...And of course there must be something wrong in wanting to silence any song.—Robert Frost
I tugged on my tight black knit dress and searched for a pair of heels that wouldn’t murder my feet.
My heart was heavy. Then again, it was constantly reminding me of all the scars it held and all the wounds that refused to heal.
I was pre-med.
So, you’d think that school would distract me. It wasn’t. If anything, it was making it worse—because I still saw Breaker on a weekly, if not daily, basis.
Things had shifted last Christmas, and they never righted themselves the way they were supposed to. He had easy smiles and sarcasm for everyone but me, and I wasn’t the only one who noticed how he was often just silent and protective, stepping into that role he felt he’d failed at last year without even really thinking about it.
But I wanted my friend back. I wanted the guy who made me laugh back.
The one who caught my tears and told me imaginary stories about a mystery man who didn’t exist but kissed like a god.
I licked my lips and thought of Breaker’s example, how he held me like I was precious, and brought his mouth to mine like our lips were the only holy pure thing between us.
A knock sounded at the door before shoving it open. “Vi, gotta hurry, they want us arriving as a family.”
It was Breaker.
Because, of course, it was. I swear it’s like I conjured him up with my own thoughts.
I didn’t turn around. “I’m deciding on shoes.”
He sighed heavily, his footsteps clicked against the wood floors of my room as he stopped at my side and looked at my two walls of shoes. “Do you even wear all of these?”
“What do you think?” I crossed my arms and grinned.
He didn’t smile back. “It’s a funeral. Wear black.” He grabbed the closest pair, a black half-inch kitten heel that wouldn’t make me look too tall and would actually be quite comfortable.
My heart pinched in my chest at his unreadable, blank expression. “All black…” I took the shoes. “Got it.”
“Great.” He shoved his hands into his black trousers; he was wearing a black button-down shirt and fitted jacket that was made just for him.
With no tie and the top two buttons undone, part of his Campisi Family Crest tattoo peeked out.
What was I even thinking? I might be Chase Abandonato’s daughter.
But he was the Capo’s son—still extremely powerful regardless of his unknown bloodline. Not to mention, drop-dead gorgeous and a year younger than me. I mentally slapped myself. “I just need to grab my purse.”
His green eyes flashed before I turned around, or was it just a trick of the light? His messy reddish-brown hair had pieces of gold in it that almost seemed fake—they were so pretty. One piece was currently falling across his aristocratic forehead.
We always joked that he dyed his hair, just making him more annoyed when girls commented on how gorgeous it was.
He looked nothing like Tex. He didn’t even look Italian, really. His skin had a gorgeous tone. His eyes were green, though. His hair was more light than dark.
With full bow-shaped lips meant to drive a woman crazy and high cheekbones, he was almost too pretty to be dangerous.
Even though he was lethal. “Vi?” One eyebrow shot up. “Your purse?”
“Oh, right, yeah.” I quickly put on my shoes and grabbed my purse from my dresser. “Ready.”
“Finally,” he muttered under his breath. I glared and then held out my foot to trip him. He stepped over it with a heavy sigh—like he didn’t have time for games right now.
Which I understood. We all grieve differently.
My brother Ash had just lost his soon-to-be fiancée in a freak car accident set up by one of the De Lange kids—we’d basically offered them our protection, our name, and the first thing that blotted out the family line of the Five Families did?
They killed someone. It was meant to be Ash. But Claire was driving Ash’s car, so it ended up being her. I’d never seen my brother so broken. So unwilling to be fixed. He was drinking more—not that I blamed him—since he’d found out days before her death that she’d been pregnant.
It wasn’t just a nightmare—but an inexplicable tragedy. The funeral would make the news, which meant his pain would be on full display for the world to see.
It also meant I had to put on my fake politician’s daughter’s smile—the one I hated.
The one that made Breaker look at me like he was almost disappointed. I hated all of it.
All of this. I hated how out of control I felt when I was having trouble just putting one foot in front of the other—trouble just existing—and at night, sometimes, trouble breathing without having a panic attack about hands on my body.
Some nights it was Breaker’s face. Other nights it was the stranger’s accented voice.
Valerian. I shuddered. “You all right?” Breaker put his hand on the small of my back as we walked down the hall and out of the house toward the waiting black SUV.
The bosses had left separately, ahead of the kids, and as instructed, each family heir had to ride in his or her own car just in case.
This left me alone with Breaker since Ash was technically the heir to our family and had ridden ahead by himself.
The fact that he was even able to sit in an SUV by himself without anyone to travel to Claire’s funeral showed how strong he was and what he was capable of.
I scooted across the black leather seat and stared straight ahead as Breaker got in next to me and slammed the door. “You can go.”
The car immediately moved.
