Page 81 of Hostile Devil
My belly flutters, the intensity of our bond firing up my senses. I no longer know how I’d ever survive without him.
“You're one hundred percent alive.” I smile at him, immediately taking his hand. “And I’m never leaving you.”
Shadows darken the perfect outlines of his bare torso, giving him a lethal edge of risk and danger. The corner of his mouth hitches and he lifts his head off the pillow, scanning the corners of the small room. Forever assessing his surroundings. “Where’s Leo?”
I reach for the water just next to the bed and pour him a drink. “He was kidnapped… by your brothers for some Souza family time. I’ll FaceTime André and you can speak to him yourself. Lola and Daenis went with them.”
“Christ,” he chuckles under his breath and scrubs his face. “Poor kid. I assume they’ve increased security?”
“Yeah, and Matheus has The Covenant on standby. I get the feeling he wants to be a part of the team.”
Giovanni shakes his head slowly and sighs. “Did he leave too?”
“Dré wanted him to go back to the hotel with them. But Mat said he’d rather stay here and keep me company while you were recovering. I’m guessing he’s out there chatting with the nurses.”
His eyes settle on the family ring hugging his wedding finger. “Why the fuck is that on my finger?”
“Your mother was here for a while. She left a few hours ago.” I tell him. “She said the ring belongs to you and only comes off when you’re dead.”
His eyes narrow on the stone, confusion tugging at his features. “But I gave it to you, didn’t I?” He winces, struggling to shuffle farther up the bed a little.
“You did. Because you thought you were dying.” I point out. “Anyway… she gave me this as a replacement.” I pinch the gold band and hold it up for him to see. “She said it was her mother’s.”
Giovanni’s brows knit together, and he takes it from me, studying the sparkly diamonds and deep red ruby. “Right… it’s not really you,” he mutters, and then dismisses it, dropping the ring into my hand. “Set it over there and we’ll call Dré. I want to check on Leo and make sure those fuckers haven’t put a gun in his hand.”
My heart drops to my toes.
* * *
A few days later, Giovanni is adamant he’s leaving the medical facility.
Though the doctor thinks it’s too soon, but he won’t listen to reason. There’s a change in him and I can’t quite put my finger on it. I’d caught him taking calls on his cell phone, and quieting every time I entered the room.
He even received a package this morning and when I’d returned from the shower room, it had vanished.
Secrets.
That’s his forte.
Although, he’s not distant. Far from it even. We spend sunrise to sunset together and at night we sleep side by side after he’d demanded another bed be brought in. I haven’t brought up the ring or how it had disappeared either, giving us both time to process what life means for us now.
But today he feels edgier than usual, and I get the impression he’s about to tell me something I don’t want to hear.
Earlier, Matheus and Giovanni had gotten into an argument and when I asked them what it was about, they both brushed it off.
After that, Matheus left in a bad mood. While Giovanni went about dressing in camo pants and a black t-shirt, throwing on a zip-up hoodie and pulling up the hood. He popped open an orange tube and tipped a few pills into his mouth, crunching them into powder with his back teeth.
Taking my hand, he leads me out of the building into the mild morning air and ushers me to an electric Audi. I get in and sit quietly when he slams the car door shut, then rounds the hood. His stern expression makes my stomach twist.
The sky is clear when I stare out at it whizzing past the windshield. I should ask him where we’re going given Blackwater is in ruins, but when he turns onto the familiar coastal road, apprehension fizzes through me. Apparently, that’s exactly where we are headed.
“Are we going to the caves?” I ask him, my gaze settling on his family ring, still displayed on his wedding finger. “To visit your team?”
“Not today, baby,” he replies, his voice low and thoughtful. “There’s something we need to settle.”
In the distance, the iron gates of Blackwater come into view. The towering space once dominated by a gothic home is bare. The explosion demolished one half of the building and fire had swept through the rest, causing the last standing walls to fall inwards.
Through the trees, yellow bulldozers are hard at work, scraping rubble into heaps and clearing the site where the manor house had once stood.
