Page 40 of Trapped

Well, it made people do stupid things.

My old man, a degenerate gambler and a drunk, hammered that lesson into me early. We grew up dirt poor because he couldn’t keep his hands off the cards. He’d stagger home after losing everything at the track, reeking of booze and ready to pick a fight. I hated him. We all did except for Julia, the baby of the family, and Mom. She clung to him like a life raft, believing he’d change. He never did. Her loyalty brought us nothing but misery.

Love had chained her to a man who hurt her repeatedly. I swore I’d never fall into that trap. So I chased quick flings and one-night stands, girls who didn’t mean a damn thing to me. Delilah was supposed to be a distraction.

Two months in, still hooked.

This girl was different.Feltdifferent. Fucking her wasn’t enough of a release. Around her, I acted like a drug addict, hitting mydealer for a fix. I needed more, but the closer I tried to get, the more she danced out of reach. It made me want her even more.

Delilahonlywanted my money.

I was turning into the type of guy I preyed on. The sad, delusional men lining up at stripper bars, throwing cash to women who’d never reciprocate their feelings. I thought I was better than them. That it could never happen to me.

Bullshit.

Delilah had “borrowed” an obscene amount of money, and I kept giving her more. I’d lost my damned mind. Nothing she did stopped me from imagining things I had no business imagining.

I had no clue where this obsession came from or why it had chosen Delilah Romanov, but it was real. Like a beast living under my skin, gnawing at my rib cage, inflaming my brain with jealousy. She had to be mine. It ate away at me and consumed my thoughts, every waking moment filled with her image, her voice, her taste.

I’d given her my keys. She’d handed them back like I’d offered her loose change. I’d thought we were beyond this transactional bullshit. She didn’t want for anything. I’d given her more than enough to make sure she didn’t have to worry. Maybe that was the problem. In her mind, this was still an arrangement. No strings attached.

Ineededmore.

I’d given her everything, and she’d taken it all. Money, protection, a lavish lifestyle. But the keys? Too much for her. Giving them back to me proved she wasn’t ready.

Maybe she didn’t want anything deeper.

No. I couldn’t accept that.

Kill raised an eyebrow, still skeptical. “The closer you keep her, the more attention you draw. The Romanovs won’t let her go.”

“They’ll never take her from me.”

His gaze drifted to the door behind me. “And what about her ex? What if he finds her first?”

“He won’t. I’m keeping tabs on him.”

He’d come for her. Who wouldn’t?

And when he did, I’d kill him.

FOURTEEN

DELILAH

Men.

Just when you needed them the most, they disappeared. I hadn’t heard from Santino in days. I expected him to get bored eventually, but with Ivan accosting me in broad daylight, hinting that Dimitri was closing in, it was bad timing. I needed to be close to Santino when my ex found me.

And hewouldfind me.

I still hadn’t told Santino about Ivan, even though I should have. Santino had this way of making everything feel… manageable. He was turning into the one steady thing in all this chaos. But did that make him less of a threat? Maybe not to my body, but definitely to my heart.

Santino wasn’t Dimitri. He didn’t control me, didn’t hit me, didn’t treat me like garbage. He listened to me, and he made me feel safe. But what if that safety was just the bait?

The keys still messed with my head. He obviously wanted more. A stupid part of me didn’t hate the idea. But guys like him nevergave without expecting something back. The keys were just another way to own me. I couldn’t let that happen again.

He acted like he didn’t care about getting me knocked up. In what world was that normal? If I got pregnant, he’d take this obsession to another level. Thankfully, I’d taken a test, and it was negative. That didn’t rule out a pregnancy completely, but I’d messaged my doctor and had her rush a delivery of birth control pills. Uncertainty gnawed at me. I paced the living room, back and forth past the packed boxes of inventory. My pride faltered, and I sat down on the sofa and texted him.