Page 36 of Seized By the Mafia King
Zane sets me down at the door, and we walk into the street together. His arm around my waist brooks no argument, but he shortens his stride to accommodate me. We round a corner and there’s a railings and bushes enclosed garden, right in the centre of rows of houses, and there’s the swirl of helicopter blades from inside the little park.
“Zane,” I begin, but I’m not sure what to say. Thank you? Where are we going? Can we go home? Did you really mean it that you want to marry me?
I want you to be my husband.
He told my brothers I was his wife, like it was a predestined thing.
I love you.
“No,” he says, voice gruffer than I’ve heard it. “Get in, Willow. Now.”
18
ZANE
There’s no privacy for talking in the helicopter, and thankfully Willow doesn’t argue, allowing me to buckle her into a seat. A short time later, we’re back at the house in Suffolk and the helicopter has spun off into the sky after we walk away.
I slow to a stop on the lawn and Willow does too, looking at me with an expression of surprise as we stand in the warm afternoon sunlight.
“This is your last chance, Willow,” I say tightly. “If you don’t want to be mine, you need to speak right now.” Otherwise, I’m taking murdering her brothers as a sign that she’s happy to stay.
“You just gave up the Witham territory,” she whispers, her brows puckering with confusion.
I shrug. It was never about that. All this was only ever for her.
She takes a tentative step closer and it’s all I can do not to lift her into my arms again.
I hold off.
“You know those ethical dilemmas?” I reply instead, because she has to know all of it. “The ones where you have, say, a big family about to be hit by a train, and a person you could sacrifice to save the children?”
She nods, but looks uncertain.
“If you were the one person, I’d let them die,” I say roughly. “I’d go over there and throw them in front of the train myself.”
That makes her draw in breath.
“I’d send millions into fire if I could have one more minute with you.”
Her gulp shows I’m making my point.
“Do not mistake me, I am a bad, bad man.” I grab her chin between my thumb and forefinger, tilting her head to force her to look into my eyes. “I killed your brothers. I am obsessed with you already. It will get worse. I am unhinged. I’ll never be reasonable about you, and your safety, and I guess that’s a red flag, or whatever people on the internet say.
“But I amyourbad man,” I add more softly. “I will care for you, and I will love you. So long as there is breath in my body, I will put myself between you and any harm or threat.”
“Zane, I?—”
“You can leave if you want,” I cut her off, because if I don’t make this promise aloud, now, I might not have the resolve to follow through. “I’ll take you somewhere else, that’s safe. And we can both pretend I don’t watch you, and stalk you, and kill any man who touches you.”
She shakes her head slowly, and my stomach plunges.
I continue anyway.
“I won’t give you up completely, but if freedom is really what you want—or the illusion of it at least—you have to tell me before I claim you and can’t let you go.”
It causes physical pain to drop my hand away. But I want a wife, not a prisoner. Either she feels the same, or she?—
The air is knocked out of me as Willow throws herself against my chest. My arms close over her instinctively, and she clings, having somehow got her hands over my shoulders, and wrapped her legs around my waist.