Techno music was playing in the background, making my stomach roll with nausea. That was always a trigger these days since that was what had been playing when I got kidnapped.
“Change the station, please,” Breaker said in a clipped voice.
I peered up at him. “Thanks.” His jaw flexed like he was gritting his teeth. “You’re welcome.” Maybe it was the funeral—the utter sadness I felt for my brother.
Or my broken heart shrieking in pain, dying to be noticed or fixed by the only person it recognized who had the ability to do just that.
“Breaker?”
“What?” I scooted closer. His chest rose and fell in a fast cadence as he sucked in breaths and released them, his green eyes locked onto mine.
“Do you hate me?” He flinched. “No, Violet, I could never hate you. Why would you think that?”
“Because—” God, why was I starting to cry? “You aren’t the same, and I know I’m not the same. Is it me? Did I do this to us? Did I mess up somehow and make it so that—”
“Shhhh…” He used his thumbs to wipe the tears from my cheeks. “You’re going to ruin your makeup, and I know how much that pisses you off.”
“I don’t care about my stupid makeup!”
His lips pressed into a small smile.
“Says the girl who lost her damn mind when her new eyeshadow palette broke as if she can’t afford a new one.”
“There was a discontinued color in that one, and you know it,” I grumbled.
“Sure.” He smirked. “All right.”
“Don’t be an ass.” I glared.
“But it suits me so well.” His eyes lowered to my mouth and then back up.
And then suddenly, it was all I could think about—kissing him. Losing myself in him.
Breaking the one rule our parents made for us when we were young.
No dating within the Family. And definitely no sex. I wanted to break both of them. Repeatedly. With him.
It wasn’t like Serena and Junior were doing a great job of hiding all the sex they were having!
“What are you thinking?” Breaker asked. His lips looked delicious, plump, and I knew that Breaker was rumored to be not just incredible, but addicting in a way that made many women lose their heads.
I ran a few fingers through his messy hair, my nails scraping lightly against his skull.
He moaned as his head lulled forward. “If you’re trying to seduce me, it’s working.”
“Good,” I whispered. His head shot back up. “What?”
“Wow, is that all I needed to do to get you to smile at me again?” I wondered out loud at his bright, happy expression.
“No. Yes.” He seemed confused by his own feelings, and like flipping a switch, he jerked away from me, his expression dark. “It’s—we… shouldn’t. There are rules, you know?”
“Rules?” I wasn’t giving up. “Trust me, I know all about the rules; all of us do, but I’m sick of it, I’m sick of all of this.” I willed him to look at me, but he kept his face averted. “And I know you are too.”
“I’m doing my job.” He repeated it to me, maybe more so to himself.
Fine, I could do this; I could take things into my own hands—literally. I just needed a bit more courage.
Where was Serena when I needed her? She was the bloodthirsty one who had no qualms about punching Junior in the face one second, then sucking him off the next.
I swear fighting was their foreplay.
I pretended to look out the window, took a deep breath, and then—without giving any more thought to it—placed my hand on his thigh and squeezed.
His eyes widened, and then he ground his teeth and looked away.
The minute we stopped at the stop sign, I hiked up my skirt and straddled him, shoving away any sort of protests with a heated kiss. He went from being as still as a statue.
To being even harder than one as his hands dug into my hair and pulled—pulled my face against his as he deepened the kiss with a hunger that matched mine in its terror.
I cupped his cheeks, trying to keep his face in place as I kissed him harder, but he yanked me back by the hair and started kissing down my neck into the cleavage of my tight dress.
With a growl, he was licking the skin there and then cupping one breast while keeping his hold on my hair painfully tight.
“You need this?” he rasped, biting the sensitive skin he’d just licked.
“Yes.” I clenched my thighs around his body.
His assault didn’t end there. He kissed every exposed inch of me, finding his way back up to my mouth in a painful crush. Nerve endings pulsed and exploded over and over again with each sensation, each touch. He was fire. I was ice.
“Ahem.” A throat cleared. “We’re here.”
Disappointed, I pulled back, startled to see Breaker’s hardened gaze stare past me.
“How much time do we have?” “Fifteen minutes.”
That hard stare turned determined as he slowly pulled his hands away from me, righted my hair, wiped lipstick off his mouth, and then grabbed me by the hand. “Let’s go, we only have fifteen minutes.”
“Go?” I grabbed my purse and followed him out of the car, tugging my skirt in the process.
We sprinted up the cement cathedral stairs. I had no time to take in the massiveness of the church I grew up attending or the somber feeling that hit me in the chest, knowing that this time I was going for a reason that should never exist in the first place.
An innocent life taken.
Breaker jerked me toward the women’s restroom and shut the door behind us.
The place I’d been baptized. The place I’d come to worship. And now the place I would sin.
