Fractured Freedom: A Brother’s Best Friend Second Chance Romance (Tarnished Empire)

Delilah

The ocean breeze blew in and mixed with the coconut oil I’d put on after talking with my mom and then showering. It reminded me of the times I would rub oil on my belly in the hopes the pregnancy stretch marks wouldn’t come.

I never got that far though. My tummy was unmarked, brutally pure in a way I realized I didn’t want it to be.

I jumped when I heard a ping from my phone, and my hands flew from my stomach.

I grabbed the device from the counter and wrapped a towel around my body.

Dante: You staying in your room today?

Me: How’d you get my number?

Dante: That’s classified. Now, tell me what you’re doing today.

Me: Do I have to stay in my room?

Dante: At least stay at the resort. Go swim if you want, but don’t leave. The buffet isn’t open to the public, so you can eat there. Otherwise, let me know what food you want and I’ll bring it to you.

Me: This is only until tomorrow when I’m technically back in town, right?

Dante: As long as the threat to you doesn’t change.

I sighed because that wasn’t the answer I wanted.

Me: I guess I’ll swim or maybe go to the beach. I read theirs is private.

Dante: I’ll go with.

Me: Don’t you have to work?

Dante: You’re now part of my job, Lilah. Get used to it.

I jumped again when I heard the knock at my door, my body so wired from him being near.

I glared at the door. He damn well knew no one could be ready that fast. So I yelled, “One minute.”

Quickly surveying the room, I threw on a white swimsuit I’d just bought a week ago off some inexpensive website and added my flowy yellow skirt and matching crop top over it. The color made my skin look tanned and I needed all the help I could get when it came to looking good in front of my childhood crush.

As I walked across the white tile of my hotel room, I shoved a few pieces of clothing in my suitcase and opened the door.

Dante in beach shorts and a white linen top probably should have been illegal.

“Hey.” I waved him in as I combed a hand through my wet hair. “You don’t have to follow me around. I’ll be fine hanging out here.”

“I know,” he replied and plopped his butt right on my bed. “I’m just trying to figure out how I’m going to check things off your list with you.”

I huffed and plugged in my blow dryer. “Those are my plans, Dante. Not yours. And tomorrow I go back to work and can do all those things on my own. Don’t you have a job to be doing?”

He started to say, “It’s my job to keep you—’

I held up my hand. “Not following me around. I can get a cop to do that if it makes you feel better.”

His brows slammed down. “That’s not happening. I have guys I trust guarding the hotel when I’m out. Otherwise, it’ll be me. No one else.”

“You have guys guarding us?” I squeaked. “What for?”

“As a precaution.”

I tried not to let him see my hand shaking. “That’s so over the top. Izzy was trying to do these men a favor by carrying drugs back to Florida, right?”

He narrowed his eyes like he wasn’t going to answer.

“If that’s the case, she got caught with me, but I didn’t do anything. I was out in a day or two because of my family friend, right? No one knows you or me here. We’re fine.” I waited a beat and then said again, “Right?”

“Maybe.” He shrugged. “Maybe not. It’s class—”

I turned the hair dryer on. I didn’t want to hear that word again.

When I smirked at him, he shook his head and got up from the bed to stalk toward me. My body still reacted the same to him after all these years. My adrenaline, the jitters in my belly, and my core tightening all happened at the same time. The logical side of me told me to back away from him.

I wasn’t looking for logical and safe here, though. I wanted to live.

So I stood my ground as he came closer and closer. When he leaned in and stared at me, inches from my face, I was reminded that he was a whole head taller than me. I couldn’t stop myself from looking at his pillowy lips with him this close. I didn’t know if only a second went by or a whole minute.

Suddenly, the sound of my hair dryer cut off. He held up the cord end as he took one step back.

Unplugging something: that was the reason he’d come so close.

Not to kiss me or tell me how much me being his best friend’s kid sister didn’t matter. Or anything like that.

“Let’s go have breakfast and go to the beach, huh?”

I shrugged and grabbed my purse. “I’m going either way. If you want to come, that’s fine, but I don’t want to be a burden. Go work if you have to.”

