PURPLE HEART - Soliders Of Fortune [BOOK TWO]

Chapter FIFTEEN

Sunday 'Sunny' Santos

With my heart rate finally returned to a steady thud and my body scrubbed a painfully raw red, I slip into the oversized terry-cloth robe Verity had fetched from the wardrobe before excusing herself for the night.. I'm sure that playing nice has taken a toll on the woman and she'd exhausted all of her nurturing nature for the day..

After being fussed over so ferociously, I had been somewhat relieved for the solitude.. Or I was at first.. But after just a few silent minutes alone, I began to miss her distracting chatter and protective presence..

It is when I am alone that I can't escape the memory of Javier's cruel hands wrapped around my throat, the icy sting of cold tile on my bare skin and malicious hazel flames burning with hatred.. The man I had devoted myself to has now become the monster who haunts my waking nightmares, and there is nothing left to chase away the fear of knowing just how worthless I was to him..

I was and have always been nothing.. Not to my father, the man who abandoned me in a foreign country at fifteen, leaving me to navigate the meanest of streets alone.. Not to Javier, who would use me to scam himself into circles in which he didn't belong..
Not the Johns I'd been sold to, who couldn't even be bothered to ask me my name..
And not the other girls Javier would collect, who only ever saw me as competition, cutting into their take..

Nobody has shown me a shred of compassion, except for the one person who I had least expected to have any heart at all..

A ruthless, and unreasonably handsome, Bratva Loan Shark..

Knowing that something is dangerous and insane doesn't actually make it any easier to explain or resist, and neither does the unexpected spark of heat that flickers between Max and I.. But the way I feel around the brooding loan shark is unlike anything I've ever experienced.. The way he looks at me, with those all knowing, penetrative crystal orbs, it shakes my sanity and drives me closer to the danger..

I know he is a bad man..
Yet I can't bring myself to condemn him..

Standing upon cold and slippery wet tile, I close my eyes to take a deep, restorative breath.. Praying silently that there is a chance that he might forgive me..

Jerking open the bathroom door, dim lamplight greets my bleary, adjusting eyes, meanwhile across the room Max sets down his cell to sit up a little straighter in the high backed leather armchair.. Paco lays curled up into a content ball by his boots, lifting his head only slightly to watch as I enter the room..

With long sleeves cuffed and his flexing tattooed forearms on display, my gaze lingers upon the prominent veins that sprawl across Max's inky flesh.. Twisting tattoos wrap both his wrists and disappear beneath expensive black fabric.. I feel all rational arguments slip from my mind, lost in awe of his rugged appearance..

It's impossible to think clearly when he is in the room..

"Hola.." I squeak pathetically, my bare toes curling against the polished hardwood as I step into the expansive master suite..