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I don’t know how to respond. My mouth is open, but no words come out.
“You want me to protect you?” He swings open the door. “Help me figure this shit out.”
Chapter 12
Alessia
I have to be a freaking psychologist now?
A quick glance over to the madman beside me makes me realize I’m way underqualified for the job. My only accolade is that I look like his dead wife. For some reason, I don’t think it’ll be enough.
We just got off the dirt patch and we’re now speeding on a one-lane road.
“Do I risk losing her by thinking of someone else? Even though I’m going to burn in the next life, something tells me I’d still have a chance to visit…”
What the hell am I supposed to say to this?
Whatever, at least he’s not calling me by her name anymore.
“Alessia,” he growls.
I’m shaken to attention. “I’m going to regret asking this, but what kind of ‘thinking’ are we talking about, exactly?”
I notice he’s checking the rearview mirror more since that call he received. Was that Donny – as in Donny Valentino – on the other end? Joey said he became the big boss of his enemies.
“The animalistic kind,” he says without hesitation, and my mind goes blank.
Heat rises into my face. I can’t help but squirm in my seat. It’s been so long…
Don’t even think about it. Anabel would hang me by her lingerie.
I clear my throat. “Um. Personally, I used to believe in eternal love when I was younger. Then I met Joey, and I realized love is a scam my heart uses to keep me tethered to an asshole.”
He scoffs at that.
“But I’ve seen it before… Something like what you and she-who-must-not-be-named had.”
He tenses.
“I—I think if there is an afterlife, her soul would understand that yours still has a body. It wouldn’t diminish the connection you two share, especially considering how much you revere it.”
He relaxes his grip slightly around the steering wheel.
It’s strange to wield this kind of power over a killer.
“The guilt, is, at times, overwhelming,” he admits.
“I can tell.”
We talk for a while as we speed down the winding road – which eventually opens into a three-lane highway. He’s surprisingly candid about his demons. He even confesses that it feels wrong to pleasure himself to the thought of Marissa, since she’s passed on and no longer of this world. Yet he feels even worse deviating from her image.
I coach that it’s natural, and that even I once had fantasies about another man who didn’t treat me like shit under his shoe. I’m not admitting that it was my witness protection agent, but still.
My brow furrows when we miss our turn toward Leandro’s shack. I remember the big navy blue sign with chipped paint.
“Um?”
“We’re being tailed,” Leandro says calmly.
