Breathless & Bloodstained (The Chicago War #4) (21 page)

“You won’t,” he
said.

“Promise?”

“I’ve never broken
one yet, Ella.”

CHAPTER TEN

“W
hy now?” Tommas
asked.

Abriella shot him
a glance over her shoulder, confused at his question. As she finished tugging
on her jeans, she asked, “What do you mean?”

Tommas rested on
the edge of the table he’d fucked her on, cool and seemingly aloof. It was one
of the things Abriella loved best about her man. Panic could be eating him up
inside, or he could be raging mad, but Tommas would never show it on the
outside.

Maybe it was his
raising that left him impassive and outwardly numb. Abriella wasn’t sure, but
she did know that his calm demeanor, smooth talk, and dark personality drew her
in like nothing she had ever experienced before.

People easily fell
in line with a man like Tommas. He could be charming, or in a blink, he could
be violent.

He was a trap.

She fell head first.

“Why now, Ella?
What’s so different now that you feel like it’s okay to tell me that you love
me when you’ve never wanted to say it before?”

“Maybe it wasn’t a
matter of not wanting to, Tommy,” Abriella said. “Maybe it was a matter of me
fooling myself into believing that love wasn’t important enough to keep
whatever we are together. Because love doesn’t get a say, right? Why let it?”

“That’s not really
an answer, baby.”

Abriella tipped
her chin up, defiant in all aspects of her life. “I don’t have a choice in
loving you; I’m only now realizing it. That still doesn’t mean it’s enough no
matter how much I would like for it to be. But you know what?”

“What?”

“I would rather go
down—however this ends—knowing I loved you, than pretending like I didn’t.”

A hint of
bitterness curved Tommas’ lips into a smirk. “You’re so convinced we’re doomed
to fail, Ella.”

“Do you see this
ending differently?”

Tommas didn’t
answer.

Abriella didn’t
really need him to.

From the moment
they started their secret, crazy relationship almost four years earlier, she
suspected that it would never become much. How could it when she was the oldest
daughter of a major crime family with values that were thoroughly tied up in
keeping their place in the mob and little else?

Abriella had
always been Tommas’.

But she never
really was at the same time.

“I do love you,”
Abriella said quietly, turning to face her lover.

Tommas slid off
the desk with the grace of a predator. He was the kind of man who had the
patience of a saint. Strolling across the room, he caught her hand in his, and
pulled her into his chest. Abriella didn’t mind being there at all.

“Love is enough,”
Tommas told her. “It always has a say.”

“This life says
differently.”

Tommas shrugged.
“This life is wrong.”

God, how she would
like for that to be true.

More often than
not, the mafia life won.

“I’m working on
ending this,” Tommas said, his arms squeezing tighter around her frame. “And I
know you want me to do it without hurting more people, but I might not have the
choice. It needs to end, Ella, but I have to do it the right way.”

Abriella sighed.
“And what way is that?”

“Not the way Riley
did it, I can tell you that. He left his biggest competition and his worst
enemies free to do as they wished, and that came back to bite him hard.”

“Joel?”

“And Theo,” Tommas
said.

Abriella shivered,
remembering the night Riley had been killed. It was one of the few nights that
Abriella sought out Tommas during their short separation—if that’s what someone
wanted to call it. Holding nothing back, Tommas had explained to her exactly
who killed Riley Conti, and why. It was more than just the Outfit. It was years
of abuse and hidden secrets. Theo just couldn’t do it anymore, and he was
desperately trying to protect Evelina in the only way he could.

Abriella didn’t
blame Theo.

Not one bit.

“You know,” Tommas
said, bringing Abriella from her thoughts, “… I’m just trying to do what I have
to do here, sweet girl. Nothing more.”

“What was it that
you said? Everything you do is for me?”

“Exactly that,
Ella.”

It took Abriella a
second to realize it, but she was in no better of a position than Evelina Conti
had once been. She was trapped in a life that wasn’t of her making, with a
future that was uncertain and not of her choosing. She was not a person to the
men in her family, but a move to make when the time was right.

“Can you end it
with just one more death?” Abriella asked, refusing to say her brother’s name.

It would hurt her
family.

Her mother,
certainly, and maybe her father.

Joel had cut
enough scars into their family over the years, and he’d caused a handful of
pain to each person he touched. Did that warrant his death? Abriella couldn’t
answer that. Was she selfish enough to let her brother die on the off chance
that she might be set free to have what she wanted?

Abriella met
Tommas’ blue gaze.

Her heart
clenched.

Her breath caught.

He was hers.

She wanted him.

Abriella
absolutely was that selfish.

“Can you?” she
asked again.

Tommas nodded. “I
can.”

“Don’t tell me
when, okay?”

