Marcus shakes his head. “No, that’s not okay. It’s unacceptable.”
“I agree,” I tell him, needing him to stay calm. “I’ll find a way to make them pay for what they did without hurting them … or maybe I could hurt them just a little, but I won’t be taking their lives. That’s too easy. I want them to live with regret, live with the knowledge of what they did to me.”
Marcus laughs, his lips twisting into a sinister smirk. “That’s not how we’ve been trained to deal with shit,” he explains. “When someone fucks up, their life is taken. That’s part of the reason Levi has been so wrecked. He’s not ready to die and he thinks death is coming his way. Roman though, he’s been living on borrowed time for years. He’s already accepted his fate.”
“I’m not killing them!” I rush out, the thought of Roman already being prepared for death not sitting well in my stomach.
“I get that,” Marcus says. “But you need to understand what’s going through their heads. They’re fucking devastated over this.”
My gaze drops and I fall from his lap, scooching into the space beside him and refusing to meet his obsidian eyes. “That’s on them,” I murmur. “I hope they’re fifty shades of fucked up over it. They decided not to trust me and I shouldn’t have to bear the guilt for that. If they’re worried I’m going to try and kill them in the middle of the night, then that’s on them. After everything we’ve been through, they should know me better by now, and that goes for you too.”
“Okay,” he says, his big hand dropping to my thigh. “I get it. You want them to suffer in silence, but where does that leave me?”
Glancing up, I meet his heavy stare, unsure of what he could mean. Though when it comes to the DeAngelis brothers, I rarely know what the fuck is going on. “What do you mean?”
“My brothers,” he clarifies. “You have your way that you’d like to deal with them, but that leaves me awfully unsatisfied.”
Pushing up to my knees, a wide grin tears across my face. “Marcus DeAngelis, you wouldn’t be asking me permission to fuck with your own brothers, would you?”
He laughs and catches me around the waist before yanking me hard against his chest, remembering who the fuck he is. “I suppose I’m not.”
And just like that, his lips come down over mine and I climb right back over his lap, more than ready to start all over again.
9
My stomach aches as Marcus sleeps soundly, more than content having me in his arms. On the other hand, I’ve barely slept in days, not even with the safety of Marcus by my side. Though, who could blame me? This castle isn’t exactly a place that screams safe haven, and the last time I fell asleep with Marcus didn’t exactly turn out so well. This castle is my hell. I’ve been tortured and held prisoner here by the very men who sleep just down the hallway. I’d be insane to trust that I’m safe here.
Marcus rolls and his arm flops right over my stomach, and I suck in a sharp, pained gasp as silent tears fill my blue eyes. “Holy mother of sweet baby Jesus,” I hiss through a clenched jaw, grabbing his heavy arm and trying to push it off me. “Get the fuck off me, you big pile of steaming swamp turd.”
Marcus groans and grunts in his sleep, probably pissed that I had the audacity to disturb his slumber. “Mmmmm, what’s wrong?” he murmurs, tightening his grip around me and pulling me closer which, in a perfect world, I would have loved.
“MY STITCHES, ASSHOLE. GET OFF ME!”
“OH, FUCK!” Marcus scrambles back, his eyes springing open as he flies back on the bed. He grabs the thick blanket and pulls it down to inspect my stomach, gently running his fingers over it in the darkness to check that every stitch is still in place. “Did I hurt you?”
“No,” I tell him, though we both know I’m lying. I scoot to the edge of the bed and glance back at him as his face falls. “I just need to walk it off. I’ve been cramping for a little while.”
He rolls his eyes and goes to get up. “Come on, I’ll show you where the good shit is,” he says, reading my mind, knowing damn well that I was about to go and search every cabinet downstairs until I found the pain meds that would surely help me pass out.
My eyes widen in horror as he tries to climb out of bed after me. “No,” I say, leaning back and pushing him down into his mattress. “Don’t be an idiot. I’ll just be a minute and then I’ll come straight back here. You can’t be up and walking around for another few days.”