Page 106 of Revenge on the Mafia

He worked his jaw. His eyes had gone dark. It was hard to read what he was thinking. But I had to let him go. I’d hurt that man more than enough to last for a lifetime. I turned to walk away.

One step was all I took before he yanked my hand.

“What if I don’t want you to?”

“I can’t kill you.”

“If you’re going to leave me, you’ll have to kill me.” My breath heaved. “I can’t lose you. Not again.”

His words were an arrow to the center of my heart. Slowly, I turned around. Every breath I took felt like inhaling smoke. His face was a carefully placed mask.

“I can’t,” I whispered.

His mask dismantled. Anguish filled his face like black ink seeping into blank paper. I took a step forward. My voice was cracked porcelain. “Don’t ask that of me. I’d rather hurt myself than you. I can’t do that, Nico.”

“Why?” He looked up at me through hooded eyelids. He worked his throat. Licked his lips. A rough sound escaped from his throat, “You love me?”

My heart pounded. “I do.”

The words dropped like bricks in the room. He didn’t answer me. His thumb traced my speeding pulse again and again. Then he shook his head softly. As if he were clearing his thoughts. I suddenly understood it. He hadn’t prepared for this outcome. That made it even more precious to me. “Do you?”

He exhaled a sharp breath and let out a raw, abrasive laugh that I felt all the way to my skin. “Do I?”

I bit my lips. He followed the movement with hooded eyes. “I think you’ve been playing games with me.”

“Have I?”

I nodded.

“Perhaps.” He tugged gently, and I fell onto his lap. “But there’s one game you’ll never ever win.” His knuckles caressed my cheek. “I will always, always love you more, stella mia.”

The intensity of his gaze was a matchstick on dry wood. Pressure built in my chest. “Impossible.”

His eyes sparked. “You see impossibility; I see a theorem waiting to be acknowledged.”

“That depends on—”

“You’re the reason I breathe. Your breath, your sound, your scent, your touch. That’s my fucking oxygen.”

My smile wobbled. “I could say the same.”

“Thirteen.”

“Ugh?”

“That’s the number of moles on your inner thigh.”

“If you let me see your tattoo again, I could count the number of times you have my name on you.”

He brushed me off. “Would you like to know the exact size of each one of them?”

“No.” I didn’t even know that.

“One, two, two point four, two point—”

“Stop.” I held up my hand. “They’re not that big.”

He took my hand and kissed the inside of my wrist. His grip was soft. His gaze was possessive. “Oh, stella mia, we’re talking millimeters, not fucking inches.”