"If you loved me, he wouldn’t—"
"He doesn’t care," Aidan ground out. "The Firm is all he cares about."
Tension hit me, freezing me up inside before I managed to get out, "Is that different now?"
"Maybe I’m different now. Maybe I needed to feel pain, to know what it was like to be addicted, to have to go through withdrawals, to really embrace what I needed to do."
"What’s that?"
"I’m a monster’s heir. I’ve been in his shadow all my life, but there reaches a point where you have to step out into the sunlight. I think now is that moment."
My breath rushed from my lungs. "Because of me?"
"Because of a lot of things," he corrected, "of which you are a large fraction. This isn’t on you, Savannah. I don’t want you thinking that you’re the reason for a falling out between me and him. That’s not your responsibility. It’s been a long time coming, and you’re my catalyst but there are a hell of a lot of reasons why this showdown is about to happen. You understand?"
I did, and I thought that was the exact moment when I knew that all these stupid feelings I’d had for him was love.
Insane, but true.
The feelings choked me, swamping me, drowning me, and I clung to him like a life raft, well aware that adrenaline might be the reason they were overwhelming me as my heart flushed my body with chemical-laden blood, but I didn’t care. I didn’t give a damn if it was insane or stupid. My feelings were my feelings, and he’d just validated them.
"I do," I whispered, and I slipped my hands up and around his neck. "What was the second thing that happened that night?"
"During the proposal, one of our enemies walked into the restaurant."
’Who?" I remarked, shocked.
"Benito Fieri. Striding in as cool as you fucking like into a restaurant on our territory. Tensions between us had been building for a while."
When he broke off, I frowned, and managed to piece together what he wasn’t saying. "That call you received? It was something the Italians had done? Him walking in was a ‘fuck you?’"
"Spoken like a true mafia aficionado," Aidan commented dryly, finally tucking that piece of hair behind my ear with an unerringness that had me wondering how brilliant his night vision was.
"That means I’m right," I whispered.
"It does. It was more than a fuck you, though. It was a reminder."
And yet, here he was, standing close to me. Not pushing me away.
"What’s changed, Aidan?"
"Me. You. You’re a little less bright and shiny than you once were. Time and the job has had an effect on you.
"On this occasion, you weren’t poking your nose in the corners of our business, trying to figure shit out and coming face to face with a mousing cat. No, you stepped into my world, and I’m the only person who can keep you safe."
My throat bobbed. "Are you going to hold that over me?"
He laughed. "From what you know of me, what do you think the answer to that is?"
"Yes. But I’ll like how you do it."
His laughter deepened, and then he reached down and stole my breath by pressing a kiss to my nose. "I’ll hold it over you for an eternity, Savannah, because I’m not letting you go this time. I tried, and it failed, and it..." He growled. "I don’t want to do that again. Whether you like it or not, you’ve waded into something that’s bigger than you—"
"I know. But when I’m with you, I’m not afraid." Not for my life. For his.
My lips curved, and even though I was shaken inside, and even though my words frightened me a little, there was a wholehearted truth to them.
This man would die for me. He’d proven that tonight when he’d stepped in front of me, shielding me with his body. What other man would do that? It was a testament to who he was.
What he was.
So for all that I believed my next words as I uttered them, to me, he’d only ever be Aidan. My Aidan. "Why do I have to be afraid when Manhattan’s second biggest monster is at my side?"
Twenty-Five
Aidan
The second we were freed, we took the general maintenance elevator to the penthouse.
Savannah, unsurprisingly, was exhausted, and to be frank, I was too because I hadn’t slept the night before. Still, the exhaustion went deeper than that. The hits were coming at us from all angles, and though my brothers were on the case as well, the rest of the Five Points too as we dealt with the Sparrows, it was different now.
Savannah was involved.
The woman I’d tried to protect all these years.
The woman I’d kept my eye on all this time.
The woman who, despite all the shit I’d tried to do to protect her, to keep her out of this life, was here anyway.
If that wasn’t fucking fate, I didn’t know what was.
So, when we made it upstairs, I came to the decision that we could spend the night here.
Tomorrow, we’d have been heading to the family estate in upstate New York anyway. With one of two access points to this apartment out of commission, and Conor having done something to make sure that the general maintenance elevator we’d used was shut down, I knew we were safe for one night.
Especially as, knowing him, that meant he was sleeping in the damn contraption, and I couldn’t complain. I figured he knew what Savannah meant to me, or at least, he did after we made it upstairs, with her shaken and quiet, huddling under the arm I had hooked around her shoulders.
Either way, I knew no one else would be getting in here tonight, not without going through Conor, so that enabled me to let my guard down a little. Just enough to get a few hours rest as she did too.
None of this was expected.
None of it.
Didn’t take away from how fucking right it felt.
Especially with her curved into me. Somehow apart but connected.
I’d shared my bed with very few women, but each time, they’d been clingers. As if clinging to me there was a way to cling to me through the day.
Spoiler alert: it hadn’t worked.
Savannah was huddled on her side into a tight ball, but she was distinctly on her half of the mattress, while one hand drifted toward me. Not invasive, giving me space, so whenever I woke up, which was every hour or so because I rarely slept the full night through, I knew she was nearby.
Close enough to touch.
Exactly what I’d needed these past five fucking years without her.
After I woke up for the eighth time in two hours, I decided that my body was warning me about something.
Not one to let my instincts be ignored, I got out of bed with as much stealth as I was capable of. Which was to say, not much.
I grunted as pain slammed into me, but I gritted my teeth and blew out a breath, trying to let out the discomfort, manage it the best way I could now—through breathing and shit that Conor told me was beneficial—fucking meditation. A goddamn mobster meditating. Talk about a joke.
Either way, it spoke of how tired she was that she didn’t stir regardless of the fucking shit show that was me in stealth mode.
The urge to protect her was strong. Stronger than it had ever been before.