The Fighter and His Tiger (Unexpected Love #1)

41. Friday Week Sixteen (the Italian man.)

You guys are truly so amazing !! You've been so patient with waiting for an update but I have just been so busy with trying to cram in all my school work and getting settled into my final year of school!!!!!!!

Anyway, thank you for reading and waiting, perfect people! I will hopefully have time to write some more chapters this weekend for you incredible people and then with some luck, (and hopefully some good writing), we will be finished soon 🥺

But don't worry...there might be a sequel 😏

41. Friday Week Sixteen (the Italian man.)

The boys had come back to the apartment to inform us that the Donatelli's wanted to meet all of us at one of their clubs on Friday evening.

All week, anxiety bubbled through me as I waited for the evening to come and now it was finally here.

The dress I was wearing was a deep rust velvet cami which fell to mid-thigh on my shapely legs. The back of the dress was tied up in a crisscross fashion and one pull on the string would have made it fall straight off me; luckily Raven had tied it as many times as she could.

A coppery tang seeped into my mouth as my lips started bleeding, I ran my tongue over them and tried to will myself to stop gnawing at them but I couldn't.

"Damn it, Rei!" Raven exclaimed, "will you stop."

Snatching the lip gloss and tissue out of her hand, I glared over at her, "oh, I'm sorry! But it's kind of hard to care about my lipstick when we are on our way to meet with the leaders of the goddamn Spanish mafia!"

My voice turned squeaky towards the end of my rant and Eli's gaze flickered to me through the rearview mirror as he drove.

"They're actually Italian, not Spanish," Cayd inputted, swivelling to face me from his position in the passenger seat of Eli's car.

My glare was now directed at him as I spoke through gritted teeth, "that's not the point, dipshit."

He gave me a sheepish smile before turning back around.

Raven's hand reached out to tightly grasp my own and she gave me a warm smile, "it's gonna be okay."

Nodding, I turned back to face the front, my eyes flickering to everywhere except Eli as I avoided the annoyance he was likely directing towards me.

Of course; we had argued about me coming. The Donatelli's said four of us could go and Eli had not wanted the fourth person to be me. Whereas I, was sick and tired of waiting around for something to happen, constantly worried about the other's wellbeing. Being involved kept me in the loop and provided me with the assurance that they were all okay — Eli didn't care though, he said he just wanted me to be okay, at home, alone and away from the club.

Expelling a shaky breath, I stepped out of the car and ignored Eli's outstretched hand, he rolled his eyes but I was still pissed at him for thinking he could dictate what I could and couldn't do.

Tingles shot up and down my back as Eli's hand came to rest on my lower back, warmth emanating onto my bare skin.

"Stay near me," his breath stroked my ear as he spoke in a hushed whisper.

I rolled my eyes and stepped forward, away from him, "I'll be fine."

Before I could get too far, his hand shot out to clasp my wrist tightly, I turned to face him with an eyebrow raised but I was stunned by his expression. It wasn't anger or frustration shining in his ocean blue eyes but worry. An emotion that he didn't bare to me often.