The Muscle Part Two by Michelle St. James Page A

those things. He promised himself he would do them when they were free. He and Isabel would take long walks and he would tell her all about his past. He would allow himself to feel the things he’d been avoiding for so long, and he would find healing in her soft hands, her warm body, her gentle heart.
    He didn’t know what the future held. Elia had set up a safe house for them to use while they figured out a long-term plan. Isabel and Sofia didn’t have passports, so they couldn’t leave the country until they took care of the legalities. But Luca had plenty of money, and all the time in the world. He would spend as much of both on them as he could.
    He just had to get them out alive first. And he would do it if it killed him.

19
    S he woke feeling surprisingly refreshed . She hadn’t expected to sleep, but then Luca had insisted on spending the night in the chair next to her bed, awake and alert for Diego, and she’d fallen asleep against the backdrop of the quiet house, Luca’s eyes meeting hers through the dark.
    This was it. She’d already made a mental list of the things she would have to pack while Sofia was at school, had already rehearsed the speech she would give Sofia when she picked her up at the end of the day. She and Diego were co-guardians of their little sister, which meant he wouldn’t be able to report her missing if she was with Isabel. Not that he’d bother. The additional attention on his business wouldn’t be welcome, and certainly not worth the risk to get Sofia back.
    No, he would rage alone here at the house. He might send some of his men to look for them. The thought chilled Isabel’s blood, but she trusted Luca. For all his tenderness toward her, she’d seen the look in his eyes when he’d beat Hector, when he’d gone after her brother in the dining room. He was good and fair — but she had a feeling he was every bit as dangerous as Diego in his own way.
    She got dressed and woke Sofia up, then hurried down to the kitchen to make her sister breakfast. She was flipping Sofia’s heart-shaped pancakes when Diego came into the room wearing boxers and a wife-beater. His hair was askew and he was unshaven — she couldn’t remember the last time he hadn’t bothered to shave before leaving his room — and his eyes were dark and stormy.
    She resisted the urge to say “good morning”. She wouldn’t normally make nice with him, and she needed to behave as if everything were just the same. She watched as he poured himself coffee, then had to force her breathing even when he leaned against the counter, studying her with narrowed eyes.
    “You’ve always thought you were smarter than me, haven’t you, Isa?” His voice was low. She couldn’t tell if she was hearing sadness or stifled anger in it.
    She didn’t look at him as she answered. “No, Diego. I haven’t.”
    “It’s okay,” he said. “You can admit it. Papa thought so, too, or else he wouldn’t have left you in charge of the money.”
    She didn’t say what she was thinking: that it wasn’t Diego’s intellect that gave their father pause, it was his temperament. “He left you in charge of the business,” she said instead.
    “Only because he knew you didn’t want it,” he said. “And probably only because he thought you were too good for it.”
    She finally turned to face him. “He worked his whole life to build the business,” she said. “Put himself in danger countless times. It meant something to him, and he left it to you.”
    He set his coffee cup on the counter and walked toward her, stopping when he was only inches away. She had to fight the urge to recoil, to turn her face away from the smell of sweat and alcohol that clung to him like a shroud. She didn’t realize how immune she’d become to his anger. Now his eyes were cold, his expression unreadable, and she found that scared her far more.
    He leaned in even closer. She forced herself to stay in place, not to give up any ground. Why give him the