Dante just smiled and opened my hotel door for me.

I followed him, and he walked me through the hotel. I pointed out the bird sanctuary where I’d seen peacocks on my first day and also told him that there were all sorts of lizards running around. “It’s such a beautiful hotel.”

“It is. Probably one that should have better security for the first few floors, though.”

I rolled my eyes. “My room wasn’t that bad.”

Before he could argue, I pointed out a swan on the water and murmured an ‘aw’ when another swan came to nestle into the other bird’s neck.

“They’re monogamous for life,” Dante told me.

“I wonder if those two are.”

“Probably.” He shrugged and kept walking like he knew the way to the restaurant.

“Have you stayed here before?”

“Once or twice,” he admitted, and I sighed. No wonder he had breakfast connections.

I didn’t pester him about not disclosing that information. He’d been all around the world, so I couldn’t expect him to share everything. Plus, the weather was a balmy eighty degrees and there wasn’t a cloud in the sky. My day at the beach would be perfect.

“I might try snorkeling today,” I said. “It could be one of the things I love enough to pray to.”

He squinted. “So praying is just being grateful for new hobbies?”

“Sure.” We got to the restaurant that overlooked part of the beach and the pools that sparkled in the sunlight and were seated immediately. “I figure my mom already raised me with church every Sunday, and I don’t know. I don’t have things I know I like to do other than read and study.”

“You like studying?” He lifted a dark brow.

“Well, I like doing well in school and in my career. I like learning new things.”

He chuckled. “What’s your work schedule going to be? I can teach you a hobby or two that doesn’t involve studying.”

The waiter came by to take our order, then I rambled off my weekly schedule. “I work twelve hour shifts three days a week because the ER has long hours. I leave a bit early to catch Ubers, though.”

“I can get you a driver.”

“The government will do that?” I asked, not understanding that type of perk. Then I shook my head. It was confidential and he wasn’t going to tell me more. “It’s fine. The hospital reimburses because I was supposed to have a place closer to them, but it filled up.”

He nodded, but it was like he wasn’t listening. “A driver would be best.”

“Dante—”

“Lilah, we follow my rules for protecting you and your bucket list gets done, okay?”

Our bickering was cut off by our food arriving and me trying a quesito. It was a fluffy pastry wrapped around cheese, and I almost fell on the table in delight as I savored it. “Okay, I should have tried these way sooner.”

Dante sipped his water and winked at me. “I think we might have found your favorite food here.”

I smirked, and the butterflies that had long been dormant with other men fluttered to life. Avoiding his charm was near impossible when my heart knew him so well and my body longed for him. So I embraced the good meal with good company and relaxed. When I finished, I grabbed my sunglasses out of my beach bag, along with my Kindle.

He asked, “What are you reading?”

“Would you believe me if I said a self-help book?” It was a lie. My kindle was filled with hot men on covers and spice so hot that I was sure my face was on fire.

“Lamb, when you blush like that, it’s motivation for me to steal the thing from you to read myself. Self-help doesn’t do that to you.”

“Well, it could be a different sort of self-help.” I shrugged, and my cheeks heated even more. Was I flirting with him now?

“Okay.” He narrowed his eyes in challenge. “What’s the self-help you’re reading today?”

I bit my lip. “Well, the guy in this one explores temperature play with the main character.”

I saw how his eyes widened just a fraction and I tried my best not to glance away.

“Anyway,” I announced fast while I pointed at the lounge chairs out on the sand, “Time for me to go read.”

“I’m thinking I might enjoy reading with you,” he mumbled it so quiet, I wasn’t sure he wanted me to hear him. Then he cleared his throat. “I’ll go for a swim and grab a few towels.”

I waved him off, my heart beating from just our little bit of flirting. I needed to get away from him, try to relax, and enjoy what I had come here to do in the first place.

Explore the world, Delilah. And maybe explore some men, my therapist had told me. As I spread out on one of the lounge chairs, I remembered that she’d also said to bring my romance novels to Puerto Rico and take a page out of one or two of them. She said I deserved to be happy.

