He knew. He knew exactly how she felt. The terrible feeling of betrayal, as if everything and everyone she knew, almost from the time of her birth, had conspired against her. This man holding her knew betrayal. He knew treachery at its worst. He knew what it felt like to live a role, to get so mixed up you forgot yourself, who and what you were. He knew all of that intimately.
She let her arms drift up his chest, that solid, hard chest, warm now, comforting, heart beating beneath her ear, strong and steady. She couldn't imagine him any other way but strong and steady. Of course he would be there. At her back. At her front, wherever she needed him.
Lissa let herself melt into his heat, holding him, weeping a storm of tears for both of them, for lost childhoods, for murdered parents and for his long-lost brothers, especially the oldest, who might be - and probably was - a total psycho thanks to a man in St. Petersburg who had murdered the parents of children, dragged them to schools and shaped them into killing machines, only to decide, after years of service, to have them all killed.
Casimir rocked her back and forth, his hands smoothing caresses down her back, fingers massaging her nape and scalp, whispering kisses and love at her temples and down the side of her face to the corner of her mouth. All the while, the water rained down on them, cocooning them in steam and love.
She felt his love surrounding her. Holding her up. Casimir Prakenskii. "All right. All right. I'm all right. I just have to let him go, don't I?"
"Golubushka. My beautiful wife. I love you with all my heart. With everything I am. This man you love, he is an illusion. Luigi Abbracciabene is an illusion. You loved your uncle. There is nothing wrong with that..."
She thumped her fist against his chest. "There is. He's a monster. He killed my parents. Wiped out so many people who were good to us. The gardener's entire family. He had children. They didn't even spare the children. He raised me to be a killer. He's involved in human trafficking. You can't tell me those women want to be doing what he forces them to do. I lived with him all those years, was loyal to him. Loved him. And he wanted me dead as well."
She couldn't keep the sorrow from her voice. Or the pain. She didn't want to feel pain. She wanted anger.
Casimir wrapped her up tight in his arms, just holding her, not arguing. Giving. That was all. Just giving. After a while the hot water ran out, and then her tears. She could only cry so long before there was nothing left.
He dried her body gently, wrapped her hair in a towel and pointed her toward her clothes. He'd packed a small suitcase for her. "The house is mostly empty. Two soldiers left behind. I told them I was going to take the night off, but if Luigi called and needed me, he could reach me by cell."
Lissa's head was pounding, a clear reason why it was just plain dumb to spend half an hour sobbing. Wild weeping got you nothing but headaches. She sighed. "I'm not certain what to do." She sank into a chair watching the play of muscles rippling in his back as he pulled on a tight tee.
"We're going to drive twenty minutes to a little resort right on the sea and we're spending the night there. Clearly Luigi's aware Aldo is dead. The authorities or his widow called Angeline. Luigi will be very caught up with his wife's grief over the next few days. He'll probably even make the funeral arrangements, stepping into the breach for the two grieving women."
"Three," Lissa corrected. "Lydia is grieving as well. I hope Luigi isn't planning on taking her into his prostitution ring."
Casimir completed dressing and caught her hand. "He won't have the time. He's lost Arturo, and his other bodyguards are not that intelligent or trusted. They spent way too much time beefing up. Taking steroids. I don't know if that's true of all of them, but they're definitely lacking in the brain department. I suspect that was a prerequisite to work for Luigi in this home. Word couldn't get back to Angeline. But now, without Arturo he's stuck with a crew that's fairly useless to him."
He opened the car door for her - he'd brought Tomasso's vehicle around to the front of the building so she could leave the gardener's shed, take five steps and slide into the passenger side of the car. "Stay low as I pull out," Casimir cautioned. "I don't think anyone's paying attention, but if so, I don't want them remembering seeing you."
Lissa kept her head and body down as Casimir drove out of the estate and onto the road. She settled into the seat beside him.
"Golubushka, put on your seat belt."
His voice was gentle. Low. Loving. So tender she felt a fresh flood of tears burning behind her eyes. "He thinks I'm dead."
"And he's going to continue to think it. He'll call Tomasso. He'll want to cultivate another man into Arturo's position. My resume's very impressive."
"He was going to kill you as well," Lissa pointed out. "You know he was. You were new. No family. No one you had sworn loyalty to. You were the perfect man to get the jobs done for him that he didn't want anyone knowing about, and then he could make you disappear, just like he does everyone in his way."
"Circumstances changed when Arturo died," Casimir pointed out. "He needs me now. He'll call me. We've got to work out the details and get set immediately."
She let her breath out and leaned toward him. She needed him. She'd never considered that she needed anyone. That was all she had to do, that little involuntary lean, as if he drew her like a magnet. He reached out instantly and took her hand, bringing the tips of her fingers to his mouth briefly before pressing her hand to his thigh in the way he often did.
Need, in a relationship, wasn't good. Need meant weakness to her, but she had to acknowledge, right then, she needed this man in her life. She wanted him there. She chose him and would choose him every day for the rest of her life. "I didn't want you," she blurted out. "When all my sisters were falling in love with Prakenskiis, I ran from the idea. I didn't want a man I knew would be dominant - at least I thought that was the reason."
"You didn't want to love someone that much because you were afraid," he said gently. "You'd already lost so much."
She nodded. "But I'm really glad you're in my life."
"We'll get through this, Giacinta."
"Are you always going to call me Giacinta? Because if you are, I'm going to have to confess who I am to everyone at home."
"That's who you are, malyshka. When we go home to our family, we're going home as us. As Casimir Prakenskii and Giacinta Abbracciabene-Prakenskii, so the people we love know who we are. So they see you and they see me."
She liked that. She had always detested that she couldn't tell the five women who had formed a family with her who her parents were. What her real name was. What her life was before she met them. She pressed her hand deeper into the hard muscle of his thigh. Just being with him comforted her. He didn't have to talk a lot. What he did say mattered.
He took his eyes off the road long enough to glance at her. "I was shaped in a hard school, Giacinta. I'm a man. I can't be anything else."
"I don't want you to be." She didn't either. She loved him just the way he was. Even overprotective - or what she thought might be overprotective. She found she loved that he cared enough to worry about her safety. She hadn't had that, not even from Luigi or Arturo. When she went on a job, no matter how dangerous, they didn't take her back - but Casimir had.
"We're going to butt heads occasionally," he said softly. "That's all right. We're both fire elements. We'll both flash hot and burn up in flames. The makeup sex will be phenomenal."
"I'm not sure it's safe to get any more phenomenal than it already has been," she admitted. "You get any better, Casimir, and I might not survive." For the first time, there was a small smile in her voice. In her mind. In her heart. Because of him. Because of man a named Casimir Prakenskii.
He brought her hand to his mouth again, teeth teasing the pads of her fingers. "I have all kinds of better to show you. You'll survive. I'll always make sure of that."
Her heart skipped a beat. She knew what he meant, and he wasn't talking about sex. He was going to make certain nothing happened to her. She to
ok a deep breath and let go of the hard knot of betrayal that had formed in her stomach.
"I'll always make certain the same of you, Casimir. Nothing's going to take you away from me."