Page 7 of The Bond

I inhaled, gearing up to share the entire story for the first time. “I met with an operative who specialized in getting people out. Though I let the operative think that I was looking into how he helped people leave so that I could stop someone from escaping. But in reality, I was trying to get information for myself. I wanted out and I had to see if that was possible.”

“Enzo, the only way out is—”

“In a casket, I know.”

“A casket or going legit,” she said.

“Going out in a casket might be easier, princess,” I told her. “With a casket, you only die once. With legitimacy, they can kill you a thousand times. Everyone on your payroll comes after you.”

“Everybody wants their cut,” Valentina said softly.

“Right, and when that happens, everyone who was protecting you stops doing that because going legit means you don’t pay your army of enablers anymore,” I reminded her. “They’ll stop protecting you from the media, the cops, the government, other gangsters. The whole world comes down on you.”

“What about that operative who helped people get out?” she asked.

“He’d set things up so you’d get out, but you’d never see your family again,” I explained. “A clean break with no one you cared about.”

“You didn’t want to do that?” she asked.

“I thought about it,” I admitted. “Went back and forth on it for months.”

“You couldn’t go through with it,” she said.

“Not after I met you,” I confessed.

That made her gasp, a hand flying to her mouth in surprise. “What are you saying?”

“I’m saying that I thought about leaving for almost a year,” I explained. “Then my father set up the arranged marriage to you and I thought that would be a better deal than never seeing my family again. Marrying you would end the war. Not a way out, but the worst would be over. We’d be able to fucking breathe again at least.”

“So that’s what I was to you,” she said bitterly. “A way out. Your escape plan.”

“I resented the whole setup, but I hoped that ending the violence would be the payoff,” I said truthfully.

She leapt to her feet, her body shaking with barely restrained anger. I had insulted her. Somehow, I sensed that she wanted me to have given up on the idea to escape the mafia because I trusted her. “So, to top that off, you and your family were also going to use me for your own ends. Trap me in a marriage to manipulate me with me none the wiser.”

“Valentina.” I shoved the tray aside and moved to get up.

“Don’t bother,” she snapped, holding up her hand to signal that she didn’t want me to follow her. “I can show myself out.”

“In the end, I didn’t want to go through with the marriage,” I said firmly.

“Oh, please. You were all in,” she said dismissively. “You strung me along. Tried to make a complete fool of me.”

“That was the original plan,” I admitted. “But I decided to back out.”

“More lies.” She balled up her fists at her side as she shifted to face me head-on. “Every word out of your mouth is a lie. You’ll say anything to get what you want.”

“Didn’t you do the same at some point?” I demanded. “Didn’t you say things to press your family’s advantage?”

“No. I—”

“Are you saying you never lied to me?” I asked, cutting her off. “Not once?”

Valentina swallowed hard. Looked like I had caught her out and she wasn’t going to even bother with a lie. It was long past time for the truth.

I needed her to see that I had backed out of my family’s plan to marry her and destroy the Romano family from within. And she had to understand the reason why I’d walked away from the con. Partially out of a bout of conscience, but mostly because I fucking cared about her. I couldn’t keep lying to her. Not to the one woman I had such feelings for. She was everything to me.

I’d spent the entire time since we met burying my feelings six feet deep. But the moment I held her in my arms after sleeping with her for the first time, I felt it all. There was no way I’d be able to bury those feelings ever again. Valentina meant too much for me to go back to being a heartless bastard around her.