We went into the first stall, and then he was kissing me again, lifting my skirt up past my hips, and I was letting him, letting him do it, begging him for it because the only other time I’d ever done this hadn’t exactly been on my terms. And it hadn’t been him.
His mouth moved down my neck as his teeth grazed right where my pulse went wild. My hips bucked beneath his touch as he gripped my ass and then pulled my legs up around his waist.
“You still want this?” he murmured against my mouth, his lips wet from my tongue, his breathing ragged.
“I want this.” And to prove it, I tugged his head back down and domineered that full, lush mouth of his, taking my time sucking on each lip before tasting him; there was something vaguely familiar about his kiss. Something in the deepest recess of my mind took me back to that day—that night, maybe because he’d tried to kiss away the tears.
And replace the memories. But magic didn’t exist in our world.
And no matter how many pretty words or distracting stories he sent my way—it had still happened. At least I gave permission. That didn’t make it rape, right?
I had to tell myself that it didn’t, because, in the end, I was in control, right?
Right? “What’s wrong?” Breaker broke our kiss.
Our chests heaved as I slowly looked up. My own breathing was so erratic I had to suck in another breath before I answered. “I’m fine.”
Slowly he pulled one hand from my hip and swiped it under my right eye, showing me that it was wet with a tear, which only made my eyes fill up more as he started to ease away.
“No!” I was frantic, grabbing at his jacket, then at his shoulders, then locking my legs around his hips. “Please, Breaker, please!”
His eyes were wild. “You don’t know what you’re asking—”
I kissed away whatever else he was going to say as I undid the front button of his slacks, shoving them and his briefs down in one swoop.
His forehead pressed against mine, a sigh escaped his full lips, the bow on top was slightly swollen from all my sucking, making me just want to suck it more, to feel his hot mouth pressed against mine in so many wicked, sinful ways that I was sick with him, like a poison in my blood that caused a fever I never wanted to break.
Then again, his name was Breaker, right?
“Vi—” He gasped in an agitated breath. His green eyes glinted with a crazed expression. “I think that—”
“Stop thinking; thinking is bad when you want something selfish. Let me be selfish, please? Plus, I know how you look at me…”
He swallowed slowly and looked away, asking, “How’s that?”
I cupped his cheeks with my hands. “Like you want me to stay but need me to go.”
His mouth attacked mine then, earning a groan from me as he ripped off the last barrier keeping us apart—a thin thong that found itself dangling from one ankle as he braced himself at my entrance.
“Look at me,” he whispered. It was impossible not to.
He was beautiful. All aristocratic lines with wide full lips and eyes I could drown in.
“Look at me,” he said again.
“While I give you everything I can… and maybe, one day, this will take a bit of that moment away and replace it with something else, something you deserve even if I know it’s not me.”
I didn’t have a chance to ask why as he slowly thrust in, sliding so easily inside me that I wondered how he fit and how it felt so amazing.
He moved his hips around, making me reach for his hair, holding on for dear life as my body exploded with pleasure.
His mouth met my neck again like he needed to use his teeth and hands to hold on to my squirming, or maybe he just wanted to mark me the way I wanted to mark him?
Pleasure exploded as he thrust deep and then just stayed there, pulsing hard inside me while I clenched around him like I was afraid to let go too soon.
“It’s me, you, it’s us,” he whispered as his lips slid back up and claimed my mouth in a kiss that set my world on fire as I clung to his shoulders while he deepened his movements. “You’re close…” he rasped. I nodded frantically. “Yeah, yeah, I am.”
“Look at me.” Our foreheads touched, and I watched Breaker Campisi love me; I watched him re-break me and hold me in his arms. I watched… and I felt reborn.
All because he’d said yes. Maybe this holy moment was ordained.
It felt that way as my body soared higher and higher, then let go as he shuddered inside me.
Chest heaving, I cupped his strong jaw with my fingertips and pressed a chaste kiss to his cheek. “You’re one of the best friends I’ve ever had.”
His eyes filled with tears; his jaw ticked like he was clenching it.
Then he was pulling out and whispering in a shaky voice, “Vi, you’re my everything. I hope you know that.”
“Then stop.” I slid down the wall and picked up my thong while he grabbed a tissue and ran it up my thighs without even saying anything.
“Stop.” I grabbed his wrist after he threw the used tissue in the toilet.
“Stop what?” He was shaking. Why the hell was Breaker, of all people, shaking?
“Stop giving me only the protective parts of you, the ones that act more like guardian than lover or friend.”
He hung his head. “If you knew…”
“I do know.” I smacked him in the arm.
“Ouch! What the hell, Vi?”
“Listen, I’m serious here, Breaker. I know what happened; I was there! But if I can move on, so should you.
