AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“He killed those men for me,” I told him. “Do not go after Ezekiel. If you must get your pound of flesh, you can get it from me—after we take down Miguel.” I would not let Damian sic anyone on Ezekiel, especially when what I said was true: it was all for me.
Damian chuckled. “Huh. Maybe crush was too juvenile a word. You love that priest, don’t you?”
I leaned back, and as I did so, the hands I had on the table fell onto my lap. I had to look away, unable to keep up the eye contact between us, for whatever reason. “Someone like me isn’t capable of love, Damian.”
“Don’t say that, baby girl. Love is universal. Good men, bad men, men of the cloth—we’re all capable of that pesky feeling.” Damian stared at me for a bit before adding, “Don’t worry your pretty little head. I won’t have the priest killed for what he did. You have my word.”
It should make me feel better, hearing him say that, but it didn’t. I was a strange mixture of feelings right now, and until I had some extended time alone, I feared I’d be a mess.
“So,” he abruptly changed the subject, “let’s discuss Miguel. I got some eyes on him, but they can’t shadow him all the time. Do you know anything we might be able to use against dear old ex-daddy?”
Some people might wonder if telling Damian anything would be a mistake, but I was past the point of not trusting him. He’d had many opportunities to kill me himself, and he hadn’t. If he was only using me to take Miguel down, then so be it. After all, that’s the only thing I wanted in this world, too.
Well, that and one other thing.
“Miguel is teaming up with Rocco Moretti,” I said, earning myself a glimmer of amusement from Damian. I didn’t know if he knew this or not, so I kept going, “They think Nixon Hawke isn’t a real Hawke, that he’s Atticus’s son from an old affair. I talked to Shay about it, and she didn’t seem surprised, which means—”
“It’s true,” Damian spoke with a nod. “And that means two spots will open up on the Hand once the Palmers find out. I assume ex-daddy wants those spots for himself and Rocco. Makes sense. What I don’t get is why you had to get engaged to that Luca boy.”
Luca. Luca Moretti. The one heir out of every other heir I should feel nothing toward. I guess Damian was right: that pesky love didn’t care who you were or why it shouldn’t exist. When it happened, it happened, and there’s nothing you could do about it.
My heart panged when I thought about Luca, how he was in the dark about all of this. He knew his father had me for a night three years ago, but he didn’t know the half of it now.
“My—” It took everything in me to stop myself from saying my father when I was talking about Miguel. Old habits. “Miguel wanted me to be in misery since I wasn’t his real daughter.”
“And why would engaging you to Luca Moretti make you miserable? Besides being stuck with a husband you didn’t want?”
This particular secret I’d told others before, recently too. The men who’d taken a piece of my heart in spite of how fractured and black it was. I supposed there was nothing holding me back from this truth now.
I told him: “Three years ago, my father gave me to Rocco Moretti for a night.”
That mustn’t have been what Damian was expecting, because a muscle on his jaw twitched, and it took him far too long to say, “He did what now?” His voice came out different, lower than normal, rougher, like a glimpse of the true gang leader he was.
I couldn’t look at him right then, so I had to turn my face away and stare at the nearest wall as I repeated, “He gave me to Rocco Moretti for one night, and Rocco made good use of his time with me.”
“Fucking bastard.” It was Damian’s turn to lean back in his chair. “So that’s why you like wearing those gloves. That fucking asshole. How the fuck could he do that to his own—” He seemed to realize what he was saying, because his chest hummed out a growl of a sound. “He knew then you weren’t his daughter.”
“Yeah,” I whispered. “Then he suggested I go to the same church my mother frequented before she died. I thought he was trying to help me, but really, he just wanted my real father to see the state I was in. He wanted to torture us both—and he did. I almost threw myself off a bridge. Father Charlie… my real dad, is the only reason I’m still here today.”
Instead of saying something, Damian got up. His chair scraped against the tiled floor as he got to his feet, and he walked around the table, coming near me. He set a hand on the edge of the table and the chair behind my back before dropping to his knees—but he didn’t touch me. He gave me space.
The man that was Atlas was respecting my boundaries without being asked. How strange was that?
I had to take my gaze off the wall and bring it to his face, studying the intense expression he wore. The way he was looking at me, not quite like pity, but more like empathy, made my stomach twist.
“I’m sorry,” he whispered, and there was probably more he could’ve said, but he didn’t. He only watched me with those dark eyes, eyes that were much like Miguel’s, only they were set in a face I didn’t mind staring at. “We’ll get that asshole back. You and me.”
I didn’t know what came over me, but I found myself lifting a hand and bringing it to Damian’s face. My fingertips brushed near the place on his cheek where the teardrop tattoo sat. When his warmth flooded me through my fingertips, I sucked in a hard breath and fought the chill that threatened to sweep over me as a result of skin-on-skin contact.
Holding his stare with my own, I whispered, “I never imagined…”
Damian did not pull away, nor did he stand. He remained where he was, kneeling beside my chair, one of his hands curled around the edge of the table and the other on the back of my chair as he asked, “Never imagined what?”
My hand was now fully cupping his cheek, the warmth of his skin undeniable on my palm. “I never imagined I’d sort-of like Atlas.”
“Sort of, eh?” The corner of his mouth curled upward in a half-smirk. “I can work with that, baby girl.” That nickname that I’d loathed in the beginning was now kind of familiar. I was beginning to like hearing him say it.
“I’ll take care of you,” Damian murmured, turning his face in toward my palm and breathing me in. “Whatever you need, whatever you want—just say the word. I’ll make sure no one ever hurts you again.”
