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“Then what are you going to do?”
“What do you mean? It’s done.”
“It’s not done,” he said. “You’ve been obsessed with this woman since the moment you saw her.”
I knew I would never get over her. Not really. She would always be the one who got away. Time would pass, and I would think of her less and less. I’d meet someone else at some point, and it would feel right. But in the back of my mind, she would always be there, a permanent mark that had become a part of me. And if I bumped into her on the street, all those feelings would rush back…and I would play an extensive game of what-if. It would be hard to shake the memory, and when I was in bed with my woman, she would pop in here and there. It would be a shitty feeling, to want to move on but be forever stuck in the past. “I deserve to be with a woman who wants me fully. Not partially. Not begrudgingly.”
“It was never begrudgingly, man.”
“She’s not here, is she?”
The cigar continued to burn unattended in his fingertips. “She made the wrong decision, but I understand the complexity of her situation. Nobody could fathom their own father lying straight to their face like that. That the person they trust most is not the person they thought they were. If she can’t confront him about it, what else is she supposed to do?”
I stared at the cigar in my fingertips and watched it burn.
“You know I’m right.”
I continued to stare.
“You should talk to Dante.”
My eyes flicked up. “And what will that do?”
“He’d be dead right now if it weren’t for you. He owes you.”
“He’s never going to throw himself under the bus?—”
“Convince him. Tell him you’ll mend the relationship between him and Scarlett.”
“He’ll never go for it.”
“You want this woman or not?” He cocked his head to the side.
“I do, but I’m tired of fighting for her.”
“This goes beyond you and her. You’re fighting for her freedom because she has no idea she’s being oppressed by this psychopath. Every relationship she has after you will be manipulated by this guy. She could end up with an asshole simply because he’s beneficial to Dante. Something to think about.”
The misery struck me like a bell tolling at the church. She’d left me, but I was still responsible for her well-being and her happiness. It felt like a curse, to love a woman who was impossible to love.
“Or, like I said, you could just kill him…”
I closed my eyes at the suggestion.
“I could do it for you. Keep your hands clean.”
My eyes opened again. “As tempting as that is, I couldn’t do that to her.”
“You would be doing her a favor.”
“It wouldn’t feel like a favor to her.”
“Then you need to expose him. That’s your only option.”
I would never get Dante to agree to the truth, to come clean and shed his skin. But I had to try…for her.
“Not to sound like an insensitive prick, but the Colombians have come back to the table.”
At the change of subject, I returned the cigar to my mouth and let the smoke coat my tongue. “Really?”
