the first place. I have no idea how to get to a place where feeling and not feeling, memory, pain, goodness and life, is a choice. I’ve been around men like him my whole life and I never realized what a basic line of survival for them looked like. I had a loving childhood. I was adored and protected, well fed, doted on—a typical mafia princess. I was never abandoned, tortured, starving, or in so much pain that I had to tunnel into a place of non-existence to get through it.

It makes me feel like someone just ripped a hole in the fabric inside of me.

I want to know how he became Adolfo’s man. What his childhood was like. What hell he lived that made him say that tears had never affected him before he saw mine, but there’s too much rage flowing white hot in me. I clench my hands into fists and hiss under my breath so that I don’t yell, scream, and lose my shit.

“You have to be fucking kidding me. All this time, you’ve been here, knowing what could happen to good people because of you, and you stayed anyway? If it was just me, I could handle that, but what about all these people? Some of them have families. That little girl. Penny. Do you want to bring the wrath of the Italian mafia down on this town? You know as well as I do that no one would be left alive.”

“They want me. They aren’t in it for women and children.”

“You don’t know that that’s—”

“I do. Adolfo owes me his life.”

“You betrayed him. You have no idea how men like that—”

“What do you want me to say?” he asks evenly. “That you’re right? That I was reckless? That I’d leave a trail of destruction and blood in my wake and I’m certainly not worth it?”

“Stop it.” I cross the room, stopping right in front of him. I try to reach out, but he leans back, away. I close my eyes against the sting of him dodging my touch. “That’s not what I meant. I said the first thing that came to my mind, and it was harsh. I’m sorry.”

Sorry? That’s what I’m going to say to a man who just told me that he’s the one who saved my life?

Yes, I might still be alive, but what kind of hell would I have been living? I would never have told my father. I wouldn’t have wanted the streets to run red with blood. Would I ever have been able to escape on my own?

He lowers his head and rests his hands on his knees. Even bowed, he’s frighteningly large, oozing power and menace. And yet… so fucking vulnerable that it shreds me in half. It’s like he needs just a minute. Just one single minute to get a lifetime of pain and horror together and he’ll be fine.

I’m scared to touch him, but I extend my hand again, setting it lightly on his shoulder. His muscles bunch under the tight t-shirt the man he almost choked out gave to him. I’ve had every few friends who were real, and what I saw made me wantto weep. That was true friendship. Not just giving someone the literal shirt off your back but forgiving them so easily and readily without them even asking because you just fuckinggetit.

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