Pursue (Portland Street Kings Book 3) by Evie Harper

see? The scared girl who still has panic attacks in the dark when she’s left on her own? The weak woman who can’t trust her own instincts? How easy it would be for him to break me.
    “You hurting me to keep yourself at a distance changes nothing. I’m still not going anywhere. If it comes to it, I’ll take down the entire mafia for you, Della. Paulie is a walking dead man. I warned him. His death sentence has already been written. The next time he breathes the same air as you, I’m wiping him from this world. Not a single bone or speck of blood will be left of him when I’m done. The others who follow and threaten to hurt you? I’ll do worse to them. I’ll make them suffer, so every single mafia member knows with each man they send, their deaths will only get more brutal, animalistic. It will take a blade to my heart or tearing off all of my limbs before I’ll give up protecting you.”  
    When Dom stops speaking, I realize my mouth has fallen open, and my eyes are wide. I can’t conceal my shock. I sit up, trying to control the fluttering in my stomach and to regulate my stalled breaths.  
    Dom leans forward and boxes me in between his arms. “Keep trying to break my heart, baby. Add your cracks and painful scratches, create irreparable damage and if you need to, completely shatter it completely. I’ll piece it back together with tape and hope, and return to you with just as much love and patience as if my heart were whole and new.”  
    The fluttering has disappeared and now my heart freezes and then pounds once, hard against my chest. My skin tingles and I almost feel as if I’ve drifted to a different time, a whole new universe where all the rules have just been changed.    
    “You forget I know what it feels like to think you’re dead. No other pain could ever compare.” Dom sits back, stands from the coffee table and stares down at me. “One day, Della, you’ll see I learn from my mistakes. Dominic Haynes never gives up, not on love.”
    He moves to the light, pulls the string and the barn is thrown into darkness. Even so, my eyes adjust and I watch as Dom spreads himself out on the blanket, his back to the floor with his hands thrown up and under his head. He lies there silently gazing up at the ceiling. I’m frozen, staring at him. Trying to remember the hurt I felt from his betrayals, needing to pull strength from the heartache, except nothing comes of it. All I can summon to the surface is the heartbreak and torment I’ve put myself and Dom through these last few days. Is it possible to be confused about which one of us has hurt me more?  
    I lie back down, my eyes never leaving Dom. All I wanted was to shut off my emotions. Become numb. Protect what I’d carelessly given away. Me. I needed another way, but it seems this way isn’t for me either because ever since deciding to cut off my emotions and push away my feelings, all I’ve done is suffer. And I’ve dragged Dom down with me.  
    That man has well and truly knocked through my walls, like a bomb with a timer, as if my wall never stood a chance. Timed to go off at the right moment when the explosion would rock me to my core and no matter how hard I fight Dom is determined to be blown to pieces with me.  
    My eyes slowly close, and I fall asleep thinking about where I wish to be in sixty-five years' time. I want the full package: Dom, children, and grandchildren. I want the walls of my home filled with sixty-five years of memories. I want to build what I never had. But how? I don’t have faith in myself. How do I trust Dom if I don’t even trust myself?

Chapter Twelve

    Della
    Distant voices penetrate my deep sleep, but it isn’t until I hear the familiar click of a gun being loaded that my eyes fly open. I find an elderly man standing over Dom with a rifle to his face.  
    I sit up quickly, pushing the blanket off my body. The heat from the sun beaming through the windows heats my skin and I wonder how late we slept in. Why