I was a hypocrite because even as I’d warned her about my darkness, I knew I wouldn’t ever let her go.
My hands shook as I wedged them between my legs. Fabiano was silent beside me as he steered his Mercedes through traffic. He was clean now.
His fingers, his hands, his clothes.
Gone was the blood.
My father’s blood.
A new wave of sickness washed over me but there was nothing left in my stomach.
Things had taken a turn for the worse I hadn’t expected.
You can’t choose family, that’s what people always said. And that it didn’t have to define who you became. But my mother and father had managed to steer me so far off the path I wanted to stay on, I wasn’t sure I’d ever find my way back.
And now my father was dead. Killed by the man I loved.
God help me, I loved him still.
Still?
Still. After what I’d seen, after what he’d done.
And that was the worst: that I could still feel anything for him after I’d seen what he truly was. A monster.
My father was a horrible human being – had been. He had driven my mother into selling her body, had offered my body for money to Soto, and would have let me die so he could live. Perhaps he’d deserved death, but he didn’t deserve what happened today. Nobody did.
I closed my eyes against the images of Fabiano with the knife, of the twisted look he shared with Remo. They had done this before. They enjoyed it.
Nino had dragged me away after Fabiano had begun cutting my father. But the screams followed us, until they were no more. I had been relieved because it was over. Over for my father, and over for my mother and me. No more betting debts or drunken fits. And that realization had shattered me completely. I didn’t miss my own father.
He had set me up. I knew he had been scared of the Camorra, but so was I.
Fabiano had killed him.
My eyes were drawn to the man beside me. His gaze was focused on the road ahead. In the past few weeks, we’d got to know each other. I thought I’d come to know him, thought we’d build a connection. Now I wasn’t sure what was real anymore.
Enforcer. The word had held no meaning for me until now. I shuddered when I remembered the basement. How much horrors had those walls seen? And for how many of them was Fabiano responsible? How many people had he killed? Had he made bleed?
So much blood on his hands.
I pushed the thought aside. It led down a dark path I couldn’t stomach right now. I had already dug myself into a deep hole I couldn’t possibly ever get out of. Could I really love someone like him? And could someone like him love at all?
Love is a sickness, a weakness.
Leona is only one woman. She means nothing to me.
Those words had threatened to break me but then Remo had spoken: ‘Are you sure about that? Because when you look at her she isn’t just one woman’.
And those words still haunted me, after everything. Tears prickled my eyes. Fabiano was a murderer.
He did it for me, so he didn’t have to hurt me. He protected me. And part of me felt consoled by that fact. What did that say about me?
I closed my eyes again. I had to end this, had to leave. I couldn’t stay, even though I loved him, or perhaps because I did. I had to break this twisted bond, had to do it as long as the memories of today were still fresh.
“Where are you taking me?” I asked as I realized we were heading to the better parts of Vegas.
“To my apartment.”
I could only stare. Did he really think I’d spent the night in the same bed with him after what he’d done today?
You want his closeness.
Still.
After everything.
Fear filled my veins. Not of him. I pushed through it, let it feed my next words. “Have you lost your mind? I’m not going home with you after what you did.”
Fabiano jerked the car to the side and hit the brakes, making me gasp from the impact of the belt. I didn’t get the chance to catch my breath however. He wasn’t strapped in so he could lean over me, eyes furious. “Don’t you realize in what kind of trouble we are? I went against Remo’s orders for you. I showed weakness. He will watch my every move now. He will watch us.”
“You killed my father.”
“I did, so I wouldn’t have to hurt you, so Remo didn’t feel the need to hurt you.”
“Perhaps I would have preferred if you let him hurt me.”
Fabiano laughed darkly, blue eyes searching my face. “You can’t still believe that after today. Remo has made grown men beg for mercy, for death even.”