I chuckled in irritation. “You like getting under my skin and you’re probably better at it than most. I swear to God if I didn’t love you–”
She gasped at my words. They’d slipped out in my irritation but I wouldn’t snatch them back now.
“I do love you. I don’t think that’s a question.” I held her gaze as my heart thundered with the words. “I love your inability to finish a file without doing a million things in between and your complete disgust with my negotiation skills. I love that you adore the water and you go with the flow like the ocean. I love you. That's why I have to let you go for this.”
She shook her head, her face falling at my words as she whispered, “You’ll let me go?”
Maybe I would have changed my mind had I sat there and stared into those sapphire eyes that sparkled like the ocean she loved so much.
Yet, Ronald, the man that should have never been talking to my wife in the first place ambled over, his white teeth glinting in the dim light.
“Bastian, Morina.” He stood over us, then grabbed a chair from behind him and pulled it up to our table. Security that I had in the corner moved, but I held up my hand. Let him make his bed. I wanted him to sleep in it. Permanently.
My body vibrated with an emotion I knew I wouldn’t be able to contain. Keep it all together, Morina had said but Sebastian Armanelli, head of the mob, knew that this man was going against me, was talking to my wife behind my back, and was ruining the one thing I loved.
“Ronald,” I said without looking at him. I was looking down at that gold ring on my hand, the weight of a family symbolized in it. “I’m having a meal with my wife. I don’t want to talk with you right now.”
“She talked to me earlier, though. You must know. I hope it didn’t cause any harm.”
I tapped the ring on the table two times, trying to pull my anger back before I lashed out. I was a man of the family, a man who had done so well to create alliances everywhere.
“No harm.” The words came out so quiet, I wasn’t sure anyone heard. They were the last words of Bastian, he was suffocating under the rage of the other man I tried to keep hidden from everyone.
“Oh, good. Good. Morina,” Ronald turned to her. “Once this whole arrangement you and Bastian have is over, remember I’ll pay you twice as much. You’re for sale it seems.”
Her fork clattered down onto her plate. It was the only sound before a voice that sounded foreign even to me rumbled from my mouth. “What did you just say”–I rubbed my jaw, trying to calm down–“to my wife?”
He glared at us and didn’t repeat himself.
“Apologize.” It came out louder than it should have. Someone moved behind Ronald but my security took care of it. No one was coming to our table now. Ronald had to rescue himself.
He sat there with his hands fisted like he was struggling with his own pride.
Patience wasn’t Sebastian Armanelli’s virtue. Certainly not with an idiot. I was tired of being accommodating and working the system. So damn tired. And there was one place I wouldn’t do it anymore.
And that place was with her.
The gun tucked in my back belt loop was the easiest weapon to access. In a second it was in my hand, and I spun the glock so I held the barrel. I swung it at Ronald’s face like a makeshift hammer as I grabbed the back of his head and brought it down on the metal swiftly.
He screamed as it connected with his face.
I let him have a moment as I heard commotion in the restaurant. My security was probably filing people out to leave. I didn’t care. I leaned in and said to Ronald, “Next time it will be the other side of my gun in your face. And I’ll pull the trigger, Ronald. Don’t disrespect her again, you understand?”
Blood started to pour from his nose and he whispered something but it wasn’t loud enough for me to make out.
“Bastian…” Morina said softly, like she was trying to call that gentleman mobster back.He was gone, ragazza.
And Ronald, he wasn’t begging for his life yet. Did he want me to kill him? He deserved it at this point. I spun the gun again and grabbed his gray hair as I pushed the barrel into his temple. “I should kill you.” I stood and shoved it against his head.
His eyes bulged in fear.
“No one would miss you. And after that disrespect for my marriage, it’s what you deserve.”
He was pleading now, saying sorry over and over and over.
“Bastian!” Morina screamed, and when I looked at her, the whites of her eyes were showing, her face scared as she stared at the devil that was me. “You can’t, Bastian, you can’t.”
I growled and drew my hand back before whipping it across Ronald’s face. He cried in pain and I glared at Morina. “We’re leaving now.”