Happiness was fickle, though, and I’d been chasing it a long time. Through grades, through the approval of others, through doing what I thought was the right thing.

I found my eyes drifting to the one thing I wasn’t supposed to indulge in that seemed to bring me all the happiness.

Dante.

He stood there in all his glory, smiling at a beautiful towel girl who flipped her hair dramatically in front of him.

When he laughed at something she said, I blew a raspberry. I was far enough away and the waves crashed loud enough that he wouldn’t hear.

That view of him with another woman was exactly why I needed this place to myself. My body needed to stop lusting over a man who didn’t lust over me anymore. I needed to get over my trauma and move on.

And that need had me scrolling my Tinder account and swiping left and right for what felt like an hour. It was draining trying to figure out if any of those men would even be compatible.

I started messaging a guy who I thought was really good-looking and figured I could work through the texts I’d gotten during the time I’d been in jail.

I’d avoided them until now, thinking it would be too much to lie to everyone.

Thankfully, there weren’t many, but my brothers were being dicks on the family group chat now that they knew I’d been in jail.

Dom: Did you make sure not to drop soap in there?

Dimitri: Man, that’s a joke for men in jail, idiot.

Declan: Yeah, they don’t put men and women together in jail. Do they?

Dom: They better not have. Lilah? You weren’t with men in there, were you?

Me: Can you all please do something else with your time? I’m trying to lay low before I start work. I actually have to focus when I’m there. Lives are on the line.

Dom: Not like Declan’s work where he just tackles people for no reason.

I laughed at that because we constantly teased Declan, who was in the NFL. My other brothers made good livings in tech and engineering. Collectively, we’d made our mother and father proud.

I ignored the group chat after that so I could go through the rest of my texts. One in particular I had been avoiding was my work friend, Allan. He was a resident to become a doctor, and I was sure he was into me.

I thought I was into him too. Enough that I’d maybe indulge in some fun with him.

Still, my fingers hovered over his text message inviting me out for drinks once I was back in town. We’d already been out twice. And he was everything I thought I wanted.

Except that Dante was back here.

Swimming in the ocean right in front of me, making it hard to concentrate on anything else.

But beautiful towel girl made her move, running to give him a towel as he came striding, soaking wet of course, out of the beautiful blue water. When he idled near her, drying off, I had the reminder I needed.

There was nothing between us. Dante and I may have bickered, and he may have teased me with a few lines here and there, but he probably had women around the world waiting for him. I needed to have my fun here.

Eat. Pray. And freaking Love. That meant putting myself first and moving forward instead of back.

I texted Allan that drinks would be great. And hopefully, things would progress to mind-blowing sex so I could forget about Dante’s muscles dripping with ocean water.

I grabbed my belongings and hurried back up to the room without him. I glared at my reflection in the mirror, my hair windblown and most of my makeup gone from sweating in the sun. I threw my new clothes off and stared at the new lingerie I’d purchased in my suitcase for this trip.

I slid into the red lace and took a peek at myself again. This time, my cheeks were flushed, my hair wild but maybe sexy.

I nodded.

I was just as good as any girl on that beach and Allan, at least, would see that. I jumped when I heard a knock at the door and raced to throw on a night shirt and shorts over my lingerie.

I sighed as I opened it. “I’m just lying low the rest of the day, Dante.”

“Delilah, ask who it is before you open the door.” His voice was low like he wanted me to really listen this time. “When you leave the beach, you need to tell me.”

“I didn’t leave the resort.” I crossed my arms over my chest to hide how my heart had started to pound out of my chest from him standing directly in front of me in wet swim trunks with no shirt on. I couldn’t make out all the tattoos without staring but the ones across his chest and ribs looked intriguing.

He lifted a brown bag. “Got you some food since you forgot to eat and it’s almost dinnertime.”

I didn’t invite him in. He was half naked and my body had gone off the deep end imagining what it would feel like if I rubbed my hands over him.

“I even got a quesito in here. Let me in.” He tilted his chin at the door I was holding half-closed.

I shook my head and opened the door wide. “You may enter.”

