REDEMPTION | MAFIA ROMANCE | SMUT

CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

I entered the penthouse at midnight. It was dark inside, yet I caught faint movement in the kitchen. Alexa's friend and roommate, Chloe, hunted the fridge for late-night snacks. Even when she strolled across the entirety of the living quarters with packaged goods tucked under her arms, she had no idea that I stood by the locked front door.

Her bedroom door clicked shut.

I dropped the car keys and phone on the marble sideboard and ventured to the guest room across from the master bedroom. My hand stilled over the gilded door handle. Every chamber provided en-suite bathrooms, yet I continued to use the private bathroom adjacent to the master bedroom. It's the only time I get to see Alexa.

Alexa struggled with her sister's death, which is unfathomable. Kathy, the unhinged mental case, tried to kill her younger sister. Had I not appeared when I did, Alexa would be dead. Still, the empathetic woman grieved and cried in the hours of culpability, even though she was unblameworthy. I hear her muffled lamenting through the wall from the guest bedroom when I lay awake in bed at night. Her sobbing bled into the pillow. Her heartbreak echoed through the halls. I hated how much I felt it. Her pain brought me pain and emotional anxiousness I had never experienced before. It takes great resilience to not climb into her bed and comfort her. We had made a verbal agreement. It is unwise to overstep boundaries, and sharing a bed is most definitely overstepping boundaries. I am not allowed to spend the night with her in my arms. It's a rule I implemented to ensure neither of us became too attached or invested. Yet, I stood at her bedside at night, listening to her soft breathing, watching her sleep peacefully before dark memories turned her dreams into nightmares, and her sobbing would proceed all over again.

Like now, for instance. I opened the door to solitude and darkness and loomed above her sleeping form. Dim light from the hallway outlined her body. She looked far too small in the king-sized bed. Her dark hair blended into the black sheet and coverlet. Barely noticeable goosebumps freckled her soft, creamy skin and the oversized T-shirt she had pinched from the wardrobe buried her slender physique.

I yearned to touch her. I crouched at the side of the bed and palmed her cheek cautiously. Her furrowed eyebrows softened upon detectable contact. My thumb swept across her blemished cheek as if to wipe away hours upon hours of stained tears. I wish I could remove the ache for her. I wish I had the power to make her smile once more. "You will get through it," I whispered, knowing she could not hear me. "I promise."

Alexa's parted lips expelled shallow breaths.

I traced her nose with the pad of my finger and, leaning in, kissed the corner of her delectable mouth. It was faint yet unhurried. I had to pull away, but my forehead fell to her shoulder instead, where I stayed for longer than I should have to feel her normal resting heart rate beneath my palm until she sensed the presence of concern and jerked into semi-consciousness.

"Liam," Alexa croaked in my ear, and my eyes closed. "Oh, God. I don't want to wake up." Her alarmed voice seized my heart. "I need to stay asleep. Please, give me something to take it away."