“I won’t,” he said
softly.

Abriella passed
the ticking clock on the wall a glance. It was five minutes before her final
class of the day was supposed to end and she would have to leave. Tommas caught
her stare and sighed heavily.

“I’ll figure out
something else to get us away for the day,” he said.

Abriella laughed.
“You better. One more kiss?”

Tommas conceded to
her request. He cupped her jaw, tipped her head back, and pressed his lips to
hers with a ferocity that spoke entirely of possession and love. By the time he
pulled away, Abriella was breathless and high.

“If you leave a
little early, before the actual end of class, you could get past Darryl by
telling him you needed to use the bathroom,” Tommas suggested.

“Good idea.”

“You have to let
me go, Ella.”

But she didn’t
want to.

Reluctantly,
Abriella stepped away from Tommas. She hid her frown as she picked up her
messenger bag and slung it over her shoulder. “Again. Soon.”

“Soon,” Tommas
echoed, winking.

Unsteady on her feet
after the intensity of their hookup, and ignoring the tenderness between her
thighs, Abriella left the classroom without a look backwards. Each step she
took down the hall closer to where she knew Darryl was waiting just around the
corner reminded Abriella how insane she actually was.

Her relationship
with Tommas was a lot like playing with fire.

Always hot.

Dangerous to
touch.

Fantastic to
watch.

A beautiful
tragedy just waiting to happen.

“You’re early,”
Darryl noted, glancing up from the phone in his hand when Abriella cleared her
throat.

“I have to use the
bathroom. The class might as well be over.”

“Learn anything
new?”

How fun it was to
fuck on an unstable table?

Abriella shrugged.
“No. It was basically a ‘what to expect over the next few months’ kind of
thing.”

“Huh.” Darryl
stood from the bench. “Do you think wasting your time working toward med school
is really worth it when you’re probably not going to use any of it?”

“Do you think
being a sheep is worth it if you might end up being led off a cliff?”

Darryl’s brow
furrowed. “A what?”

“A sheep.”

Follow the herd,
idiot.

“I don’t get it,”
the enforcer said.

Abriella wasn’t
shocked. Nobody said that Darryl was the most intelligent man in the Outfit. “Never
mind. Let’s just go.”

“Goddammit!”

Joel’s roar had
Abriella jumping in the kitchen chair. Miss Cathy, the Trentinis’ cook, clicked
her tongue chidingly from where she was working at the island.

“That man has the
temper of the devil, I swear,” the cook muttered.

Abriella laughed
bitterly. “You have no idea.”

“I feel badly for
whatever woman finds herself married to him. I can’t imagine Joel as a very
loving or caring man.”

Neither could
Abriella.

Joel cursed loudly
again, and something crashed on the floor right after. Abriella wondered what
had happened this time to cause her brother’s temper tantrum. When it came to
Joel, it could be practically anything.

“That asshole,”
Joel spat as he came into view of the kitchen.

Holding back her
frown, Abriella asked, “What’s wrong?”

“We have fools for
family, that’s what. Idiots, the bunch of them. I don’t know if he thought I
wouldn’t find out, but I did. Word travels fast.”

“And you’re not
making sense.”

“Our
brother-in-law
,”
Joel said, drawling out the words with twisted sarcasm.

“Adriano?”

“Yes. He’s the
only fucking brother-in-law we have, isn’t he?”

“That doesn’t tell
me what’s wrong, Joel.”

“It doesn’t
matter. The fact is, he fucked up.”

Okay then …

Abriella made a
mental note to call her sister with the cell phone that Tommas had given her
earlier that day and find out what in the hell was going on.

Joel’s cell phone
beeped in his hand. Looking down at the device, a wicked grin spread over his
cheeks. “Fantastic.”

“What now?”

“You know what, I
think I will tell you. We’re going to crash a party, Ella. Get dressed.”

Abriella didn’t
like the sound of that at all. “Why?”

“Because I said
so, that’s why.”

“You sound like a
child, Joel.”

It wasn’t anything
new. Man-child Joel always came out to play when he didn’t get something he
wanted.

Joel didn’t act
like he’d heard Abriella’s comment. “Fucking ridiculous. Thinking I wouldn’t
find out about this shit, or that I would agree to it if I did know.
Unbelievable.”

“Seriously, what
happened?” Abriella asked again.

“Adriano,” Joel
barked. “That little shit went against everything I told him. That’s what,
Ella. He’s as much of a fool as his father was. I’ve had enough of it. I’ve
been nice for Alessa’s sake—”

“Nice? What do you
call nice?”

“Shut up and get
dressed. We’re going out, I said.”

Abriella snapped
her mouth shut, and forced back the urge to claw her brother’s eyes out. Her
fingers still twitched with the need, however. “To where?”