◇ KEL ◇ Hold it in. You're safe... It was what my brain kept reminding me as his hug tightened around my cold, shivering body.  I winced.  My limbs felt like rotten vegetables.  Every muscle ached.  My eyes stang and felt strained.  Sleep was a rarity last night. After he snatched me from the pool and terrorized me last night, Leandro had been kind enough to transfer me to a room with a decent bed, clean clothes, and a shower...but only to keep me prisoned in an old dirty room in the basement.  Worse? He had tried to gag me but decided otherwise when I pleaded for him not to and told him I was claust

◇ KEL ◇   "How'd you even get out?"   "Broke the window with the curtain rod."   "I'm guessing that's what caused these?" Niccolo glanced down at the pinkish scratches on my pale feet and legs.  

◇ KEL ◇ Unrequited feelings would be my untimely demise. It would happen, for sure.  I just couldn't tell when. In my head, the thin line between love and hate seemed to blur even more.   I didn't want to forget about him;  I wanted to be with him.  But I hated the consequences.  I hated how he thought it wouldn't work out and wouldn't even try. Nothing made sense anymore.  Trying to comprehend the complexity of our situation, although necessary, just took a toll on me mentally, emotionally. It didn't help that he now seemed eager to stay close to me.  All of sudden, he wanted to be intimate. Maybe he just wanted to hear everything that happened? Every other detail I left out. Maybe he didn't want to ask, for fear of traumatizing me further.  Maybe he just wanted to understand why I suddenly left New York for a wild hunch,  risking my life in the p

◆ NICCOLO ◆ "Where's Sofija now?" "Stop calling her that."  I held back a frown and took the vacant seat beside the boss. "Why should I?" "She doesn't like it." "Funny."  Ilya paused signing the crisp white papers on the table to glance up, his expression almost too blank for words. "How you just decided she doesn't like to be called by her real birth name." "She knows. Okay? She knew about it months ago. But she's not doing anything about it." I sighed to myself. At least I wasn't answering the questions with pure lies. "If you can't accept that, just leave her be,"  I said in a quieter voice as I tried to stop frowning.  Although I had initially told myself not to interfere with his plans and just tell him whatever he wanted to hear, I was done acting like I didn't care if the mob interfered with Mykaela's life. I had enough guilt to keep me depressed for a lifetime.   Therefore, what

◇ KEL ◇ Oh dear...his eyes... Try as I might,  staring into his gorgeous, attentive eyes just sucked the finesse and willpower out of me. It was not a fleeting physical attraction.  Well, first time I met him, I was quite drawn to his perfection of a face, but after we had gotten to know each other better, he'd been nothing but a real friend to me.  Just recently I realized I was attracted to his genuine personality, honesty and remarkable kindness more than anything else. His eyes gave it away.  Concern, worry...and a bit of...sadness.  He made no effort to hide how he felt.  It had been an hour or so.  Yep—I made him wait that long.  I wanted to see how serious he was.  To be frank,  I was mostly dragging my heels because I just didn't know what to say to him. Alessio and the guards outside the private room did their job and kept Enzo from barging in. But when my patience eventually r