Chapter 0026
Chapter 0026
Layla
Work was busy.
So busy, I barely stopped moving for my entire twelve–hour shift. I barely had time to wave at interns and fellow doctors in passing as I ran from patient to patient. So busy, I didn’t have time to
feel tired.
To think.
It was definitely for the best, after my last less–than – amicable interactions with my new housemate and, before that, his—but I refused to give Aurora a label when it came to Aldo.
No, busy was definitely good.
Busy meant that I wasn’t thinking about Aldo or his new woman. When I had a knife in my fingers and a life in my hands, I wasn’t thinking about anything except my work.
It wasn’t until my last patient of the day that I finally slowed down enough to take a breath. To wish my co–workers a good night before I headed down towards the parking lot.
It was late. So late I rubbed sleep from my eyes as I slipped into the elevator-
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Chapter 0026
Only to stop dead in my tracks at the sight in front
of me.
Marco Ricci slumped against the metallic wall of the lift, but it wasn’t the sight of him that’d drawn me up short. It was the state of his face.
He was a mess of bruises. His left eye had nearly swollen shut, and the skin around it was a collage of black and purple. A thick, scabbed cut crossed his right cheek, and his lip had split beneath it.
“Marco!” I started forward before I could stop
myself, and my fingers brushed over his cheekbone on instinct. “Who did this-‘
He jerked back as though my fingers had burned him. “Your friend Aldo.”
I stumbled back, jaw hanging in shock. The elevator dinged, and Marco brushed past me. Leaving me, mouth agape, staring at the open door.
His words echoed in my head. My own fingertips burned with the memory of his skin.
Anger quickly rushed in to replace the shock.
No, not anger. Fury. Red rage.
I made it through the drive home–no. Not home. Along the winding suburban streets to the estate. Because that’s what my life had been relegated to,
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living under the care of the man who’d scorned me, left me, then come crashing back into my carefully reconstructed life to fuck it all up again.
Like a bull in a china shop.
Carlo met me outside the manor as I pulled into the driveway. “Layla-”
“Where is he?” I shoved my keys into the valet’s hand without turning my gaze from Aldo’s second in command. “Where the hell is he?”
To my surprise, Carlo placed his body between me and the door. “What were you thinking?”
“What?” I faltered back a step, shocked by the venom in his voice.
“Why would you piss off Aldo over a jerk like Marco?”
Red tinted the edges of my vision. No. No way. Not another man trying to control my life, own me, tell me who I should and shouldn’t love. “Move out of my way, Carlo. Or are you going to hit the woman whose life Aldo has decided to control?”
Carlo moved out of my way.
My no–slip rubber shoes echoed against the floor- a testament to how hard I was stomping along the polished wood. How dare Aldo interfere in my life in such a bold, dramatic way!
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Chapter 0026
That fucking alpha male. Trying to impose hist macho ego on my life. As if Marco was any of his business! He’d made everything a mess–and the irony was he was the last person who had any right to judge me.
An unfamiliar man stood outside the door to Aldo’s
bedroom.
Because of course he’d stationed a guard dog outside his door to keep me from barging in.
Confronting him. Calling him out on his unforgivable, out–of–line bullshit.
“Move aside,” I snarled.
“No one can go in there,” the guard dog said in a monotone voice that only pissed me off more. “The Don is with Aurora.”
With Aurora. The nerve of that man! To violently assault my partners while he …
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