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He said nothing. He stared at her as if she were something distasteful.
“You force me into your world, but I’m not a part of it, and I won’t bow down to it.” She lifted her chin. “I had to change. I understand that, sometimes, people need to die. I don’t have to agree with what you do or how you do it, but I trust you’ll know what’s required, but in this... There’s a difference between killing a thug in the underworld and murdering a man who thinks he’s in love with a woman who doesn’t love him back.”
Tears burned her eyes. She rose, very aware of her throbbing behind, his seed leaking out of her and the way he tensed as she took a step toward him. She searched for the right words and willed him to understand.
“I trust you to do what needs to be done in the underworld. I trust that you won’t lose yourself, that you won’t cheat on me. I trust that you’ll find that fucker and avenge Manny and Vinny. I’ve changed since I watched Manny die, but I haven’t changed so much that I can ignore the fact you want to kill an innocent man.” She held up a hand when he opened his mouth. “He. Is. Innocent. He dated a woman he thought was single. He was nice to a woman who had no one, and there are too few people like him in the world. What I felt for him can’t compare to what I feel for you.” She searched his eyes, looking for recognition or acceptance. “You married me and told me that you would do whatever it took to make me love you again. I love you, but if you do this, you’ll break me, break us.”
She reached out, and even as fear coursed through her, she stroked a hand down his imposing face.
“I love you,” she said.
No reaction. The predator weighed every word out of her mouth.
“You can’t erase my memories by killing him. We’ve been through too much to let Jonathan rip us apart. If you do this, you’ll destroy us.”
She waited for a full minute for him to say something, but he remained silent. He was a living, breathing statue of a man who wouldn’t yield. As the silence stretched, she realized his silence was her answer. She dropped her hand as a tear coursed down her cheek.
“Nothing I say will make a difference, will it?” she whispered.
“No.”
She averted her eyes and walked toward the stairs. When she reached the door, she banged on it hard enough to make her hand ache. A guard opened the door, and she walked out with him on her heels.
She walked toward the kitchen and let herself into the backyard. She welcomed the hard slap of cold air and paced across the cold tiles to a lounge chair. The last hint of light faded from the sky. She settled on a chair and stared blindly into the pool lit by underwater lights as tears gathered in her eyes.
Nothing had changed. Gavin would do whatever he wanted despite how she felt. She was as scared, pissed, and helpless as she had been when Gavin went back into the underworld when Vinny was killed.
She looked up at the blanket of black sky above her. There was no bird flying overhead or shooting star to signal that all would be well. This was the real world where good didn’t always overcome evil.
The back door opened. She wiped her eyes and saw Blade coming toward her with a trench coat. She accepted the coat and wrapped it around her to ward off the cold.
“You’re in one piece,” Blade observed.
“Doesn’t feel like it,” she mumbled.
“You’ll get past this.”
“Why is it always me that has to get over it and not him?”
“Because he’s a badass motherfucker.”
“So?”
“So no one can stop him when he wants something.”
“My life is always going to be like this, isn’t it?”
“Like what?”
“There’s always going to be an attack, and I’ll have to make decisions that will tear me up inside.”
“You’ll get used to it.”
She wiped away a tear. “And if I don’t want to?”
“You already know the answer to that,” Blade said and went back inside.
She blew out a shaky breath and wrapped her arms around herself. Life was hard. Life as a crime lord’s wife was even harder. She wished Manny was here. A tear she couldn’t stop slipped down her cheek.If I didn’t love you so much, I never would have stepped down from my position, and my father and Vinny would still be alive.That fucking killed her, but what was worse was he was right. If he hadn’t stepped down for her, Sadist wouldn’t have made a play to become the crime lord. Vinny wouldn’t have volunteered to take his place, and Manny would be traveling the world or browsing through antique shops if it wasn’t for her. The cost of her and Gavin being together was astronomical… and they were still paying.
