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

Delilah

The crackling of the bonfire outside my window almost had me smiling. I breathed in summer, letting the smell of fresh-cut grass, charcoal grills, and the lilacs that lined my front porch fill my lungs. Dante had planted them last year after I sighed on a walkway lined with them, delighting in the smell.

He’d said he owed me flowers the rest of my life after letting another woman touch his lips.

He was right.

Embracing that possessive jealousy inside me had balanced a large part of my mind, centered me, and made me understand that no emotion was truly bad. I needed the raw ones full of anger and sadness and jealousy so I could appreciate pure joy and happiness and calm when they were present.

“You going to go over there and help our mothers do whatever you all do in the kitchen while your brothers argue with me over the grill and the food?”

I rolled my eyes. “We literally make every dish except the shrimp and fish you’re grilling, and we have to season that too. You all just stand around drinking out there,” I said, not moving from the bed yet.

I felt the mattress dip behind me and knew he was sitting close, trying to take in my energy.

“Let’s go give your family hell, and then I’m taking you to see that blue water.”

“The blue … what?”

“You were reading about it in Puerto Rico. We never went. It was on your list. So I’m taking you there after this.”

I turned over in his arms. “You planned all that for me?”

“I’d do just about anything to see you smile again, pretty girl,” he murmured and laid down next to me, wrapping one of his tattooed arms around my waist and pulling me close.

I cried in his arms before he finally got me out of bed. He carried me to our big bathtub and ran the water, pouring some oil in and then bubbles that smelled like lilacs. I stood watching him, observing how meticulously he checked the temperature and then turned to me with quiet determination and undid the buttons of my sleep shirt.

“I can do this myself, Dante,” I sighed, not really sure I could.

“Let me take care of you,” he whispered as he pushed my mess of wavy hair from my face and continued to whisper sweet nothings in my ear, his strong arms holding me up.

I’d been resting for days, basically living in a pampered oasis. After Dante proposed, I’d quit my job, unwilling to do long distance with him. It took me about a day to realize that. And it had been a hell of a day. He’d fucked me in the stables before marching back to tell my brothers he was marrying me.

Dom had probably only half-forgiven him at this point.

Still, he’d faced my brother and my family, so I could face my demons too. I told everyone my struggle. Izzy hugged me while my mom cried and dad patted my shoulder.

We’d all sat around a bonfire that night, hashing out everything. With their support, therapy, and the man I loved, I was able to face a lot more. I embraced the idea of going back to college after months of therapy—both with and without Dante. I’d been diagnosed with high-functioning depression and a lot of anxiety, most likely brought on by my need to overachieve. I was highly critical of myself and overthought a lot.

We worked on it daily. I hadn’t made my decision to go back to medical school lightly. I wanted to become a doctor, but I worked very hard to balance the demands of school with maintaining a healthy mental state. I’d been well into medical school, that beautiful ring on my finger after getting married on the farm, and I was pregnant. I wanted that baby more than anything, and the devastation of losing another baby hit me like a bull running at a target full speed.

Dante had tried to soften the blow. Every day he did. He let me go out to the animals on the farm where I cried in the stables with the young ones. I swear the mothers in that stable knew my pain. Our big red horse stayed by me always. Sometimes, I climbed up on her back and just laid on her mane, and she let me. We mourned our losses together.

Dante did too. Even now, he handled me like I was fragile, like I was about to break. Even though I’d seen firsthand how he’d ripped apart a man for me, his touch was the softest, most delicate thing I’d ever experienced. Dante knew people, though. He studied their weaknesses and their strengths. He could break you or put you back together better than you could yourself. Maybe he knew I was about to self-destruct, that the ticking time bomb of being perfect had already exploded, and now he didn’t want the nuclear bomb in me to go off too.

He was doing everything perfectly, exactly by the book, and still, I couldn’t climb from the darkness to tell him. The way he touched me, the way he softly kissed my neck, it all felt like sympathy. Like sadness.

I stepped into the tub, sat down, and let him wash my body. The silence between us was so loud with pain that I couldn’t handle the heartbreak. When he shampooed my hair, he massaged my scalp and stared at me staring at him. Our gazes were locked on one another, and I searched his eyes for anything other than agony.

The man who normally looked at me with unrestrained heat and desire was leashing it, and suddenly I wanted to see it. He held the pain of losing our baby too, and yet he tamped it all down.

For me.

Dante did it all for me.

And I wanted to do the same for him.

I grabbed his wrist and slid his hand from my hair to my neck and then down to my breast.

He jerked it away. “I’m taking care of you, Lilah.”

I stared at his hand where he’d fisted it and saw the veins pop in his forearm.

“I want you to take care of me in a different way now.”

“I don’t think we’re ready for that. You’ve been through a lot,” he said. I knew he meant it, but his eyes raking over my body told me differently.

“Get in the tub with me.” I stared at him as he stood up from kneeling, a frown on his face.

“We have to get over to your parents’.”

“They can wait. I want you, Dante.” I pronounced each word slowly so he could take them all in. “Remember how you always tell me to use my words? I’m using them. I want my husband between my legs.”

