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“Yeah, that’s part of it.”
“What’s the other part?” she shouted.
My soul belongs to two people I have zero control over. I looked at her, the wind knocked out of me. She’d leave me. I’d fucked it all up. I knew this couldn’t last.
“How could you lie to me?” she hissed.
“You were happier not knowing the details.”
Her face flushed crimson. “You think I’ve been happy, livin’ in ignorance? I’m not some delicate flower you need to shelter from the storm. I deserve the whole truth.”
“I did what I thought?—”
“I trusted you. With Jack. With my life. And you—you decide what’s best for me? Decide that I can’t handle the real world? You got no right. No right to make those choices for me. What else have you decided I’m too frail to know, huh? What other secrets are you keepin’ tucked away?”
“Nothing. I swear.”
The lie burned on my lips, and she glowered as though I’d condemned myself. Telling her about Romeo risked her life. I couldn’t take that chance, even if I lost her. I could feel her drifting from me. Like something dragged out to sea. It ripped at the center of me.
I stepped forward. I grabbed her wrist and yanked her into my arms. My hands glided up her back as I pinned her to my chest. She fought me, pushing.
“Let me go.”
“I can’t.”
She burst into tears. “Just let me leave.”
I clasped her face. “No.”
“Kill, please.”
“I’m sorry this hurts. I wish I could take it away. Both of you are everything to me. I?—”
She wrenched out of my grip, wide-eyed. Every step she took toward the door was like a chasm widening, leaving me grappling in a world with no light.
“No.” Her whisper sliced like a knife to my wrist. “Don’t you dare.”
“Don’t tell you that I?—”
“I said, don’t!”
Her plea shattered. Tears glistened in her eyes. Tears I’d caused, but for what?
“Do you think I’d say this to any woman?”
“No. You’d do it to hurt me. To trap me here, with you, in this life. In this hell you’ve created. You live in a city that turns good men into demons, and evil men into martyrs. And if, for one second, you think you could sway me?—”
“You think this is what I want? How I wanted it? That my son is born from a prostitute instead of a woman kept safe in my house? That I’m chasing a girl too terrified of her own shadow to give me a fucking chance?—”
“I gave you a chance, Achille. And you lied. Again and again. And like an idiot, I ignored the red flags, the pain, and the fear, and I started to…”
“Say it.” The words were too harsh for such a revelation. “Please.”
“No.”
“You feel it, too.”
“So what if I do?”
