Franco lifted his head and spat blood on my face, and that’s when I pulled out my gun and held it to his chin. The motherfucker had a death wish. There’s no other way to explain it. “I bet she’s a real good fuckin’ whore for you.”

The rage built, so strong, so fast, I couldn’t breathe. My muscles turned to stone. My willpower turned to dust. Please, I begged internally. “One more fuckin’ word, and I’ll kill you.”

He had to be insane. “It shouldn’t be a surprise to anyone, I guess…” he said, his voice strained, right before he coughed, blood splattering from his lips. “You are a DeLuca after all.”

For a second, just one split second, I almost let his words get to me. Almost. Then I felt Tiny move, his hand on my shoulder.

Franco blinked once. Twice. Then he smiled. “And everyone knows your mother was a whore.”

I don’t know what came first. The sound of the gunshot, the hot white behind my eyes, or the blood on my hands. But afterward, everything was still. Silent. Blood poured from Franco’s wound, down the solid steel of my barrel and seeped between my trembling fingers.

“Get in the car,” Tiny said, lifting me like a rag doll and forcing me to stand. I walked backward to the car while Tiny stood over Franco’s dead body. I waited until I was next to the car before emptying the content of my stomach, over and over. It was all a blur. I remember nothing after that. Not even how I managed to get in the car.

I came to only minutes away from my house, the shaking gun in my hand the first thing I saw. Slowly, I looked over at Tiny behind the wheel. “Why’d you do it?”

He shrugged.

“It’s your job to protect me, Tiny. Not to kill for me.”

He glanced at me quickly, before focusing back on the road. “I protect you because you’re my boss, Nate. I kill for you because you’re my family.”

29

Bailey

I smiled against the pillow when I heard Nate say my name, and it grew the second I felt his lips on my bare shoulder. “You need to wake up, baby. It’s time for your meds.”

I groaned. I didn’t want to get up. Getting up meant solitude and silence and tiles. So many damn tiles.

The bed dipped when he got up, and a moment later, he returned, sitting back on the edge of the bed. If ten years from now you asked me to pinpoint the exact moment I fell in love with Nate DeLuca, it’d be the moment he lifted the covers from around my waist, careful not to wake me or let the cold air hit me in other areas. The way he made sure to warm up his hands before lifting my shirt, exposing my stomach to him. It’d be the gentle way his lips pressed against my skin after he’d given me my insulin and tested my blood sugar. The care in his touch when he ran the pad of his thumb across the pierced flesh. The way his eyes settled on mine when he realized I’d been watching him, not a single ounce of regret or shame in his features. “Tiny’s coming back with bagels,” he said, completely unaware of what his actions did to me. He peeked under the covers again, taking in my lack of clothes and he smiled. “You might want to get dressed. I’m really not one for sharing, Bailey.” And with that, he stood up and made his way to the bathroom, taking my medicine bag with him.

I slowly got up, the sharp ache between my legs a reminder of what happened last night. I sat on the edge of the bed, my legs pressed together, trying to ease the pain, and that’s when I saw it—a tiny bag filled with white powder sitting on Nate’s nightstand. With a thousand thoughts racing through my mind, I picked it up and examined it. I didn’t know exactly what it was, but I knew it was drugs and as stupid as it sounds considering what Nate did for a living, it still hurt when my heart sank to my stomach.

I checked the seal on the bag and noticed it was open, and when I looked over at where it had been sitting on Nate’s nightstand, all my worst fears hit me at once. The powder was there… not a lot of it, but it was still there, which meant he’d been the one to open it.

I felt Nate’s presence before I saw him or heard him whisper my name but I couldn’t pull my gaze away from the bag, and I didn’t want to look at him because I knew, for sure, that there was no way I could hide my disappointment.

He sat down next to me, his loud, drawn out sigh lingering between us.

“Did you?” I asked. I didn’t need to elaborate. He knew what I meant.

He inhaled slowly, held it for a beat, then said, “I wouldn’t do that to you, Bailey. I know how you feel about that shit.”

I faced him quickly, dropping the bag on the floor by my feet. “You shouldn’t want to do it to you, Nate. I don’t know what happened yesterday. All I know is that it’s bad, but it’s not just about me—”

“I’m in love with you,” he cut in, and everything in me froze.

I searched his gaze as he did the same, and then his throat bobbed with his swallow, before he looked away. His focus was on the floor as he leaned forward, elbows resting on his knees. His voice was weak, but his words were opposite. “It’s kind of insane and a little dangerous, to be honest, just how in love with you I am. And it’s really important to me that you trust me enough to believe that I’d never do anything to hurt you. Everything I do is for you.” He turned to me, his gaze intense. “Everything.”

I didn’t get a chance to respond before Tiny knocked on the basement door and Nate rushed to answer it. I was grateful for that because I had no idea what I would’ve said.

Guilt weaved its way through my veins when I picked up the bag from the floor and set it on Nate’s nightstand. I’d jumped to conclusions, and worse, I accused him of something I had no right accusing him of. In fact, I had no right to question a single thing he said or did.

I winced when I stood up, forgetting for a moment the pain between my legs. “You okay, Bailey?” Tiny asked as I made my way to the bathroom. “You’re walking funny.”

I didn’t answer him verbally. Instead, I nodded and quickly moved to the bathroom, closing the door behind me. I was only there a few seconds before the door opened and Nate walked in, his brow bunched in concern. “Are you still in pain?” he asked, one hand on my back, the other sifting through the contents of the medicine cabinet.

“It’s not so bad.”

He nodded once, but his mind was elsewhere, focused on finding the aspirin. Focused on taking care of me.

*

The three of us ate breakfast at the small table and chairs in a corner of the basement, the silence only broken when Tiny and Nate talked business. Soon enough it was time for them to leave. I sat on the edge of the bed next to Nate as he slipped on his shoes and looked over his shoulder at Tiny, who was waiting for him at the bottom of the stairs.

I swallowed nervously. “Nate?” I said quietly, and he paused mid-movement, staring ahead for a moment before finally giving me his attention.

“What’s up?”

I scooted closer, my hands settling on his upper arm.

He seemed to release a breath, his shoulders dropping with the force of it.

“I love you,” I told him. I felt stupid saying it the way I did, when he’d been so passionate in his declaration, and all I gave him were three simple words that had been recycled over and over. But going by his reaction, the smile that completely took over his face, the three simple, recycled words were enough.