Break All Ties

Chapter Eleven

On the morning after Assante shot Reese Murphy dead, I found myself with a lot to think about.

For starters, my tilted morals. He just had to say that, didn't he? When I was so intent on hating him for this, he turned it on me. Of course I knew there was a slurry of reasons for which he'd shot Reese- jealousy, primarily. That had been the cause of this whole thing. Jealousy and possessiveness. In the end, it was to wipe out the witnesses—but he said he'd done it for my honour too.

And I believed him.

I believed him because I'd seen him do it before. He'd done depraved things to people he saw on a daily basis because of me.

Maybe I was the bad influence.

Worse than all of that was the fact that I'd managed to sleep. I'd slept like a baby, actually. When the tears had stopped, he had me tucked up against his chest, warm beneath the covers in my bedroom.

I slept as if I hadn't just watched someone die. I slept as if it wasn't a murderer holding me.

On his bedside table- like always- he had his gun.

I reached across him and grabbed it, clicking it off safety. I pointed it at his head, my hand shaking.

Assante laid on his back, head facing the ceiling. His breaths were steady, but I knew he wasn't asleep anymore. His eyes had ceased their darting beneath their lids.

He could probably feel what I was doing.

But he didn't care.

I groaned in irritation. "Aren't you worried?" I demanded.

He breathed out a deep sigh through his nose, eyes still closed.

He looked incredible in the morning. With his deep, groggy morning voice and messy hair.

"Worried about what, Bellezza?"

"I'm pointing a gun at you."

Even when I said it aloud, he didn't give a shit. He seemed quite content, actually. One of his hands trailed along the mattress, moving to rest on my bared thigh.

This was just another day for him. It didn't faze him in the slightest.

"You couldn't shoot me when you hated me," He said pointedly. I'd tried this before in his bed in Italy. "You don't stand a chance at it now."

So that was the reason for his ease. He knew I couldn't do it.

Without opening his eyes, he lifted his spare hand.

"Give me the gun, Bellezza."

I sighed and did as told, slapping it into his hand. He abandoned it in the spot I'd grabbed it from, clicking it back on safety.

He still didn't open his eyes, not even when I pushed his hand away, crawled out of the bed and started to pace at the end of it.

I opened the curtains wide, letting the daylight in. A part of me worried people would know, but they didn't. The people on the street couldn't see us anyway. My voiles blurred the inside whilst still letting the light in.

I turned away from the window and huffed.

"You really weren't worried at all?"

I couldn't be that predictable. After everything he'd done to me- everything he'd put me through- there was no reason why I shouldn't kill him. I'd been exposed to more than enough death to have an idea of how to do it.

"No," Was his simple answer.

I groaned in disbelief. I needed a reaction out of him. Something to placate what I was feeling.