Page 84 of Shield

He takes both my hands in his. “I had to make a choice, baby.”

In spite of myself, I melt. Hearing him say ‘baby’ is enough to remind me how close I came to never hearing him say it again, but the way he says it, his blue eyes darkening not with lust but with something more like grief, slices right into my heart. I know why he didn’t tell me, but I let him explain anyway.

“I didn’t know how to tell you because he was the only family you seemed to have left. You just lost your sister. I couldn’t bring myself to hurt you.”

I look up at him through my eyelashes, my voice soft. “Oh, please. You’ve hurt me more times than you haven’t.”

He raises an eyebrow and leans back against the wall, crossing his arms over his chest. Fuck, he’s so hot.

“Name one.”

“Let’s see. For starters, kidnapping me.”

“Protecting you from Aurelio.”

I roll my eyes. “Okay, chaining me to a wall and spanking me.”

The corners of his mouth twitch into a smug smile. “Did you hate that, kitten?”

Blushing, I swat at him, letting my hand brush gently down his forearm. “Life is going to life, Matti. You can’t control everything. Protecting someone is not the same as gatekeeping and controlling someone.”

He leans down to me, his voice low and raw. “I never wanted to control you, Siena. Ineededto protect you. I can’t breathe without you. Apparently, I even asked Vin to keep you here and look for you out when I was too delirious to function. If anything happened to you—fuck.”

He’s practically shaking, clenching and unclenching his fists, not touching me even though I know he wants to grab me, pull me into his arms.

And suddenly it’s clear. This isn’t a man who’s trying to control me. This is a man who is trying to control himself. All the tracking, the stalking, the inexplicably hot and cold swings in his temperament and behavior—all of that is him trying to manage the one thing in his life that he can’t control, the one thing that he wants to more than anything: his love for the woman in front of him.

His love for me.

I swallow hard, unable to take a deep breath. I’m shaking again, but this time, it’s not from anger. “You didn’t have to tell Vin anything. I refused to leave your side. Asshole,” I whisper.

He straightens, stepping in close to me. His fingers trail along my jaw, down my neck, across my collarbone.

Dipping his head, he kisses my lips softly. Everything falls away in that moment, including my outrage, as I melt into him. He wraps his arms around me, and I can feel his entire body mold to me, absorbing me into him.

He whispers against my lips. “Do you think getting some real answers might help?”

My eyes closed, I keep my lips close to his. “I don’t know how to do that.”

“Franco’s here. Right now. You can ask him anything.” Matti’s voice is gentle, but his grip around me tightens. “He can’t hurt you.”

I know that he means that he’ll protect me. But my heart is broken open, raw. There’s no protection from that pain.

I lean back, looking up at him. His deep blue eyes are filled with concern. The way he’s so careful with me, tracing his knuckles along my jaw, is almost enough to heal what’s broken inside me.

Almost.

Rage threatens to overtake me as I think about what Franco did, and I struggle to keep my expression neutral. “I don’t just want answers. I want to hurt him.”

Matti nods slowly. “Hurt him…”

“Yes. I want to torture him the way Aurelio tortured me, break him the way losing Emily broke me.”

Pain flickers across Matti’s face. “You’re not broken, Siena.You are incredibly strong.”

“I’m not as strong as I want to be,” I say flatly. “But hurting him will help.”

“We don’t have to go right now. We can give it some time—”

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