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His fingers brush my side as he unbuckles me, his trembling lips against my crown. "Senza di te non sono niente," he breathes.
I don't get a chance to ask what he means before he's lifting me out of the SUV into his arms.
He cradles me against his chest as he strides towards the elevator, his heart pounding in tandem with mine. The world is a blur around me, but his presence, his strength and warmth, ground me. He presses the button for our floor and the doors close around us, sealing us inside our own private sanctuary.
"I need to tell you something." His voice echoes softly within the confines of the elevator. "Something I should've told you a while ago."
I tip my head up to look at him, struck by the vulnerability in his stormy eyes. His jaw tenses as he gathers his words, his grip on me tightening as if to anchor himself.
But before he can continue, the elevator halts, and the doors slide open.
He steps out and strides down the short hall to his condo. His silence is no longer peaceful but tense with truths.
Save for the faint glow of early morning light streaming in through the windows, the condo is bathed in darkness. Memories of last night prod at my mind, aching like a phantom limb. We said so much—I said so much. Things I'm not sure how to take back now.
He strides through the living room and down the hallway. I expect him to stop in the bedroom, but he doesn't. He carries me straight into the bathroom before slowly lowering me to the floor.
His eyes rove over my face, a haunted look crossing his features like he's expecting me to disappear. To run from him.
"Talk to me, Coda," I whisper.
"I…" He clears his throat, staring at the tiles at my feet. "The night of the accident, I went to see your father. I broke into his house and woke him up with my gun pressed to his temple." He lifts his gaze to mine, simmering emotion roiling in his eyes. "I had the chance to kill him then. I wanted to kill him then."
"Why didn't you?" I whisper.
"Because I didn't want you to spend the rest of your life living with his death on your conscience." He swallows, his throat working visibly. "I wanted peace for you more than I wanted revenge. I let go of my vendetta against him that night, angioletta. For you. Because you mattered more."
His words are so raw they rip straight through to my heart. "Coda—"
He doesn't let me finish. "That doesn't make me innocent, Karina. I've spent the last two weeks systemically unraveling every thread of his life. Had he not decided to back out of the gun deal, photos of his meeting would have been plastered all over Chicago come tomorrow. I intended to destroy him for hurting you."
"And you forgave him instead," I whisper, taking a step toward him.
"No." His gaze tangles with mine, hot and wild—fierce. "I don't think I'll ever forgive what he's done. I'm not that kind of man, cara. There isn't forgiveness in my heart. Until you, there was just murder and revenge. I simply love you more than I hate him."
His confession, raw and sincere, reverberates through me. His honesty is painful and brutal, but it's him—all of him. The man I've come to love. His past, his vendettas, his darkness…it's all part of Coda.
"I made a deal with him," he says. "We worked together to get you back and make the guns disappear. In exchange, so does he, cara."
"What?"
"He's leaving Chicago. I won't allow him and his crimes to continue painting a target on your back."
I process this, not sure where to fit it. My whole life, I've felt like his prisoner. Coda says he loves me, and maybe that's true. Maybe somewhere under all that self-serving greed, my father has a heart. But the damage between us is done. I'll never look at him the same. I can't. He destroyed so much. I can forgive him, but I won't ever forget. And I don't want to know him. Not now, maybe not ever again.
But he's not important right now. What matters is the man standing in front of me, confessing his sins. He's all that matters.
"I know you're not innocent, Coda," I say finally, my voice trembling with the weight of my emotions. "You carry your sins like a shadow, always at your heels. But you're not just your sins or your past. You aren't irredeemable, no matter how much you think you are."
Tears pool in my eyes as I reach for him, letting my hand rest against his chest where I know his heart beats strong and steady beneath the layer of muscle. "You are also the man who saved me. You're the man who loves ferociously and protects me like no one else could."
"Karina."
"You're loyal and strong, and you've survived so much that you never should have had to survive," I whisper, my heart aching at the thought of everything he's survived. "You're more than the blood on your hands or the things you've done." I pause, licking my lips. "You're everything. To me, you're everything."
A tormented sound tears from his lips as his arms lash around me, yanking me up against his chest. "Don't say it if you don't mean it," he warns, darkness roiling in his eyes again, my favorite predator slipping his chains. "Don't give a dying man false hope."
I could tell him that I love him. Maybe he'd even hear me. But that's not what he needs right now. He needs me to prove it, to show him that he's worthy and always has been.
