Page 180 of SINS & Riley
“I know.”
“Do you? Because she’s a Mullvain. And I’m pretty damn sure she’ll go full-scale, unleash-the-kraken, murder-your-ass-back-to-the-crypt kind of revenge rage when she finds out you’ve been deceiving her for… what, a month?”
I wince. “More like three.”
He whips out his phone. “Cool. Ordering the Kevlar now. One pallet or six?”
“I don’t care if she rains holy hell on me a hundred times over.” My voice is raw, stripped to the bone. “I have to see her. I’m ready.”
Dillon studies me, eyes unflinching. “If she has no idea you’re Zver—and Zver is you—when she walks in…who are you?”
The question carves straight through me. Truth is, I’m so knee-deep in fucked-up, I don’t even know where one ends and the other begins.
I could dodge his question.
Or outright lie.
But instead, I give him the only truth I know.
“I’m the man who loves her. The man who’ll bleed, burn, and kill for her. And the man who’ll never fucking let her go.”
58
RILEY
“He’s up here.” Dillon walks me down endless halls, and every step makes my stomach twist tighter.
No one’s talking. No one’s telling me anything at all. And it’s killing me.
Is he all right?
And, if he is, why would everyone be so damn secretive?
Maybe because they know I’ve slipped from my ordinary pregnancy to high-risk with my blood pressure.
God. What if he’s hurt.
What if he’s… missing things.
Stop that.
It doesn’t matter.
Panic claws at me, but I shove it down.
It’s okay. Everything will be fine. Because I don’t care if he’s nothing but a grumpy burrito wrapped in hospital gauze, as long as we’re together, we’ll be just fine.
We’re about to be a family.
I breathe through a few more mini-panic attacks as we climb the stairs and wind through this big-ass palace.
I swear, there are hiking trails with fewer miles.
Windows stretch the length of the hall, flooding everything with light. Outside, the D’Angelo estate rolls on forever—manicured lawns, lush trees, and more guards than the Vatican.
It’s beautiful. But it isn’t home.
Not mine. His.
