"Careful, I scratch and bite." Her face inches from his, patiently waiting for him to give in.
But, he doesn't give in, not yet. He takes one step closer and bends down to whisper in her ear, "you'll beg and crawl too.... I promise."
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When they get to the island, when he's by himself in his room in this house, RM thinks it hits him all at once.
He thought this was everything he wanted. He thought getting Jacob out of the way would mean the start of good things. Instead, it's all he can do not to put his fist through the wall.
This feels awful. Disappointing. Unfulfilling.
He wants her. He doesn't even know if she's okay. He doesn't know how she did this, or why in detail, or if she knows she's given him the greatest gift anyone could have. She probably does. It's probably why she did it. It's certainly why she did it without telling him.
He would have stopped her. Tried to keep her from danger. He wants to be so angry with her, but he isn't.
Henry messages him hours later. An update. She's out of surgery. She's well. She's alive.
Henry left before she awoke. Which is good. He needs to get here. This part was always the plan. Momo and Yuhi are on their way already. And Jungkook's girlfriend as well.
And RM is alone.
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He does need to keep himself busy as a distraction. That is, at first, the reason he throws himself into 16 hour workdays. But there is also just that much to do. Most nights he falls asleep in the primary bedroom of one of the only houses on this island that is currently livable with work in bed next to him. No, he does not think too hard then, either, about whose place the work is taking.
If he starts thinking about her, he won't stop.
He never stopped, is the truth of the matter. But no need to dwell on things he can't currently change.
The fact that he is a workaholic aside - a secretly lovesick one at that - he finds he is thriving in his new position. They've had more men join them. They're building their refuge. Renovations to this house were completed before their arrival; it was always meant to be his and Jungkook's temporary quarters while the main house is under construction. After that, RM will relocate and this home will be Jungkook's. He feels like an asshole taking the best bedroom, but Jungkook convinced him that the optics of it are important.
The capo should always have the best of what's offered.
He should have sold the family's assets in Italy and truly taken what's left of the Moretti family into hiding. Now that he's off the mainland, now that he's not ensconced in risk and violence at every turn, he feels as though maintaining his holdings and the family's influence seems greedy at best and pointless at worst. The only reason he does it is for his father's good name and his mother's protection. He can't bring her here, and should anything in Milan change she'll be a target.
It's better if she thinks he's in hiding. She'll know, of course, that he is running things, but she does not need to know more than that. She stayed out of things as much as possible while Stefano ran things. Jacob never told her anything.
