Page 107 of Tempting My Mafia Monster

“Leave us,” I choked, tearing my gaze from him to face my family. “Please. Leave us to talk.”

“Raya, no. That’s not—”

“Please.”

Gio started arguing, as I knew he would, but I wasn’t pleading with him. I was looking at Olivia, knowing she was the only one who could sway him. She must have seen the desperation in my eyes, because she nodded once and grabbed Gio’s hand.

“They were locked together for six weeks, Gio. He protected her. We can step out of the room for five minutes to give them this. Come on, we won’t go far. If she needs us, we will know.”

Gio’s dark gaze swept over Maddox, his jaw tight. Maddox gave him nothing, all corded muscle and cold detachment. For a tense few seconds, no one moved.

“I’ll be fine, Gio,” I said with conviction, pushing back the emotions to steady my voice as I looked back into Maddox’s onyx eyes. “He won’t hurt me.”

The moment those words left my lips, Maddox tensed. His throat worked as he broke our eye contact and looked over my shoulder at a wall. I held back tears at the fact that he couldn’t look at me. Or was choosing not to. I wasn’t sure which was worse.

“Five minutes. I’ll be right outside if you need me,” Gio said, and they all left the room, softly closing the doors behind them.

Silence filled the space. I waited painfully, fighting every instinct to reach for him, knowing I had to keep some part of myself guarded until he broke this horrible stranger’s performance. Because now that we were alone… he would, right?

He didn’t reach out to me. He didn’t look at me. He waited too, uncomfortably.

“Look at me.” My voice came out as a broken whisper from an already broken heart. I knew the words would mean something. They should mean something.

A beat. Another. Then his gaze slid reluctantly to mine. The first tear slipped as I saw the confirmation. This man had once looked at me as if I were his entire world. And now…

“It’s not a cover,” I stuttered between rapid breaths as my throat tightened and anxiety rose. “You don’t remember me?”

A muscle in his jaw pulsed, as it always did when he was about to admit something hard to say.

I didn’t think there was any of my heart left to break, but one simple word proved that untrue.

“No.”

Stay

I’d dreamed of this moment so many times that I’d forgotten reality was never as kind as hope. In every version I’d clung to in my sleep, his eyes would soften the moment he looked at me. He’d pull me into those huge arms and whisper, ‘Little Monster, I’ve fuckin’ missed you.’ He’d apologise for leaving me and for taking so long to find me again. He’d promised I was always his.

But the moment that word left his lips, my world didn’t just shatter all over again. It stopped. Completely.

My legs gave out. I dropped onto the sofa, perched on the edge and stared at nothing.

“Sorry,” he mumbled, as if that might somehow make this more bearable. The air grew too thick to breathe. The walls were drawing in, forcing invisible pressure against my body. “I wish I remembered you.”

His voice. It was so unmistakably his. The words dug sharply under my ribs. So brutal that I couldn’t help but gasp for air as I pressed my hand to my chest. It felt as though every memory we’d ever shared was being ripped from my soul, tossed into a fire, and I was forced to watch them burn to ash. How do you fight an empty space inside someone’s mind? How do you ask someone to remember something that no longer exists for them?

I opened my mouth to speak, but no words came out because every sentence started with ‘But don’t you remember…’

The bunker. Your socks. The first time you touched me. Kissed me. How I gave every part of myself to you. And in return, you gave me all of yourself. The way you fought for me, just to give me warmth and comfort. The way you stood between me and danger in every situation. Don’t you remember how you devoured me, as if it were the only way you knew how to breathe? The poem. I told you I love you. Don’t you remember any of it?

He dropped to one knee in front of me, his gaze travelling over my face.

The same eyes that had roamed over me in the dark, searching for every scar, freckle, and imperfection so he could kiss them and claim them as his. The same eyes that had watched me eat before he took a bite.

“Try to breathe,” he said, his hand hesitating between us before he clenched it and pulled it back. The same rough, scarred hands that had traced every inch of my body. That had protected me and held me in the darkness we shared. Those memories were still alive. Only inside me. I was the sole keeper of our entire love story.

Monster had loved me. But Maddox Moriarty had no idea who I was.

“I… I can’t—” My throat closed. I squeezed my eyes shut as I leaned over, desperately fighting the relentless pain and panic.