Going After Heaven (Mafia Romance)

Chapter Forty Six

"What is it you wanted to say?" I ask as Gabriele drives me back to the Steel Gate estate.

I didn't jump off him after the text. Hell, he didn't act paranoid or affected when he pulls my phone out of my hand to read the text. He stays calm. Holds me tighter, then very slowly takes me in his arms into his apartment. His calculative steps soundless on the  wooden stairs. Then into the bedroom and very gently drops on the bed with one knee, adjusts himself to the headrest with me still wrapping my legs around his waist like a spider monkey and my head tilted to the side, resting on his shoulder. He stays quiet with me in his arms for three hundred and sixty-eight breaths—I counted— and I let him. I let myself.

The dreamlike state we've been in since arriving at his place is about to spin and with it our realities back into existence. We both know it's inevitable, so why rush it?

"Nothing, really" he swallows, and his Adam's apple contracts.

When he pulled out of me, he goes into the bathroom to wash up but stepped in my way when I wanted to. He didn't want me to. A reminder of his claim. Reminding me of his possessive nature that I have come to swoon in. Reminding me Of us. Because the evidence of the rapture we've both experienced is mixed and trickling down my legs.

"Gabriele, it's not nothi..."

"It's nothing," he clips. That Gabriele from his apartment is gone. He's back to being guarded. Back to cloaking his emotions. Back to placid.

He got back to this when he walked into his walk-in wardrobe and changed into an all-black suit but with a black diamond lapel pin on the lapel of the suit and a signet ring on his thumb. He walks into his library while I pack up, then walks back out with two guns and his gloves on. "Ready when you are" was the last thing he said to me before we both matched out of his apartment and into his BMW.

Now staring at his firm— almost strangling— grip on the leather-covered steering wheel, and the stiffness of his chiseled jawline from his profile, I can't help but care about what is going on in his mind.

"Gabriele if you don't want to do this anymore, I understand" I do.

He can drop me off and I'll deploy plan B. Which is to go in with some men Gael had set aside. The only problem with this plan is that it's messy. It calls for too much attention and that is not what I need. I won't make it past their entrance because it will set them on high alert. And when that happens, the trigger frenzy mafias will deliver death, not just to me, but to every other unprepared member of the Steel-Gate empire.

My plan is already messy enough. I fucked my bodyguard. I mixed business with pleasure. I betrayed my empire and broke an accord. And like it wasn't enough, Javier is back. He is not supposed to be back. His being back wasn't part of any fucking plan.

"I signed an agreement" Gabriele takes a left turn.

"And I will never understand why, but I do understand if you want to back out now" hell if I want him to.

"Do you want me to?"

I take a deep breath and answer truthfully, "no" and that is because I trust him.

I do not think anyone will take this as important and professionally as he would. I don't think anyone stands a chance to survive the Black Mist Brothers like him. I don't think anyone can protect me like him. And there's no one I would want to do this with except him.

I want to walk into the enemy's territory with him. I have never trusted the leadership or partnership of a man like I do his.

But I don't explain all these. Not yet. Not ever.