When he didn’t answer right away, I glanced down at his sweat shorts and saw the massive tent that told me his cock wanted me, even if he was trying to talk himself out of it.

I sat up from the bath, bubbles and water cascading down my breasts, and shoved down his shorts. He let me do it, glaring at me now. I didn’t care, though. I was taking in the way he stood there, completely naked, chiseled like a Greek god with a pierced cock big enough for me to choke on. I loved how it stood to attention just for me, how the dark metal glinted in the light like it wanted to show off.

He shook his head as I crooked a finger and moved to the side of the tub that was against the wall. “This isn’t a way to solve our problems.”

“Our problem is that you’re babying and pampering me and I’m moping.”

“It’s not moping, it’s coping. We’ve been over this, and you’re allowed to have ups and downs, Lamb.”

I nodded. I knew he was right. I knew that my depression would hit and I wouldn’t be able to smile sometimes. Today, though, I felt strong enough. I knew we’d get through anything, and I wanted to make sure he knew that too. “So are you. You can’t be my savior every single time.”

He rubbed the back of his neck. I could tell he was frustrated, trying to tamp down on his pain to deal with mine. “It’s not about me. You need to be loved—”

I shook my head. “You would baby me for the rest of my life, Dante. I swear it—”

“I wouldn’t regret a single moment of it either.” He shrugged, turning toward the mirror and vanity behind him rather than stepping into the tub with me.

“If you don’t get in here and fuck me without a look of sadness on your face, Dante, I swear I’ll scream and cry all night.” There. That was using all the words I wanted to.

The man did as he was told. He couldn’t deny me even if he tried. We worked through my emotion that day in the way I loved best. He fucked me like a man on a mission in that tub.

After, I stepped out of it smiling at him. He reached for me, and I jumped away. “Stop. Now, we really have to get ready.”

The man’s green gaze held mine for a second longer before he murmured, “I love you, Delilah Armanelli. I love your smile, your hair when it looks like I’ve fucked you into oblivion, and the blush on your tits when I say things like what I just said. I love how hard you tried before you tried hard not to try. I fucking love you. I know this has been challenging, but I wouldn’t want easy with anyone else. I think you know all that, but I wanted to remind you.”

Dante’s vows had been just like this, so deep from his soul that I think everyone in the farm fields of our home, where we had the ceremony, had been crying.

“I love that you love me at my worst but enjoy me at my best, and I love that I can sometimes catch a glimpse of the worst in you, even if you’ve practically found a way to control every part of you and the world. We might be living through a hard part of life together right now, but I’m an overachiever, so we’re going to get to easy if it’s the last thing I do.”

The smile that whipped across his face held me up on a cloud next to heaven for the rest of the night.

We grilled up the shrimp and fish before sitting around the bonfire, my mom, Mrs. Reid, Izzy, and I going over updates on everyone while the guys argued over what was happening in the news.

“I’m sure they’ll be closing down the mall this year,” Mrs. Reid sighed as our conversations merged over the fire.

“Retail is dead.” My brother, Dex, shrugged before he took a sip of his beer.

“It is not!” My mother looked affronted. “I need to try on clothes before I buy them.”

“I’m sure there will be small boutiques that stay open, Mom.” Dom patted her shoulder. “Or I’ll bring in a shopper for you, okay? Don’t worry.”

Dimitri mumbled that Dom was a momma’s boy.

Dom stood up and chuckled. “I’m not just a momma’s boy. I’d do the same for any of the Hardy girls. Izzy and Mom and … well, Delilah, I guess Dante and I can fight over you some more with regard to your last name.”

Everyone around the fire groaned. Dom had been pissed that I had even contemplated taking the Armanelli last name.

“She took my name, bro. It’s done.”

“We can undo that shit in a minute,” Dom grumbled, glaring at my husband.

“Dom, are we really going to fight about this? It’s been over a year.” I rolled my eyes at the same time Izzy did.

Our gazes met, and she giggled. “Can you imagine? In twenty years, he’s still going to be whining about it. Stop being a freaking baby, Dom. So your best friend married your sister. If not Delilah, I would have begged him to marry me.”

I choked on my drink and laughed even harder as she fell on my shoulder and laughed with me. After a few late nights at a bar days after Dante proposed, where the bartenders poured us alcohol and we poured out our hearts to each other, our bond was stronger than that vibranium in Black Panther.

Izzy had shared that she needed me as much as I needed her. She’d been a constant, by my side nonstop the past two years, even moving into a condo down the street. She’d continued working for the government but had switched into data analysis and coding instead of undercover work.

“Just so we’re clear, I would never have let my husband marry you.” We kept laughing at our ongoing joke.

“You guys have had enough to drink,” Dom grumbled.

“Not possible,” Izzy sing-songed.

“Totally possible,” Dante agreed with Dom.

“Even so,” Izzy continued, “I think I’m right when I say you’ve always been a part of the family, Dante, and now we can officially say we’re a part of each other’s.”

My dad, who always seemed like he was half-listening, raised his beer bottle and said, “Here, here.”

