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133. The Ring
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2025-07-18 17:09:56
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Burn For Me : Bound By The Mafia King 35. Bruise
Belle’s pov.I wake up to the smell of something buttery and sweet drifting beneath my door. For a moment, I’m thirteen again, in the back kitchen of the Ford estate, sneaking pastries off the tray while the chef pretends not to notice. There’s sunlight stretching across the duvet, and for a second—just one—I forget where I am.Then I shift.And pain blooms across my abdomen like a bruise being pressed too hard.Reality floods back in an ugly rush.The mansion. The diagnosis. The fact that I’m not safe—I’m just safer for now.I grit my teeth and push myself up against the headboard. The sheets are soft, the pillows still smell faintly like laundry detergent and something more masculine—maybe Hale’s cologne. He probably ordered the maids to prepare this room for me. And while the thought should feel comforting, all it does is make me feel like I’m shrinking into the wallpaper.I’ve been here for three days.Three days of lying low. Of listening to my sister whisper outside my door to t
Burn For Me : Bound By The Mafia King 134. Italy
Cali’s pov.I’m still standing when he tells me no.Not gently. Not regretfully. Just—no. Firm, clipped, final. The word slams into me like a wall of glass, sharp and cold, and I feel every jagged piece slice clean through the thin thread of patience I’ve been holding onto since he first said “Burke runs the ring.”No?No?“You’re not going,” Hale says again, like that’s the end of it. Like my rage and fear don’t matter. Like I’m some child being told to stay put while the adults handle the dangerous parts.I don’t yell. I don’t cry. I just stare at him with ice in my chest and heat burning my throat.“I’m not asking for permission,” I say tightly.His jaw clenches. “Yes, you are.”I take a step forward. “You think you get to lock me out of this? Again? After everything?”“Your sister needs you here.”“She needs us both alive.”“You think you’ll protect her better by running into a war zone halfway across the world?”I shake my head, fury swelling behind my ribs. “You think I’m reckle
Burn For Me : Bound By The Mafia King 133. The Ring
Cali’s pov. He hasn’t looked me in the eye in hours.Not while we were eating dinner. Not while I tucked Belle in after her latest round of medication. Not even when he brushed his lips across my temple and whispered goodnight like everything was fine.It’s not.I see it in the way his jaw tightens whenever his phone buzzes. In the way his fingers curl when he thinks I’m not watching. In the way he slips out of bed after midnight, barefoot and silent, like he’s carrying something too dangerous to share.And I’m done pretending not to notice.I wait until I hear the floorboard creak in the hall. Then I slip from the sheets, wrap Hale’s robe around me, and pad toward the sound.His office door is cracked open. Light spills into the corridor in a thin line. I pause before I reach it, every instinct telling me to turn around. Give him space. Trust that he’ll tell me when he’s ready.But space never got me answers.And trust only got me sold.So I creep closer.I recognize his voice first
Burn For Me : Bound By The Mafia King 132. Suspicious
Cali’s pov.Something’s off.Hale hasn’t said anything. Hasn’t done anything, not really. But I know him now. I know the silence he wears like armor when he’s bracing for war. The way he avoids looking me dead in the eye when he’s lying by omission. The restless way his thumb taps against his thigh when he’s pretending he’s not itching to move, to act, to burn something down.He’s hiding something. I can feel it in my bones.It started days ago, subtly. A few curt responses. The occasional side-glance at his phone during dinner. A sudden uptick in hushed conversations over secure comm lines and men arriving at the mansion with stern expressions and files tucked under their arms. I caught him sending one of his lieutenants out with a burner phone and a set of unmarked plates for a car I’ve never seen before. And when I ask him directly, he just brushes me off.“I’m handling something,” he says. “It doesn’t concern you.”But that’s not how things have been between us. Not since we cross
Burn For Me : Bound By The Mafia King 131. Buried Under His Reach
Hale’s pov. The hallway feels colder than usual. Quiet, too quiet. A type of silence I’ve learned not to trust.Belle’s door is shut. That’s a good sign. Means she’s resting. But I don’t go to check—because I already did, twice, and Cali caught me hovering like some overprotective warden. I let her have this time with her sister. God knows they’ve earned it.Still, the unease hasn’t left me.Something’s not sitting right. And it isn’t just Belle’s condition.It’s the way she’s been watching windows. Flinching at footsteps. Staying far from corners of the house with too many shadows. That’s fear, yes—but not the usual kind. It’s as if she knows something she hasn’t said. Or worse, brought something in she didn’t mean to.I head into my office and shut the door behind me. The faint scent of clove oil lingers from the diffuser near the bookshelf—Cali insisted on setting one up in here. “To stop you from smelling like gunpowder and death,” she said.The truth is, both are still baked int
Burn For Me : Bound By The Mafia King 130. Diagnosis
I pace the hallway like a madwoman, one hand fisted in the hem of my shirt, the other curling into my palm so tightly my nails dig half-moons into the flesh.Belle’s collapsed.Just dropped—like her body gave up mid-step. No warning. No cry for help. One second she was standing beside me in the hallway, trying to laugh at something stupid I said about the scrambled eggs being suspiciously runny, and the next, she folded like a ragdoll into my arms.I screamed for Hale before I even knew what was happening.Now I wait.The doctor—one of Hale’s trusted contacts, a private physician who works off record and on retainer—has been in there for over an hour. Hale sent the staff away. Belle’s room is closed off. I can’t even hear her breathing through the door.I hate this.I hate this so goddamn much.My sister just got out of hell. And now it’s like her body is betraying her in the aftermath.I don’t even realize I’ve gone still until I hear the low murmur of voices behind the door. It crea
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