Breaking My Bodyguard novel · Chapter 2 of 24

Chapter 2: Sunday Dinner

She stitches Rafe's arm, then refuses the wedding to Silvio's face at the family table.

Rafe wouldn't go to a hospital.

A bullet wound meant a police report, and a police report meant my father's name in a file.

So at midnight I sat on the edge of his bed in the room next to mine with a medical kit from my aunt's pantry.

Marisa had handed it over without one question.

She only looked at the blood on my dress and said, "Don't let him talk you out of the stitches."

Rafe sat shirtless with his back against the headboard.

His arm was bare to the shoulder, and the hole in it was clean, front and back.

I had never seen him without the suit.

He was broad and hard through the chest.

An old white scar ran low on his ribs, and a St. Christopher medal hung on a chain at his throat.

I tried very hard to look only at the wound.

"I've never done this," I said.

"There's a video on my phone."

"You have a video of stitches on your phone."

"I have a lot of things on my phone."

I threaded the needle with a hand that almost behaved.

The first stitch went in and his whole arm went rigid.

He didn't make a sound.

"Does it hurt?" I asked.

"Yes."

"Good."

The corner of his mouth moved.

It was the closest thing to a smile I had ever got out of him in three years.

"You went out of a window tonight," he said.

"I did."

"Why?"

I tied off the thread.

"Because I've been inside that house since I was fifteen," I said. "I wanted one night where nobody picked for me."

He was quiet through the next stitch.

"Somebody shot at us," he said then. "You don't get to go out like that anymore."

"They were shooting at you."

"They were shooting at the man who stands next to you."

I pulled the last knot tight and cut the thread.

His skin was hot under my fingers, and my fingers stayed there a second longer than they needed to.

He looked down at my hand.

Then he looked at my face.

"Go to bed, Livia," he said, very low.

I went.

At the door I looked back.

He was still watching me, and the whole room felt a size smaller.

Sunday dinner at the Santoro house is at six, and nobody is ever late.

My father sat at the head of the long table with his cane hooked on the chair.

He was fifty-eight, silver at the temples, heavy through the shoulders, and he had never once raised his voice at me.

He never needed to.

Marisa sat at his right, and I sat at his left.

Rafe stood against the wall behind my chair with his arm in a black sleeve that hid the bandage.

Across from me sat Silvio Brandolini and his father.

Silvio was thirty-four and tanned in October.

He had slick brown hair and a diamond ring on his little finger, and he smiled at me with every tooth.

"Livia," he said. "Finally."

"We've met," I said. "At your cousin's christening. You called me a pretty accessory."

"I was being friendly."

"Then you'll hate me when I'm being rude."

My father set down his fork.

"Livia," he said, soft and even.

Then he turned to the table.

"The Santoros and the Brandolinis have been at war for eleven years.

"It ends on Saturday, November fourteenth, at St. Michael's, when my daughter marries Silvio."

Nobody at the table breathed.

I stood.

My chair scraped the floor.

"No," I said.

"Sit down."

"I'm not marrying him, Papa. Not on the fourteenth, not ever."

Old Brandolini chuckled into his wine.

"Spirited," he said. "My son likes that."

"Your son is going to like my fist," I said.

"Livia," my father said.

I sat.

I was shaking, and I kept my chin up so nobody would see.

Under the table something touched my knee.

Silvio's hand.

It slid up my thigh, slow and warm and sure.

I went still.

He leaned toward me with his smile fixed and whispered, "Be a good girl."

Behind me the wall moved.

Rafe didn't make a sound, but I felt him go rigid against my back.

I put my fork through the back of Silvio's hand.

Not hard.

Just enough to break the skin.

He jerked back with a yelp, and the table went silent again.

"Excuse me," I said. "I missed my potato."

My father closed his eyes, slowly.

Later, in the hall outside the dining room, I heard Silvio's voice behind a half-shut door.

He wasn't talking to me.

"Nice dog," he said to Rafe. "Does it do tricks?"

← Chapter 1 · All chapters · Chapter 3 →

Want to keep talking to characters like these? Chat with AI romance characters: AI Boyfriend · AI Girlfriend · Dark Romance · Fantasy Romance · BL (Boys’ Love) · Billionaire Boyfriend · Mafia Boyfriend · Possessive Boyfriend · Hockey Boyfriend · Older Boyfriend · K-Drama Boyfriend · Anime Boyfriend · Vampire Boyfriend · Werewolf Boyfriend · Demon Boyfriend · Fae Romance · GL (Girls’ Love) · Anime Girlfriend · Goth & Alt Girlfriend · Gamer Girlfriend · Tsundere Girlfriend · Fantasy Girlfriend