Everyone raised their bottles and drank—except Dom, who glared at all of us. “Y’all are forgetting Dante omitted a lot of truths over the years.”

“Not forgetting that at all.” I pointed my bottle at him and spoke up before anyone else could. “I remember it daily, considering I went to jail and was basically kidnapped because of these two brats.”

“But it got us here, right?” Izzy’s hazel eyes sparkled just like mine when they were on the verge of happy tears. “And here is pretty damn close to perfection, Dom. So like I said before, stop being a baby. You already fought him more than once about it.”

“I only got two good punches in.”

“Can’t help it if you can’t fight, man,” Dante grumbled, and his hand squeezed my thigh.

“Exactly.” Izzy leaned forward in her Adirondack chair and narrowed her eyes at our brother. “You’re not mad about them being together or him lying. You’re mad about your pride being hurt by your best friend. Suck it up. At least you didn’t shoot your shot with him and kiss him only for him to let you down easy!”

We were all laughing at Izzy giving Dom hell because we knew she was over it, having moved on, back to dating again.

In the darkness behind us, I didn’t expect a cold and vicious question to come out of nowhere. “You kissed him?” Cade hissed from the side of the house.

Izzy, who’d had her head on my shoulder, jumped about a mile out of her chair and whipped her head around.

Cade stalked over and glared down at her, his features brilliant in the night.

“Jesus, where did you come from? Were you watching us?” my sister whispered, like she couldn’t believe he was there.

“I’m always watching, Izzy.”

The fire snapped, and I swear the tension between them burned and crackled just as bright.

Cade didn’t take his eyes off her as he murmured, “Dante, Delilah. Jet’s ready to go.”

“Tonight?” My gaze ping-ponged between Izzy and Cade before I lifted a brow at my husband. “I didn’t pack.”

“Maybe we should go pack, then.” Dante smirked like he didn’t care about anything else but crossing off the last thing on my list. I squealed and didn’t think twice about the fact that I was leaving my family. This was for me and my husband. And I’d learned my family wanted what was best for us anyway.

We helped bring in some food, and Izzy followed me to the kitchen with some empty glasses while Dante cleaned the grill with Dom.

“I can’t believe Cade just shows up at our bonfire like this.” She stomped behind me.

“I think Dante probably called him,” I pointed out.

She was on her own tangent. “And he’s deliberately acting like my babysitter lately just because I’m still working for the government. Like I’m not good enough to take care of myself.”

“Well, he probably wants to make sure you’re safe, considering you’re friends.”

“Colleagues. Definitely not friends,” she almost shouted at me, her eyes narrowed like she was ready to fight me about it.

“Noted,” I grumbled as I set the food down.

I would also be noting that she seemed extremely emotionally charged when it came to Cade. That was for damn sure.

When I saw Cade quietly step in from the porch, I pointed behind me, said, “Gotta go to the bathroom, Izzy,” and beelined it out of there.

Of course, as soon as I closed the door, I put my ear against it. I was a nosy twin sister and didn’t care at all.

I heard the whisper-yelling start immediately from Izzy. “Don’t sneak up on me in my parents’ house, Cade.”

“Hardly sneaking considering I stepped right in front of you.”

“Whatever. This is a family party. You shouldn’t even be here.”

“Technically, Dante’s family. Want to go as far as to say we’re related too?”

“Oh my God. You’re so annoying.”

“If you think I’m annoying, quit the damn job and start working in corporate America.”

“Those guys aren’t done. You and I both know it. The drugs are a fucking cover for nuclear warfare, and I’m helping to bring them down.”

“You’re digging where you shouldn’t be. And you’re not half as good at it as you think. I’ve tracked every fucking hack you’ve done.”

“Fuck off.” My sister sounded seething mad.

“If you get kidnapped, I’m leaving your ass with them.”

“Great. They’ll probably be better company than you anyway.”

“Say that again and try to mean it this time,” he growled.

Jesus, they hated each other on a whole other level. Or wanted each other on that level. I wasn’t sure if they could decipher the blurry line anymore.

I flushed the toilet, and when I reentered, they were both gone and my husband stood there smiling. “Ready, Lamb?”

I took his hand and nodded.

We took a private jet owned by the Armanellis straight to Puerto Rico where we then hopped on a private ferry to an island where the bioluminescent water supposedly showed up the brightest.

Dante paddled us out in a transparent kayak, just the two of us. Even with the night so dark it could almost suffocate you in blackness, the water lit up and shined an awe-inspiring blue, sparkling to the point that it seemed to light up the whole sea. It was that eerie darkness, so heavy with the unknown that could scare so many, that made the brilliant light possible.

I looked at my husband at the front of that boat and said, “We get the darkness and the pain before we get the light of our heaven, huh?”

“That baby is coming, Lilah. You can count on it.”

He was right.

Ten months later, I held our baby girl in our arms. She had her daddy’s eyes and my hair. We didn’t sleep for probably her whole first year with the way she screamed for me at night.

Dante had the audacity to sit up smiling with me as I breastfed and said, “Well, the nights are hell so we can have heaven with her all day.”

My wolf was right about that too.