All Chapters of The Mafia's Forbidden Heat: Chapter 151 - Chapter 160

RIN POVThe morning came too fast and I woke to find Thorne still asleep beside me with his arm thrown across my chest and the bond humming quietly between us. Through the network I could feel the others stirring in their rooms and I knew we only had a few more minutes of peace before reality crashed back in.I did not move because I wanted to memorize this moment. Thorne's face relaxed in sleep without the constant tension he carried when awake. The warmth of his body against mine. The way the bond felt when he was completely at ease and not fighting against everything.But then Maya's presence flickered through the network with sharp anxiety and I knew something was wrong. I carefully extracted myself from Thorne's grip and pulled on clothes and followed the bond connection to where Maya was standing in the main hall with Vex and several others gathered around a computer screen."What happened," I asked."Your father survived the explosion," Vex said without looking up. "Security fo

RIN POVThe safe house Vex secured was not big enough for two hundred people but we made it work anyway. Bodies filled every room and hallway and some people ended up sleeping outside in tents because there was nowhere else to put them. The logistics were a nightmare but at least everyone was alive and free and that had to count for something.I found a quiet corner and sat down and let the exhaustion hit me all at once. Through the bond I felt Thorne doing the same thing somewhere on the other side of the building. We were both running on empty but there was too much to do to actually rest.Maya appeared with food that I did not remember asking for and sat down next to me. "You look terrible.""I feel worse than I look.""That is impressive considering how you look." She pushed the plate toward me. "Eat something or Thorne will yell at me for not taking care of you."I ate because she was right and because I needed the energy. Through the bond I felt Thorne doing the same thing and i

RIN POVThe safe house Vex secured was not big enough for two hundred people but we made it work anyway. Bodies filled every room and hallway and some people ended up sleeping outside in tents because there was nowhere else to put them. The logistics were a nightmare but at least everyone was alive and free and that had to count for something.I found a quiet corner and sat down and let the exhaustion hit me all at once. Through the bond I felt Thorne doing the same thing somewhere on the other side of the building. We were both running on empty but there was too much to do to actually rest.Maya appeared with food that I did not remember asking for and sat down next to me. "You look terrible.""I feel worse than I look.""That is impressive considering how you look." She pushed the plate toward me. "Eat something or Thorne will yell at me for not taking care of you."I ate because she was right and because I needed the energy. Through the bond I felt Thorne doing the same thing and i

RIN POVThree months after we implemented the choice system the network had grown to four hundred and twelve people. Most of them were relief workers and journalists and activists who had worked closely with our teams and chosen to accept the bond when it started forming. A few were random people who had thought about us intensely enough to trigger a connection and decided they wanted to be part of something larger than themselves.Managing that many minds was exhausting even with Thorne sharing the load. Every day brought new problems. Someone could not control their connection and was overwhelmed by input. Someone else wanted out but had accepted the bond too long ago to sever it safely. Two bonded people fell in love through the network and then realized they hated each other in person.We had become accidental therapists and mediators and leaders for hundreds of people we barely knew.I was sitting in what had become my office trying to process requests from three different disas

RN POVTwo weeks after the electromagnetic attack we lost our first subnetwork to internal collapse. Twenty three people connected through a community garden project in Portland. They had bonded quickly and intensely and then something went wrong. One person developed paranoid delusions and instead of the network helping him it amplified his fears until all twenty three people were experiencing the same paranoia simultaneously.By the time we realized what was happening they had barricaded themselves in a warehouse convinced that everyone outside their network was trying to kill them. Local police surrounded the building. The media covered it like a hostage situation. And through the Inter Network Coalition I felt other networks watching and wondering if they would be next."We need to get them out before someone does something stupid," I said to Thorne."How do we extract people from their own paranoid delusions when those delusions are being shared and reinforced by twenty two other