He patted my shoulder and walked on by to set the food on the counter. “You didn’t snorkel today.”

Glancing out the window at my ocean view, I didn’t confess that I had to get out of there before I clawed the towel girl’s eyes out for staring. Plus, there was another reason. “I think I’m scared of it.”

“Scared? Little Lamb, what for?” He smiled softly at me like he genuinely wanted to know.

“You know, that nickname is demeaning.”

He blew a raspberry and pulled out a box of food that smelled delicious. “It’s not. It means you’re cute and—”

“—innocent and pure and probably naïve. I don’t want to be any of those things.”

“But those things make you close to perfect,” he murmured.

I blew past him, ignoring how smooth he was. “Your charm only works on women who don’t know you use it on every one of them.”

I probably shouldn’t have said it, but I was remembering the long blonde hair of the towel girl and couldn’t stop myself.

“I don’t use my charm on everyone, and I only say what I honestly mean.” He handed me a box of food with a look of question in his eyes.

“I believe you really mean everything you say, Dante.” I shrugged before I took the carton and went to sit at the table near my bed. “You just view the world beautifully and make everyone feel beautiful in it.”

“You forget I’ve seen a lot uglier things than most. Hence why I appreciate the beauty.”

“Fair.” I opened my carton and stared at the food that smelled so sweet and glorious. There was nothing to say other than, “What is this? It smells like I died and woke up in heaven.”

“Mofongo. It’s plantains and garlic and olive oil, with a few hidden ingredients, fried and mashed together. If done right, it’s the best thing in Puerto Rico.”

“I think I can officially check off my favorite food here, and I haven’t even explored good food outside of this hotel.”

“We will.” He stood leaning against the counter while he watched me eat.

“Do you want some?”

“Already ate.”

“Well, you can’t keep feeding me and not eating, Dante. It’s weird to have you watch me eat every single time.”

“I’ll make a note of that,” he murmured. “Anyway, I just came by to give you food and let you know I won’t be around much tomorrow.”

“That’s fine. I have work and …” I physically had to stop myself from combing a hand through my hair. Was it weird that I didn’t want to tell him about my scheduled date too? “So, I guess we won’t see each other much for the next few days.” I wrung my hands around and around at the thought.

Dante immediately caught me doing it and slid a hand into mine. I glanced up at him in confusion, but he didn’t let go. “What’s worrying you? You wring your hands when you’re nervous.”

“Well, do I tell everyone at work what happened?” I squeaked out. Jesus, what would I say? Sorry, on my few days off, I got arrested for carrying drugs, but it’s fine. I wasn’t actually guilty. Just my sister.

“No.” Dante took my chin in his big hand and turned me to look at him. “You tell no one. Got it? You did nothing wrong in the eyes of the law. To everyone, on paper, it was a complete misunderstanding. In three weeks or so, Izzy will be out too and we’ll finish things up and be gone. If you’re going to stay here longer than that, you just go about your business like nothing happened.”

“Okay,” I whispered, but my brain wasn’t catching up. I tried to tell myself this was all right, but it felt all wrong. How could I go back and work in the ER with sick patients and act like I was an upstanding citizen when I’d been in jail this last week? I sighed and grabbed a plastic fork from the bag to dig into the food.

He leaned against the counter and watched me eat. When I moaned around the food, he chuckled.

“One day, I’ll learn to cook this.” I pointed to the food. “You sure you don’t want any?”

His eyes twinkled as he shook his head and kept smiling at me. “I’m not going to take your happiness from you.”

“It is seriously pure joy. Good food and good books are probably my favorite things. And I need them right now because I’m about to go to work and have to speak a second language while worrying about whether or not they think I’m a criminal.”

Dante knocked his knuckles on the counter, grabbing my attention. “Focus on your job, Lilah. Don’t worry, okay? I’m going to have to teach you new tricks to calm that overwhelming anxiety of yours, aren’t I?”

“It won’t help. This is a serious situation, Dante.”

He stepped toward me like we’d been in each other’s personal space a million times before. I leaned back because we hadn’t. Not for years. “If you say so, I guess I’ll believe you. Actually, in all my time in the military and working for the government, I haven’t been thrown in jail.”

