LOGINThe world outside of this singular, suffocating point of contact ceases to exist. There is no roar of the crowd, no smell of stale beer, and no metallic tang of blood in the air. There is only the crushing pressure of Eli’s mouth against mine and the frantic, heavy thud of his heart echoing against my own chest. His hands are massive and hot, anchoring me to him as if he expects the floor to vanish beneath us at any second. It is a messy, desperate thing, fueled by the adrenaline of the ring and the sheer terror of almost losing him to a man twice his size. I can taste the copper of the blood on his lip, but I don’t pull away. I lean into it, my fingers tangling in the hair at the nape of his neck, pulling him closer until there isn’t a single inch of air left between our bodies. When he finally breaks the kiss, he rests his forehead against mine and we’re both breathing hard. “Damn,” I whisper breathlessly. “I just might consider sneaking out of the house more often.” Eli let
I take the stairs two at a time, heading straight for my suite. I don’t have time to change into something sensible, and honestly, a pair of pajamas will actually sell the lie I’m about to tell a lot more. So that’s what I throw on and go find Holt.I find him near the top of the grand staircase. He’s the most stoic of the security rotation, a man who looks like he was carved out of a single block of granite and then taught how to say “Yes, Ma’am.”“Miss Reid,” he says. “Is everything alright?”“Everything’s fine, Holt,” I say, forcing a hand to my forehead and squinting as if the ambient light of the hallway is a physical assault. “Or will be. I’ve got a migraine coming on that feels like a railroad spike through my left eye. I’m going to bed. I’ve already taken some medicine, so I’m going to be out for the count. Don’t let anyone wake me unless the house is actually on fire.”He looks at me with the mild concern of a man who takes his job ser
“Show me what the Reid family money bought you.” Elias says with a wink. I get in position. I am a professional. I am in complete control of all of my faculties and the fact that he is standing across from me without a shirt in excellent lighting is entirely irrelevant to the task at hand, which is hitting him, which I am going to do. We go again. He is faster without the shirt, or maybe I am slower, or maybe I am fractionally less focused than I was two minutes ago. Every time I get close, the sight of his bare chest and the way his muscles ripple when he moves makes my focus falter and he uses it to his advantage, closing the distance between us. I swing for his jaw, but he deflects the hit and twists me around in one swift motion. “Distracted for some reason?” he asks, his breath warm against my cheek. “Shut up,” I mutter, pushing off him and readying for another hit. He catches my wrist midair and pulls, spinning me so my back is against his chest, one arm across the front of
“I’m not sure what secret you’re referring to,” he says, and his voice is perfectly even, perfectly neutral, perfectly nothing, which is how I know immediately that he knows exactly what secret I’m referring to. “You know,” I say pleasantly. “Lucia–” “You know, and I know you know, and we can spend the next ten minutes doing this particular dance or you can accept that I found what I found and we can move on to the part where you agree to my terms.” I hold his gaze from the edge of his bed and I watch him think, running through the variables and I wait, because I have been waiting for him to come home for the better part of the day and a few more seconds costs me nothing. Finally, something in his face shifts and he exhales through his nose and says, “What exactly did you find?” “Enough,” I say simply. He is quiet for a long moment. The afternoon light sits between us and neither of us moves and I can hear the house e
Elias's POV Eli drives the way he thinks, which is fast and without wasted movement. He texted Marcus, arranged the afternoon off, and drove across the city in the grey morning light with the conversation he was about to have already assembled in his head. He parks outside his mother’s building and sits in the car for exactly four seconds before he gets out. He takes the stairs. The lift is too slow and he needs the climb right now, needs something to do with the energy that is moving through him because if he arrives at that door without burning any of it off, he is going to end up in a prison cell. He already knows Carver is here. He knew it before he started the drive because Carver has been treating his mother’s kitchen like an annex of his own operation for the last month since he found out about David Reid and Eli has been allowing it because it kept his mother feeling connected to something larger than her own four walls, and that, he is realizing now, was a calcul
“I thought,” a low rough voice murmurs right against my ear, “I told you to stay put.”The wave of relief that crashes through me at the sound of Eli’s voice is so intense that my knees actually buckle. I turn in his arms and throw mine around his neck, holding on tighter than I probably should.“I was about five seconds away from coming back for you.” I murmur into his chest, still feeling my body shaking. “I heard the shots and then nothing. I thought… I thought…”“I know,” he says quietly, placing a hand at the small of my back and pulling me closer. “I’m okay. We’re okay.”We stay like that for a long moment, just breathing, the adrenaline still surging through both of us. When we finally pull apart, our faces are only inches away. His eyes search mine in the dim light filtering through the trees, and I can feel my pulse still racing, though now for an entirely different reason.“I thought I’d never see you again,” I whisper, feeling my body relax into
My stomach clenches as I watch David storm toward me.He looks tired, exhausted even, but there is no doubt that his presence still commands the room’s attention. People step back, cowering away from him. Even the thugs that had been trying to drag me out have loosened their grip on me.“
Author’s Note: We’re in the home stretch, you guys. About 6 chapters to go. Possibly 1 or 2 more if they get too long. Pals... thank you for reading. Thank you for coming along for the ride. Thank you for getting invested. Thank you for voicing your opinions. Thank you for lik
Over the next week, Sel lets me invade her apartment completely. Moving the stuff out of her second bedroom so that I can move the pull-out couch in there to sleep on, emptying one of her dressers so that I have somewhere to put my clothes. She screens everyone that knocks on the door, although i
The whimper leaves my throat before I can stop myself.His mouth is harsh, domineering, kissing me like his life depends on it, walking me backwards until I hit the wall.Ignoring the throb of where the wall hits my head, I instead focus on the way David’s hands grab my waist, hoping his


![Fallen From Grace [Married to the Mafia Novel]](https://www.goodnovel.com/pcdist/src/assets/images/book/43949cad-default_cover.png)




