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68. Monster Of The Past
Last Updated:
2025-05-31 16:39:58
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Burn For Me : Bound By The Mafia King 137. Italy
Cali's pov.The air smells different here. Drier, richer. Like the stones are steeped in centuries of secrets.Italy.The taxi winds through cobbled streets too narrow for logic, bumping past flower-draped balconies and age-worn shutters. I keep my head low, sunglasses in place, scarf tucked over my hair. I’m not famous, but I’m recognizable—especially to a man like Hale. He misses nothing. One wrong move, and the whole plan crashes.The driver asks if I’m sure this is the address, raising an eyebrow at the sheer opulence of the hotel as he slows in front. I nod and smile, murmuring, “Romantic getaway.”He grins and helps with my bag. It’s a lie I’m starting to wear like perfume.As soon as I step inside the lobby, I spot the concierge desk—and then him. Hale. He’s not facing me, thank God, but I’d know the back of him anywhere. The way his shoulders fill a room. The tilt of his head as he listens. He’s speaking to someone, a man in a well-fitted suit who gives off the same lethal cal
Burn For Me : Bound By The Mafia King 136. Doing The Right Thing
Cali’s pov.The sun hasn’t even risen when Hale’s bags are loaded into the waiting SUV.It’s early enough that the world feels paused—silent, suspended in that pale gray hush before morning decides what it wants to become. I stand barefoot at the top of the stairs, Hale’s sweatshirt drowning me, my hair tousled like I just rolled out of bed.That’s the image I want to give him—lazy, affectionate, half-asleep and docile.Not the woman who has her passport hidden under the bathroom sink. Not the woman who bought a plane ticket last night using the secure terminal in his office after bribing his sleep-deprived maid with the promise of helping her niece get into a medical trial for lupus. The same woman who plans to be on the flight after his, chasing him halfway across the world with nothing but grit and secrets in her carry-on.The woman he would chain to the wall if he knew.I follow him outside as the sky softens with morning. Dew coats the mansion’s stone steps. The SUV’s engine hums
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
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