“Yeah, well, you have credentials. I don’t. What if my supervisors find out I lied? They did a background check. I take care of people for a living, and they can’t have a criminal working among them. What if they sue me or something? I don’t want to go broke and be thrown back in jail. Or worse, lose my license.”

He shook his head and chuckled before covering my rapid-fire mouth with one large hand while putting the other behind my head to hold me in place. “Stop talking, Lilah.”

“But …” It came out garbled, and his hand tightened to keep me quiet.

“Listen to the silence.”

I squinted at him and, after being silent for a second, threw up my hands. I shoved his hand off my mouth. “What are you talking about? That doesn’t work.”

“It does. The silence tells you to calm down and realize there’s a world around you still moving, still making noise. There’s no real silence because your little catastrophe didn’t end the world.”

“This isn’t little!” I screeched and stood up, moving away from my food. I took a breath. God, would he make fun of me if I started counting? I spun away from him. “And on top of all this, I have a date tomorrow after work with Allan.”

“A date?” He narrowed his eyes. “A date? You think that’s smart right now?”

“I’ve been putting it off. We already went on two, and he knows I’m supposed to be back in town by then. I can’t stand him up.”

He hummed but didn’t share his opinion. He just stared at me, his piercing green gaze assessing. His jaw flexed, and the tattoos on his neck seemed to grow bigger and bigger. “Fuck it,” he grumbled before he said, “You’re tense. Let’s try something to relieve some of that, huh? I’ll go get it.”

I was about to respond, but he turned slowly, pointedly not heading back toward the hallway. Instead, he walked past my plush bed, past the nightstand, and right to the wall.

I blinked.

One, two, three times.

Then my mouth dropped open.

“What the hell is that?” I gawked at a small straight crack I saw in the wall near my bed.

“It’s our adjoining room door.” He faced me and smiled as he said it so matter-of-factly that I wanted to smack him. He then took a key ever so slowly from his back pocket and swiped it behind him into what looked like the edge of the wallpaper and crown molding.

The stupid wall buzzed, and he opened it.

“No.” My voice came out low and angry, my heart beating fast. He wasn’t on the other side of the hallway or just down the hall. The man was a wall over, literally a door away, easily accessible, especially for him. I shook my head, pacing up to him, and then reached around him to try to close the door. When he stood in my way, his arms crossed, I shoved him. He didn’t grunt or move an inch.

Growling, I spun toward the hotel’s phone. “Have you been there the whole time? I’m not sharing a room with you, Dante.”

“It’s not exactly sharing. Plus, I need to make sure you’re safe, Little Lamb,” he whispered, waiting a beat before finishing, “from anyone and everyone.”

I threw a withering gaze his way. “Where is my privacy? What if I have someone over? I don’t need you listening …”

“Listening to what?” he goaded me. He knew exactly what I was trying to say.

I didn’t answer him. Instead, I continued on my mission. He chuckled at my stomping and leaned on the doorframe like he had all the time in the world to watch me throw a tantrum.

He’d see how he liked the tantrum when the hotel traded my room. I dialed the service desk and listened to the man greet me. “Yes, my evening actually isn’t going well at all. It seems my room is adjoined to another man’s and he has the key.”

“Oh, my goodness. I’m so sorry about that, Ms. …?

“Ms. Hardy. Twentieth floor. I’ll need a room—”

“Oh, Ms. Hardy. Of course!” He cleared his throat. “We can’t provide you with a room change. Mr. Armanelli requested that you be next to his room.”

“What?” I whispered as the name he announced over the phone traveled through my mind. “No, Dante booked my room. Dante Reid.”

“No, miss. Dante Armanelli checked you in. And we so appreciate—”

Dante ripped the receiver from my hand to finish the call. “This is Dante. I’ll take care of the misunderstanding.” He hung up the phone, and I stepped back, confused.

“You took the pseudonym of a mob family here?” My voice was high as I asked him.

“I took the name I was given by my father here,” he said it calmly and quietly like he was trying to soothe my nerves.

