Elect(57)

“I’m not him, Trace,” I said against her lips.

“I know.” She sighed into my mouth. “I know.”

Our lips broke apart. Both of us stepped away from one another. Damn if it didn’t feel like a part of me was dying right along with Nixon.

She looked down.

Our relationship was going to be complicated; that much was sure. But I wasn’t letting her go—it would take an act of God for me to let her go.

“Take off your clothes.” I sighed.

“What? No! Then I’d be naked!”

I tried to hold in the laughter, tried and failed.

She swatted me with her hand and then joined in. Tears streamed down her face; I wasn’t sure if they were from amusement or just exhaustion.

“Kinda the point, Trace. I promise I can control my urges. Now take off your clothes, we’ll shower on different sides, I’ll be turned around the entire time. Even though, I have always imagined what you’d look like naked…”

“Ass.” She lifted her shirt over her head.

“Always.” I winked. “I’ll always be an ass for you.”

“How sweet.” She stepped out of the workout shorts she was wearing and stripped herself of the rest of her clothes. And as much as I was wanting to slam her against the wall, I couldn’t. Because I was pretty damn sure the last person who had seen her that way had been Nixon.

I wouldn’t take that memory away from her. I wouldn’t replace it with pieces of me—that, in my heart, would be the final betrayal, so I turned around, took off my own clothes and showered with her.

We didn’t touch again.

We didn’t mention the kiss.

And in the end. I made her laugh twice.

Which basically meant I was badass. I needed her laugh more than she realized.

Her laugh told me that even though it hurt like hell… we were going to be okay… One day, maybe not today, we would recover.





Chapter Thirty-five


Phoenix


“So this is fun,” I grumbled, wondering why I was literally sitting a foot away from the scariest mafia boss known to Sicily. He smirked and said nothing, while Frank, my father’s murderer, kept a gun pointed at my head.

Low point. Definite low point.

“I never said thank you.” I cleared my throat and tried not to sound as freaked as I felt.

“For?” Frank answered.

“Killing my father, of course.”

Frank snorted. “I cannot tell if you are upset I beat you to the punch or if you truly mean what you say.”

“Had he not done it, I would have,” Luca piped up from the front seat. The driver was taking us through a series of subdivisions, almost making me dizzy as trees and perfect houses flew by the windows.

“Come again?” I asked.

“Your father, I hope he’s burning in Hell,” Luca said crisply. “And I hope when I meet him there, I’m able to experience his death by my hands for an eternity.”

Shit. I really hoped Luca wasn’t going to be the one to kill me. I knew I’d already pissed him off enough for a lifetime of torture—which begged the question why was I still sucking in air when he’d made it perfectly clear a few weeks ago that if I double-crossed him, or as much as talked—he’d end me.

“Why am I here—”

“Not now,” Luca snapped. “It isn’t safe.”

“Right. Never is,” I mumbled.

“You’re lucky I need you. If I were you, I’d pray for my soul—because if this ends badly—yours will be damned right along with your father’s.”

“Can’t pray for something you never had.”





Chapter Thirty-six


Chase


I always hated “family” meetings. For normal people, a family meeting meant a talk over curfew or maybe even game night.

Right. Our games included blood and guns. Pretty sure a family meeting at my house was like inviting the devil to dinner.

The only thing I couldn’t really figure out was why we were meeting at my house of all places. I mean, I understood that Nixon was gone, but Mo wasn’t, and since that family was the family, it just seemed strange.

At any rate, it was totally possible that my dad had thought it would be too hard to stay at Nixon’s. I put on nice black slacks and a white button-up with a green tie. The other thing about family meetings?

You had to be respectful. My dad hated that I had tattoos, said they made me look like a punk, which only encouraged me to get more. He wanted me to cover them during meetings.

It had always been tougher for Nixon, considering he even had tattoos behind his ear, not to mention the lip piercing that pissed almost everyone off who met him.

He’d rebelled because it was the only control over his life that he’d had—what he did to his body, it was his and only his. Other than that, his life, the journey he’d been on, had been solidly planned out for him.