The front door burst open and in ran my tall, burly, tattooed Mafia man. His eyes were wild, darting back and forth, as he searched the room for me while searching for a threat to protect me from. His heavy footsteps rushed over to me, sweeping me into his arms and holding me tightly against him.
“Are you okay? Fuck, Talia.” His eyes rake over my body, searching for any signs of injury. “I heard the explosion and I swear to God, I’ve never run so fast in my life. Do you hurt anywhere?”
His chest was heaving deeply with the effort it took to get here so quickly, but that didn’t seem to matter in this moment.
“I’m fine. I don’t even really know what happened.” My ears are ringing and I think I bruised my damn chin from diving to the ground. “Are you okay?”
“I’m fine, worried about you. I thought I’d lost you.” Kieron says, his voice full of leftover fear.
“I’m okay.” I immediately want to say hose three little words that will inevitably change my life. I want to prove to him that I’m okay and that our life will go on happily regardless of his job and family ties, of my past and how it’s gunning for us. I threaded my fingers into his beard and cupped his jaw, keeping his eyes locked to mine. “I love you, too.”
A stolen moment in a day that had erupted into chaos and fire, Kieron and I had been given clarity and understanding of our true feelings. I didn’t want to wait any longer, I didn’t want to give anything else to Luca by not giving Kieron my whole heart because I was scared.
“You do?” Kieron’s eyes sparkled with emotion and disbelief but the smile he gave me was one I’ll never forget.
“More than anything.”
“Not as much as I love you, baby.” He said and kissed me. One arm wrapped around my waist while the other hand went to the back of my head and brought me close to him. Wrapping me in his clean, masculine scent and I instantly calmed.
“As touching as this moment is, get the fuck out of here. Jesus Christ, what part of my orders are you not understanding?” Kellan yells at us through the door before disappearing back into the hallway.
“He’s right,” Kieron said, pulled completely out of the moment. “I need to get you out of here.”
“Then let’s go.” I grab his hand and thread our fingers together before picking up the go-bag and walking as quickly as I could with him through the hallway.
Chapter Twenty-Four
Kieron
“Ifound the phone about five minutes before the explosion happened. Then got the pleasure of hearing Luca’s fucking voice just being a prick.” Talia talked quickly as I strapped her into my car.
As brave as she was sounding, as angry as she was, her hands were shaking. She was going into shock and not realizing it, so I’m just trying to keep her moving and talking.
“Do you still have the phone?”
“Yeah, I grabbed it before we left. It’s in the bag.” Her teeth start to chatter and I rip my leather jacket off, tucking her into it as quickly as I can before closing the door of the Mustang. I needed to do a quick sweep of the car and make sure there isn’t any other explosives. I get down on the ground and look under the axis, then check the wheel wells, the trunk and backseat before being satisfied we were safe for the moment and running to the driver’s side.
I didn’t know if there are any more bombs or missiles in the building but I didn’t want to stay around to find out. It was obvious that the missile had been meant for Talia and the next time, we might not get so lucky. I wasn’t willing to chance it.
“That utter piece-of-shit.” I mutter under my breath. Talia was quiet, the shaking hadn’t gone away but at least it wasn’t getting worse.
I was going to find Luca and his cowardly hideaway and when I did there was going to be serious hell to pay. I’d take my brass knuckles and bust open his head until that Garzino fucker couldn’t get up. I wanted to see him suffer before I ended his life. I wanted to see the fear and remorse in his eyes before the life drained from them.
“He won’t be living much longer, baby. I promise you that.” I was speeding through the streets, pushing my Mustang to the max. I wanted to get us out of the city as quickly as possible.
“Kieron! You’re going too fucking fast!” Talia cries out.
“Can you tell me more about the call? What did he say? Exactly, Talia, what did he say?” I took my foot off the accelerator slightly, still going way over the speed limit, but enough that it made her feel more comfortable.
“He just wanted to call me names and get all pissy that I got away from him.”
“Talia, what exactly did he say?” I ask again. Putting my hand on her thigh I try to take a deep breath. She won’t appreciate me going all Second-In-Command but my patience is wearing thin.
“I told you, he was just putting on a show of power like he used to. But it won’t work on me anymore.”
“Goddamn it, Talia, what exactly did he say!” I snap, a lock of hair fell into my eyes and I moved the hand from her thigh to move it back. Stress and anxiety felt like they were going to make my heart explode. I just needed her to answer the fucking question the way that I’d asked. He might have left a clue or a message within his evil words that we could somehow figure out his next move, figure out where he is hiding. Fuck, any number of things, but I needed to know what he said.
“Please.” I say softly.