My hands shook, though. And my heart felt like it’d moved to my throat to beat furiously. I glanced up at him. “You’re telling me …”

“Go on.” He waved his big hand in front of him, urging me on. “Ask the question.”

I considered throwing the phone on the nightstand at him.

“You’re related to them?” I whispered.

His beautiful face moved up and then down. Once and then twice. He was nodding, confirming what I said, and keeping his gaze on me like I might run.

“You can’t be.” I shook my head and tried to suck in air, although it seemed all of it had been stolen from the room.

The Armanellis were cold-blooded killers. Since the ’60s, they’d been in the news for drug trafficking, money laundering, and murder. They were the biggest and most infamous crime family in America. Even now, their name was tied to rigging elections and controlling the government and nuclear bombs, having enough money to rule the country.

“You aren’t one of them,” I murmured. “There’s no way.”

“Why? Because my mom is mixed?” He scratched the side of his face. “Lilah, my dad is Italian. Directly related to Mario Armanelli. Cade and Bastian Armanelli are my second cousins. We tell most people we’re friends if they see us together and I try my best not to be seen with them now when I’m undercover. Still, we’re family.”

I knew my eyes widened. Everyone was aware of those names. They were infamous. We saw pictures of them in news articles and read about the crazy stories of them controlling billions of dollars within the country. I tried to understand what he was saying. “But I’ve never seen you in the news.”

“We go to great lengths to control the media, Lilah. And my mother doesn’t share my family background with many. I went into the military knowing I’d need the training beyond what we did quietly for me at home growing up. They also provided me with other skills while I was in. I’ve worked with the mafia most of my adult life.”

“No.” I sat down, trying to process the news articles we’d seen over the years. Dante was good. He was safe. He wasn’t them. “They’re murderers.”

“I’ve always been that too.”

“No.” I shot up off the bed and rounded it to point at him. “Don’t you ever say that being in the military is killing. That’s being a patriot. A war hero.”

“And I’ve done what I had to do for my country as a war hero and as part of the Armanelli family. I came to terms with that a long time ago.” He took in a breath that I knew was measured, the type he took when he was trying to calm himself. “What I do for the government and for the family is one and the same. We’re not all bad. We’ve done a lot of good recently.”

“You mean to say—”

“I’m telling you everything is intertwined, and you’re smart. You know this. You watch the news.”

“So I’m living with the mob now?” I bellowed.

“Well, I live a door over. I can move in here if you’d like to make your statement a fact.”

“You have the audacity to make a joke right now?” Fisting my hands, I spun away from him and then thought better of that. Don’t turn your back on a killer, right?

The smile that whipped across his face was devastating. “Little Lamb, are you suddenly scared of me?”

“Don’t be a jackass, Dante,” I sneered and combed a hand through my hair.

“You fiddle with your hair when you’re nervous. Want to breathe?”

“No. I don’t want to breathe with you!” I wanted to punch him instead. “You’ve been lying to me. About everything. Izzy! Yourself—which, by the way, is an epic betrayal on so many levels, and about your own freaking name.”

“Lying?” He paused. Then something broke in him and he yelled, “Lying? You haven’t talked to me in years, Lilah.”

“I can’t with you right now.” I pushed at my temples and waved him away. “Just go.”

“Or what?” he whispered, and the menace in it was real, tangible, almost sadistic. My heart leapt at the same time as my pussy clenched.

“Or I’ll make you, Dante,” I snapped back because I didn’t want to be the one who appeased him anymore.

He hummed. “I like this new fight in you, Little Lamb. I have half a mind to make you really show it to me.”

I hated that my whole body lit up and blushed at his statement, that I licked my lips automatically and he watched me do it. Still, I wasn’t backing down. He’d pushed me over the line into losing common sense. I met his lies with taunting and anger, ready to throw accusations in too. “And how exactly would you do that? Torture me? Kill me? What is it, exactly, that you do for the mob, Dante Armanelli?”

One small flash of hurt was all I saw before he spun away. “Enjoy your book, Lilah,” he murmured. Then he slammed the stupid adjoining door shut behind him.