Page 15 of Redemption

Loved.

But I’ll never let my heart trip and fall again.

But as my fingers stroke her soft cheek and her heaving breaths make her breasts bounce, part of me wonders what could have been. A thousand“if only’s”have me punching the wall above her head showering her in a layer of sheetrock.

I yank the rope from her mouth and press my bleeding knuckles to her lips, painting them red.

“Never.”

“Excuse me?”

“You’ll never break me.”

I rock back on my heels studying the pathetic form at my feet. Was she serious? I’d taken everything from her a man could. But I guess it wasn’t enough. Maybe the two of us were meant to break one another. Because I damn near lost everything I maimed and killed for. Rank. Power. Respect.

“Fine. Instead of the queen I treated you as…you can be my little whore.”

“No.”

She jerked her face from my hand.

“Yes,bella. Before you betrayed me, I was ready to put my ring here….,” I grab her left hand, “and my seed here….” I rubbed her starving belly. “I bet you miss it already?” I breath. “My cock filling you so full.”

Her eyes betrayed her. My words painted a picture of what could have been. But her family roots ran just as deep as mine. In our world vengeance trumps all. She made her choice the fallout is all on her. She bites her lip. The sight of my crimson blood on her tongue has me hard as fuck.

My hands make quick work of my belt. I stroke myself from root to tip inches from her. She shrinks back but there’s nowhere to go. Her bare back scrapes against the wall.

“I never loved you,” she spits, straightening her spine.

The devil in me rises. Fuck her. My family and this whole fucking world. I have everything. Everything a man alive could want. I will have her love. No matter how long it takes. I. Will. Have. Her. Heart. Just so I can smash it to pieces, leaving it shattered at my feet.

I could shove my cock in her mouth. It’d be easy. But I don’t. My fingers grab her by the chin. “Open your eyes. Look at me.” I command.

“No.”

“Do it. Or I’ll fuck your face.”

“You wouldn’t. I know you, Roque. You’re ruthless in everything you do until it comes to women. You’d never force one.”

“Exception is my new pet name for you,bella. Because you just became one.”

With that promise, the head of my throbbing cock meets her trembling lips. Soon. Both my seed and my blood drips from her mouth. Satisfied, I grunt feeling the last shudder roll through me as my own seed glistens in the moonlight from where it landed on her lips. She betrayed me while I was at my weakest, practically at death’s door. She brought me back. It was her voice I heard while hooked up to beeping machines. Her soul kept me tethered to this Earth, this life. What I fool I was. Johnny was right. She never loved me. Not like I loved her. Her love was never real. All this time I wasted on a damn fantasy on some asinine belief that we were fated since that day in Palermo.

What a fucking fool. Never again. I’ll never love her again. But my revenge will be to make her beg for the days when I did. I’ll break her every day until I leave this Earth for good. I need some space from her before I do something stupid like break her body.

I turn on my heel not even sparing her one more glance. The door slams so hard my own ears cringe. I lock the door using a special code so not even my own men can get in. My fingers find the spot on my chest where the bullet ripped through me. She did more damage to my heart than an entire clip could. I take the stairs, marching up to the penthouse floor. Soon after I bought my place here in Chicago, I bought out the five floors under me for security. I tucked Romina into an empty apartment right under my own nose.

As soon as I enter my penthouse, I go for the safe. My bloodied hands find her journals then mine. I grab a bottle of vodka, my lighter and add some kindling into the fireplace. I douse the wood with alcohol then light it. In my hands is all the love. All the passion recorded over the years in my blue ink.

It feels heavy.

I let it go.

“Roque? What are you doing?’

“CHLOE?!” I spin, finding my tiny blond bay doll inches from me. She throws herself into my arms.

“I’m so mad at you! You were shot and never told me? Never called?!”

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