“You’re baiting with your life now?” He almost whispered the words. The question was ominous and I knew he wouldn’t like my answer.
“Haven’t I always baited with my life? And anyway, it’s my life to bait with, right?” He had to learn, we both had to. Our lives couldn’t be intertwined the way we wanted.
He growled and ran his fingers through his hair before he pulled on the back of his neck and looked toward the ceiling. “No!” he screamed and slammed his hand down on the table. He reared back and then crashed his knuckles into the table.
Over and over again.
I had to walk up and grip his arm. “Stop.”
The wild in his eyes as he glared at me was a reminder at how close this man was to complete oblivion and chaos. The blood dripped from his knuckles into the table where he ground his fist in hard, trying to shake whatever he was feeling.
“Please stop, Rome.” I said again because his knuckles were raw against the wood and the pain he was causing himself was too much.
“It’s my soul, my monster, mylifethat is fed by yours, Katalina. You’re mine and you keep me living. So I keep you living. You’re fucking mine. This life, this heart”—he shoved his bloodstained finger into my chest—“that’s mine. No one fucks with what’s mine. I should have shot him in the motherfucking head. Next time, I will.”
He was shaking with rage, and most days, I would have let him have at it. He needed to learn that this would be us forever and ever now. But like I was his, his monster was mine. It wasn’t used to not being able to protect. I saw the anguish rolling around deep down inside him and making him crazy.
Was I crazy to sit through what I just had with Konstantin, to be held at gunpoint without batting an eyelash? To not feel anything truly until now?
A heart crumbling and screaming for it’s soulmate was the worst pain and the scariest.
All I wanted was to soothe him, to make our relationship okay.
He wasn’t made to be helpless, Rome was made to fight, to protect, to worry about his family so much that he didn’t stop to think that the bratva could have shothimthrough the window. He didn’t think twice.
I saw all the steps now; I knew they had guns trained on him. His life had been on the line. My heart beat for that life as much as his heart beat for mine.
I stepped into that expansive chest and hugged him. I didn’t kiss him or rub my hands over him like I usually did. I enveloped the body that was twice my size in my arms and sighed into him. “We’re okay, huh?”
“What?” He whispered into my hair and then he breathed me in.
“We’re okay. It’s all okay.”
“You’re going to kill me, Kate-Bait.”
“Remember, you said once, you’ll survive…”
His arm wrapped around me and his hand rubbed over my tattoo. “Because if you don’t, you die. You trying to say that the same goes for me?”
I shrugged. “I was a little nervous you were going to get yourself killed today by shooting Konstantin. None of them trust you, or me for that matter. They could have shot you today.”
“I’d have lived,” he said into my hair.
“You could have died just as easily as I could have.”
His hand rubbed my back as he said, “I need you to have better security. I’ll split time between you and Bastian.”
“No.” I shook my head on his chest. “We’re not even supposed to be here together now. Maksim does well and I need them to trust—”
“Don’t say it. I could care less about their trust.”
“I earned Konstantin’s today.” I smiled into his shirt and took my own whiff of him.
“That you did, Cleo. That you did.”
“We only have a few more signatures to go. If we implement without hitches, the trafficking will dramatically decrease in the next year.”
“There’ll be hitches, babe.” He pulled back to look down at my eyes. The chocolate brown there oozed a love for me that was so tempting I could wanted to melt into it. “There’s going to be a lot more.”