So what, you couldn’t protect me one time? Your job on this earth isn’t to be the bulletproof glass. Most days, I’d just prefer the ride or die.”
He smirked. “Ride or die? You mean that as in—”
I rolled my eyes. “Men are impossible.”
“We really are, you should know this by now, Abandonato.”
I poked him in the chest. “Look, thanks for the great sex, but you know there’s more here, and I’m not stupid, so if you want to start not being a giant asshole… I’ll be in my room tonight; the code’s 666.”
He groaned into his hands. “Great, so your father’s going to kill me after I type in the devil’s numbers? The hell, Vi!”
I just shrugged. “Grow a pair, Campisi, or I’ll find someone else who can.”
He grabbed me by the arm and spun me around, pinning me against the stall again.
“Do it, and I’ll chop his balls off and feed them to Sergio’s cow.”
“Sergio still has that thing?”
“I’m glad that’s what you’re concerned about—the grandma cow that literally sleeps standing up and has been on her last leg for about a decade.”
“She’s sweet!”
“She chased me last year and made King cry!”
I laughed. “Weird, he’s terrifying, and yet cows make him run.”
“According to him, the mooing is a satanic chant.”
I threw my arms around Breaker’s neck, earning a smirk from him, one that I felt all the way down to my tall black heels. “Tonight?”
He grumbled a curse. “If he has me at gunpoint, I expect you to explain to the senator that I was only answering a siren’s call, okay?”
I frowned. “He would never believe it.” Breaker eyed me up and down.
“You know? I wish you could see yourself how I see you, all innocent, wicked perfection wrapped up in a package that I just want to rip open with my teeth and pleasure you inside out and then do it again. Then maybe you’d understand why your dad’s been so fucking territorial and protective of you.”
My cheeks heated. “It’s because of his reputation—”
“No.” He put a finger to my lips. “It’s because you’re irresistible and every sane man’s kryptonite—hell, even the crazy ones.” “I don’t want crazy, I just want you…”
“I’m not… good.” He frowned and looked away.
“Holy shit, did you just quote Jacob from Twilight?”
He glared. “Speak of this again, and I’m choking you.”
I rolled my eyes again. “Please, you’d probably like that too.”
“Son of a bitch.” He wiped down his face. “What the hell am I supposed to do with you?”
“Welllll…” I checked my watch and winked. “You have exactly three hours to figure that out, don’t you?”
He blew out an exasperated breath. “Not sure if I should spank you or thank you.”
“You can do both…” I blew him an air kiss. “You have three hours to decide.” I reached to open the stall door just as he put a hand over my fingertips. “Yes?”
“Does this offer have an expiration date?”
“What a great idea.” I jerked away from his hand. “It does now.”
“But—”
“Hey, we gotta go; we only had fifteen minutes.”
“Vi, I don’t think—”
“See ya!”
He pulled away abruptly with a smile on his face—one I hadn’t been privy to since last Christmas. My first real Breaker smile. His smile was bright like the sun, and beneath it, I felt nothing but warmth and security as he slowly started buttoning his shirt back up.
Movement caught out of the corner of my eye. I whipped my head to the right just in time to see Junior wrap his arm around Ash and lead him into the church.
I exhaled in relief.
“You ready, Abandonato?” Breaker offered his arm.
I swallowed the ever-present ball in my throat. “Not ever.”
“Shall I distract you?”
I snorted. “Watch it, or I’m going to start calling you Cocky Campisi.”
His dark chuckle wrapped around me even though he was barely touching me as we walked arm in arm into the church to join the Families.
“Admit it.” His voice lowered to a whisper. “It does have a ring to it. Plus, better to think about tonight than right now.”
“Impossible.” My eyes welled with tears. “Look at us.”
He followed the direction of my stare.
Ash was trembling next to Junior, who was trying his best to keep his expression neutral, but every time Serena glanced at him, you could practically see the guy grab a knife, cut open his own chest, and offer his heart to her.
With every stolen glance, every breath, and then there was my little sister, Izzy, as she stole looks at Maksim, who was doing his best to burn a hole through the back of the church pew while his dad sat next to him.
“Shit, we’re a mess,” Breaker agreed. “Maybe this isn’t—”
“Finish that sentence, and I’m going to find the first random stranger who smiles at me and invite him into my bed.”
Suddenly Breaker’s hand gripped my arm, tight enough to cause a stinging pain as we stopped walking. “One day, you’ll realize how dangerous your threats are... one day, I may not stop myself.” He released my arm, his eyes burned with fury as he waited for me to say something.
But I had nothing. Because I liked the darkness that swirled behind his emerald eyes.
And one day, I would do more than push him over the edge.
I’d give him a shove and jump after him into the oblivion—and I’d worship at the feet of the fallen.
