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“What?”
“I can’t tell you what we do. Then I put you in danger. The women in our family are on a need-to-know basis only…”
“‘Need-to-know basis’”, I repeated his words. “So what… I know you do a shit load of illegal things, just not what they are?”
“Something like that.”
“Fucking bullshit.”
“That’s how it has been for ages, and I am not about to change that so you can go and get yourself killed. Just accept the fact of who I really am, Divya, and move along. Not everything in life is black and white. This is a grey zone. Embrace it.”
“I—”
“Fuck’s sake!” He banged his head against the wall. The sound of a skull on a wall gave me a headache. “Why do you have to be fucking difficult?”
“I am being difficult?” I barked.
“Fine. I should have told you. I don’t just go around killing people, mia cara,” he muttered, his fists clenching and unclenching next to me on the wall. “Can’t you just believe that?”
“No.” I shook my head vigorously. “Tell me what you do. Otherwise this ends right now.”
“I can’t.” He rested his forehead on mine, his words broken. “Don’t push me to break a rule of conduct I have overtaken. We do so much. There’s some good in them. They sent me here to legalise more aspects of the business because the Capo wants it. Because my father, grandfather… I stand behind it. But it doesn’t mean we don’t do ugly things, mia cara. We do plenty.”
He let out a sigh, a whiff on my forehead. “We have morals and ethics that we stand up to. Which is very important to us.”
He lifted my chin up to his. “Can’t you believe that the man you married will not just go around killing women and children?”
“It’s not only killing,” I hissed.
“All this time, you were screaming murderer at me, and now it’s more?” he bit out. “Every day, you find something new to pin on me. But yes, there are so many ugly things in the world,” he said resoundingly. “I am what I am. Nothing good in that.”
He looked dissolute. It rocked my boat because I’d never seen him like this. But I was lost too and angry … at the world, at his mother, at him.
“I don’t know how to move past this. I don’t know if I can do this… no matter how short-term this is for.” The moment the words slipped out, I called myself a liar.
But he believed me. Even though he dropped his head onto my shoulder to hide his gaze, the arm that wrapped like a fist around my waist told another story. It was as if he thought I might walk out right now.
But I wouldn’t.
I couldn’t.
Who is the fucking liar now?
For Cora, I will stay.
For him too.
Yes. For him too. Somehow, I had come to care for this life he had created for us.
“Is it so difficult to be with me, mia cara?” His voice vibrated on my skin. It sent goosebumps into my heart.
No. It wasn’t difficult at all.
I let my eyes slide close. I had too many thoughts in my head to see through the mist. What would my parents have said?
“Run! They would have said run!” said the angel on my shoulder.
“Stay! Keep an open mind. Soul-scorching love doesn’t happen every day,” the devil on my shoulder whispered.
