Page 128 of Never Say Never

"Good shit." He stopped and smiled at me. "I missed this. Us. It hurt."

"Yes," I agreed. "I missed this too. Us," I added.

The way he smiled seemed like the sun coming from behind the clouds after a storm. I wanted to drag him into bed and bury my cock into him all over again until he was just a wet, sticky mess in my arms. Instead, I took his offered hand, grunted as my bones cracked on the way up, and followed him into the shower.

“Damn, old man. Get those creaking bones in order.” Paolo laughed.

“These creaking bones just fucked you right.” I chuckled.

“Oooh, you’ve got jokes tonight.”

“You have no idea,” I said.

We ran across the hall as we both chuckled like school boys, shushing each other so we wouldn't get caught. Paolo’s hand never left mine. How the fuck was I supposed to function without him?

I'd buried my nose into the crook of Gianpaolo's neck before we went to sleep. Even now, I could smell the scent of him, faint and comforting as I floated in that space between being out and being awake.

The sound of heavy breathing and whimpering hit my ears. Slowly, I peeled open my eyes and was assaulted by darkness. Even then I felt someone nearby, watching. Waiting. Staring.

Paolo shot up next to me, a gun in his hand. I had no idea where he'd even gotten the thing from, but he cocked it. The lights flipped on and we stood staring at two men. Each one of them had one of my daughters in their arms, a gag in their mouths. Fear was quickly replaced by rage. It swallowed me up, and I shot forward in bed before the first man stuck a gun against Nyra's head.

"Move again and I will paint this room with her brains. Is a promise."

I backed up. "What do you want?"

The man grinned, his Italian accent thick when he spoke again. "You investigate us, yes?" He nodded, already knowing the answer. "And you? Your brothers burn and kill. Our bosses want to see you. Both."

I swallowed hard. The right answer was not to let them move us to a second location, but that was so much easier said than done when my daughter had a gun against her temple. I glanced over as Paolo slowly lowered his gun and raised his hands.

"You're right, it was me and my brothers," he said. "We answered to our shit being attacked. You want me? Take me."

"What? No," I whispered at Paolo.

He shushed me. "Come on, man. Take me to your boss. I'll answer for whatever he needs me to."

The man narrowed his eyes. "Do not move," he snapped as he shoved the gun against Nyra's head hard. She started to cry. "He wants both."

"You heard him, both of you need to come," his Triad friend added, his eyes dancing with disdain. "Let's go."

"And what makes you think I won't leave this room, kill you both, and then go after your bosses?" Paolo asked.

His eyes had darkened, all emotion gone as he stared at the two men that held our girls. A shiver ran up my spine. I wouldn't want to ever be on Gianpaolo’s bad side.

"This place is filled with our men," the Triad said casually. "Only we came in here, but trust me, we didn't come to this home lightly. Your guards are dead, there's no way out. Cooperate or we'll kill the little ones."

Paolo frowned. "Shit," he muttered. Whatever he had planned didn't work out, or he'd just gained some information he didn't like. It was the same way he acted when he realized something less than ideal in the field. "Listen, take me. They don't have anything to do with this. York has stepped away from the investigation and hasn't gone back in for weeks. Let him go."

The man holding Navy grabbed her arm more roughly. "All of you. Now!"

Paolo laughed, the sound so haunting it shot shivers down my spine. “I’m going to bash your brains into nothing but soup. Just know that if your hands were on my fucking girls tonight, I’m going to make sure I saw them off and keep them as trophies.”

"We’ll see about that."

We exchanged a look. At the end of the day, we weren't going to allow anything to happen to Navy and Nyra. We would go, do what we were told, and figure it out when we moved to the next place. As we both moved from the bed, more men flooded the room. They grabbed me and Paolo, turned us around, and patted us down. Paolo had a knife in the pocket of his pajama pants. That was confiscated. I still had a box cutter in mine. That was taken too. When we were turned back around, I reached for the girls.

"It's going to be okay, you two. Remember what we talked about? Be good, listen, do what you're told."

They stared at me and nodded in unison before a fist collided with my face. I whipped my head back and stepped up to the man in front of me.