Gino woke abruptly, his heart racing, sweat dotting his forehead and trickling down his face. He pushed himself into a sitting position, one hand pressing on his chest to try to gain control of his wild breathing. He didn’t have nightmares anymore. All those years ago, he had woken nightly seeing his mother’s face, watching his father’s body drop to the floor. His grandmother and grandfather lying in a pool of blood.
Ciro had awakened him one night and urged him to get up and come with him. He remembered he was still in his pajamas. Ciro had told him to put his shoes on, and they left the house without Joe, just the two of them and the bodyguards. Gino had been taken to a restaurant they frequented a lot. They’d gone to the back and down a flight of stairs to an underground labyrinth he hadn’t even known existed.
The men who had killed his entire family were there, tied to chairs, their eyes bouncing around. Gino had never felt so satisfied in his life when he saw them looking afraid. Ciro had stood with him, one hand on his shoulder as he directed his men to make them pay for the death of his best friend and Gino’s father. All Gino could think of was his mother’s face as she lay dying with her beloved husband already dead beside her and flames licking all around her.
He didn’t think about what was being done to the men. In his mind, they deserved everything they got and more. He couldn’t see them as human. He had already disassociated.
“Gino?” Zara’s voice was soft, her hand whispering over his forehead as she pushed at the damp hair spilling around his face. “What is it, honey?”
Her voice. Her touch. He never thought he’d have that. He caught her in his arms and dragged her onto his lap, holding her too tightly because he needed to know she was with him. She wouldn’t leave him. That she could love him as fucked up as he was, because the things he’d done in his life for Ciro, indulging himself with Zhu, that was fucked-up.
“Tell me, Gino.”
If he had insisted she tell him something, it would have been a demand, an order and he would expect her to obey him. He would insist on it. Zara wasn’t like him. Her voice was an invitation to share with her. If he didn’t, she wouldn’t be upset with him. She would simply cuddle into him and hold him, taking her cue from his body language.
“I don’t deserve you.” That was the strict truth, but he was keeping her. He needed her. He had been so close to losing his way. Somehow, she pulled him back from the edge.
“Probably not.” There was a touch of humor. “But you’re not getting rid of me, so tell me what’s wrong.”
He considered her reaction if he told her the truth. He found he needed to. He didn’t know why. He wanted to hide the things he’d done from her. From himself. “I did something I know you wouldn’t like or agree with.” It was the first time he’d ever had a nightmare that had to do with the justice he exacted—and it had. He’d played the scene out with Zhu a hundred times, and none of them had been pretty.
“Was it really bad?” Zara brushed at the strands of dark hair falling onto his forehead. Her fingers felt cool on his skin. Light, the way she was light.
“I did to Bolan Zhu what he did to you and then some.”
There was silence. He could hear her breathing softly in the darkness. He held his breath—waiting for condemnation. For judgment.
“You didn’t just kill him outright?” It was a soft inquiry, strictly neutral.
“I thought I would. At first. Before we got there and I saw him with two other women and a man in this disgusting club. People paid to buy human beings so they could get off torturing them. Others watched and got off.” He pressed his fingers to his eyes. “I can’t get the images out of my head. The things Zhu did to those people. The way others gathered around to watch those suffering. Cheering Zhu on like he was some star performing for them.”
He looked down at her, waiting for her eyes to meet his. When that slate blue gaze finally lifted, he felt the impact and it rocked him. There wasn’t apprehension, or judgment, only concern for him. For him. Zara only thought of him.
“It didn’t seem right to me to just kill him without his knowing how what he did to others felt.”
She leaned into him, giving him her body. Her breasts pressed tight against his chest. So soft. Her face nuzzled his, her lips sliding along his cheek to his jaw. “Like an eye for an eye,” she guessed, her tone gentle. Accepting.
He had woken in a rocky place. Heart pounding. The flames of hell burning through his mind. Why did Bolan Zhu’s death bother him so much? Not his death, but the things Gino had done to him before he killed him.
“Like that. There should be justice in the world, Zara. Shouldn’t there? A man does that kind of thing, sadistic torture, shouldn’t he at least experience the same before he dies?”
She pulled her head back to look him in the eye. “If you have to ask that question, honey, you already know the answer to it.”
“They should,” he argued.
“I’m not you. I don’t have to do the things you have to do. I don’t have to see the things that haunt you, that keep you up at night, that put that look on your face when you woke up, so I will never judge you. Never, Gino. I love you absolutely. Terribly. With everything that I am. I can only tell you that maybe we aren’t the ones that have to tip those scales equally. Maybe someone else does that. Or not. Maybe he just had to die to keep him from hurting others, because in the end, who did you hurt more? Bolan Zhu is dead. He can’t feel anything. He isn’t suffering. You are.”
He was silent, turning her counsel over and over in his head. He brought her fingertips to his mouth and bit them gently and then sucked the sting away. Her other hand slid over his chest, and traced the muscles of his abdomen. He couldn’t be this close to her without wanting her. Without needing her body.
“I wanted to hurt him.”
“I know, Gino.” Her fingers danced down his belly, stroked back up to the heavy muscles of his chest. “I would think that would be a natural reaction. It isn’t wrong to feel the need or want to hurt someone who hurt us. That’s human.” She tipped her face up and kissed his jaw. Her lips traveled to his throat.
“I don’t have bad dreams. I don’t know why this haunts me. If anyone deserved to suffer, it was Bolan Zhu.” But he did know why his actions haunted him and she was sitting in his lap, sliding to one side, so she was on the bed again, her hands moving over his body with gentle persistence. With possessive insistence. His woman was the reason his actions bothered him enough to wake him from sleep.
