Blood for my Rose |• Crimson Rose series✔️

Chapter 11

There was finally a knock at the door, after hours of waiting in utter silence and agony. His expression was a fifty-fifty mixture of frustration and anger. For a person who'd been impatient to hear someone show up behind the door of the room he was in, he actually was too slow to respond. He didn't as much flinch as he gawked at the red oak hotel door as if his eyes would break the locks open.

As a matter of fact, the door was unlocked. But the person on the other end didn't know this, he needed to say something to notify them. Yet, he was completely mute.

The knocker banged the door again. This time, he heard a voice. "Riley, please, open up!" cried Rose from out outside.

Riley didn't move from where he sat comfortably with his hands spread over the arms of the chair. "The door is open, Rose." His tone came out raspy.

The doorknob turned a couple of times before the door fell open. Rose stepped in. By the time she was coming face to face with Riley, his elbows were propped on his knees, his shirt falling back to show his brawny frame, flat stomach and muscly thighs contoured by the denim material of his trousers. He seemed to be in a relaxed frame of mind as he regarded her as well.

"I'm sorry." Her whisper was almost too quiet for him to hear.

Riley said nothing, void of emotion.

Rose shove her head to the side. Her eyes were  already filling with tears she didn't want him to notice. She focused them on anything in the room that wasn't Riley.

After a few moments of silence, Riley rose from his thighs and leaned his back on the chair. The sound of the squealing chair brought Rose's attention back to him and he finally spoke. "Why?" was all he asked.

Any other moment, she'd have glared at his flexing muscles and heaving chest as he brought his hands together, but right now, she was gazing at his dark eyes as cold fear spiraled through her.

There was a touch of hesitation in her voice when she began. "Would you have come?"

Those words brought confusion to his already confused head. Rose read this expression even before he could say he didn't understand, and she clarified. "Would you have been with me, loved me, desired me, if you knew my father was the Don of the Sicilian mafia?"

Riley didn't give any kind reaction whatsoever that would let her know he was just learning this for the first time. He took the information like it wasn't unusual. Well, he'd already put two and two together and figured it out even before he left that house. "Well, that would have been my choice to make," he suggested.

She regarded him carefully—his every move—from the rise and fall of his chest as he breathed, to the way he bit his inner cheeks and looked at her with scorn. Then, she moved away from the door, tearing her gaze from his narrowed eyes.  "Well," she started, walking to the dressing table where she'd turn her back to him and still be able to see him through the mirror. "What can I say?" She said with forced lightness and shrugged. "I was born into the life. I lived it. I wanted out. And you gave me that."

His sadness wavered, and anger filled his face. "I didn't give you anything. Actually, you dragged me into this." He rolled his eyes. "You don't seem to get it, do you? Rose, your father is a dangerous man, your brothers are no better, and you on the other hand are an enabler."

"What?" Her face creased. "An enabler? How?" She couldn't be more confused by his choice of word. "You think I have a say in that family? I was born into it, you don't get to choose that. The family gets to choose you and you have no other option than accept it."

"The same reason you hid the pregnancy from me?" Riley spewed caustically. "Because the family gets to choose what you say and don't say?" He was being sardonic, and in this moment, it was glaring that he was angrier with himself for not sensing all this before now. Her family, the pregnancy...argh! the pregnancy was the worst part. She hid it from him, despite the fact that he had equal rights to the child as much as she did. "How long have you known?" There was now sadness in his voice as he probed.