“Ciro made me feel safe,” he admitted. “I admired him. He was a man no one ever fucked with. No one would ever try to kill his entire family because they knew what would happen to them.”
She kissed his chest. Her tongue flicked his nipple and the heat rushed through his body, taking him over. He felt the lick of flames in his belly and growing in his groin. He put his head back, savoring the way she made him feel.
“You admired and respected Ciro, Gino. That’s natural too. Of course anything he said or did would be gospel to you.”
“He’s a good man.” Gino heard the defensive note in his voice. Was he? Was Ciro a good man? There were many sides to Ciro. To his wife and family, he was good. To the many charities he gave to generously, he was good. He sighed, letting his breath out.
“I don’t know, princess. I really don’t. I don’t know if I’m a good man, so how the hell can I judge Ciro?”
“You don’t, Gino.” She was practical. “You can only decide who you want to be. What kind of man you want to be. What example you set for our children. We all have choices. If you don’t like something about yourself, you work on changing it. It might take a lifetime, but that’s a gift you can share with your children. With me. That kind of lifetime commitment to change something in yourself you don’t particularly like.”
She kissed his nipple, curled her tongue around it and began a journey down his belly. His breath caught in his throat when her arm wrapped around his hips and her mouth found his cock. She blew air over him and then he was inside that warm, moist haven. There was nothing to sort out when he had his woman and she was giving him the ride of his life. When she hollowed her cheeks and sucked hard, she took away every bad memory, every bad image until there was only that mouth and the fire she surrounded his cock with. He knew he would always strive to be a better man because of her—to deserve her.
• • •
“Stop squirming,” Bellisia said. “Good grief, Zara, calm down.”
“I can’t calm down. I’m really doing this. Were you scared when you got married to Zeke? I’m petrified.”
Bellisia stepped back and glared at her. “Don’t you dare chicken out after all the talks I gave you advising to take your time and you wouldn’t listen. Now Nonny’s got her preacher man friend back, and I’m taking you out there even if I have to get the proverbial shotgun and hold it on you through the entire ceremony.”
“I want to marry Gino,” Zara admitted. “I’m crazy in love with him. I can’t stand it when he isn’t close to me, but I don’t know the first thing about relationships, being a wife, making him a home and making him happy.” The last came out in a wail.
“Sex,” Cayenne said. “Lots of sex. All the time. Anywhere. Be inventive, it’s so much fun. Wear all kinds of very provocative clothing and that leads to even more sex. Keeps me happy too so it’s a win-win situation.”
Pepper nodded. “I have to admit, she’s right. Lots of sex. Wyatt definitely keeps me happy in that department and he’s all for it anywhere, anytime, so win-win for me too.”
Bellisia sighed and pushed at her blond hair that was up in a swirling chignon so she looked very sophisticated. “Yeah, go for the sex, Zara. It can get you out of a lot of trouble.”
“Or in it,” Cayenne said complacently.
The women laughed and Zara had to join them. Cayenne and Trap had no problem with public displays of affection. Sometimes he barely managed to get her into the tree line before she was peeling off her shirt and trying to get his off at the same time.
“You might cook for him,” Nonny advised with a smile. “You want to keep your man’s strength up. Feed him so you can have plenty of sex.” Her smile faded and she looked very serious.
Zara leaned toward her, eyes on Wyatt’s grandmother. The other girls sobered as well and stopped everything to listen.
“Make a home for him. You be that home for him so the moment he sees you, he not only feels he’s home, he knows it.”
“How?” Zara asked.
“You don’t worry about what you’re getting from him. Worry about what he’s getting from you. If you married the right man, he’s doing the same for you. Don’t think he’s going to anticipate or know what you need, communicate it to him. Talk to him. Let things go that are trivial. Laugh every chance you get with him. It’s the little things that make or break a relationship. Put him first and hope he puts you first. That’s the best advice I can give you. I was married for a lot of years to my man, and I loved every minute I had with him.”
For a moment Nonny fell silent and then she smiled at them. “You girls make me feel young again and you make me wish I had that time back with him. Cherish your man. Show him that, Zara, and you’ll never go wrong.”
Zara was absolutely certain she wouldn’t have a problem with that. She had grown over the last few months in confidence. She didn’t listen to that voice that had always told her she wasn’t good enough or that she was a coward. She knew she was different from Bellisia and Shylah, but it didn’t matter. She had things to offer as well. And she had Gino.
Ezekiel poked his head in the door. “You ready? You look beautiful, Zara.”
“Thanks, Zeke.”
Cayenne and Pepper hurried out the door to get to their seats. Bellisia was standing up for her. Zara was suddenly anxious to see Gino. The music started, and Nonny leaned in and brushed a kiss on her cheek.
“You’ll do fine. Gino’s a good man.” It was said with authority.
Zara knew that. She knew Gino was a good man. On cue, she started down the aisle, just an opening between the two rows of chairs, but she didn’t notice because she had eyes only for the man waiting for her. Gino. Standing there in a suit. Waiting for her. He was perfect, her man. Perfect for her.
Her eyes met his and her stomach did a slow roll while her heart melted and a million butterflies took wing. She hadn’t thought she’d ever have this. A family. A man of her own. A home. She felt like she had everything she could ever want just looking at him. She walked up the aisle to him, completely confident. Completely happy. Feeling beautiful. Certain of her future. Gino took her hand and pressed it over his heart as both turned to face the preacher.