I shook my head slowly, my heart shattering. “We promised to have all of our firsts together,” I whispered.
“And you promised to stay.” Something shifted in his face, the dark bursting forth. “You ran,” he rasped, then snarled. “You ran.”
For a moment, he looked at me like he’d always looked at my father, with hatred and fear.
I understood the former, but not the latter. “Nestore,” I began, but he grabbed my throat. Not tight enough to cut off my air yet, but I got the warning.
I’d betrayed him. Betrayed the promise I’d given him. But that promise had been given to a boy whom Nestore had killed by torturing my father and slaughtering his other tormentors.
“I couldn’t stay,” I whispered. Nestore’s fingers tightened, his eyes darkening in a raging flood of anger.
“Now you will. I won’t let you run again, Amelia. Never again.”
I searched his eyes, searched for a hint of the boy I’d once loved, but he was gone.
Nestore sat in the back seat with me while his men took up the front. His gaze was stern and foreboding as he peered out of the window at the dark street beyond. We’d left Minneapolis behind an hour ago. I wasn’t sure whether we’d drive the entire way to LA or take a plane at some point. Nestore hadn’t spoken a single word to me since he’d dragged me out of the flower shop and forced me into the black BMW limousine.
“Did you think I wouldn’t find you if you hid in Outfit territory?”
I jumped, turning to him. He leaned back, his head propped up against the window, eyes half lidded as if he had been sleeping, but the look in his eyes was too keen for that.
“I always thought I would return to you one day.”
“When, Amelia?”
I licked my lips. “When you were back to being Nestore from the past. When you were done seeking revenge, living for it.”
His upper lip curled in disgust. “I am who I need to be. I am the evolution of the weak boy I used to be.”
“You were never weak,” I whispered. “You survived under your father. You survived three years of my father’s torture! Evolution? Is that what Remo Falcone calls it?”
Nestore shook his head as if I couldn’t possibly understand what he meant. “Remo understands me. He understands what it means to be born from darkness, to live and breathe it.”
I reached for Nestore’s hand resting on his thigh. His gaze zeroed in on my fingers as they touched him, a look of weariness in it.
“I can’t just disappear from my current life.”
“You mean from Flavia? I know she helped you disappear.”
“Please don’t blame her. She wanted to protect me.”
“From me?” he growled, leaning forward with narrowed eyes.
I remained silent. Did I need protection from Nestore? In the past, I would have said no, but I wasn’t so sure anymore. The look in his eyes was terrifying. Whatever had protected me from his monster in the past had been destroyed by my running.
Eight hundred days and one day without Amelia. Not a day had passed that I hadn’t thought about her. Amelia was far more beautiful than I remembered. Watching her sleep beside me in the back seat, a peaceful look on her gorgeous face, I was torn between utter rage and admiration.
Sometimes I had almost given up hope that I would find her, but even when everyone told me to give her up, I had kept going. Giving up had never been an option. Amelia was too deep in my heart and head. Sometimes I truly hated her for it. I had shaken off her father’s shackles but was still her slave.
On the other hand, she had built a new life for herself. She had moved on. What would I do if I could do the same?
“We’ve crossed the border,” Sasha announced. “We’ll arrive at the airport in about ten minutes.”
“Good.” I pulled my phone out from my pocket and called Niccolo, who answered after two rings.
“You got her?” Disbelief tinged his voice. He had tried to talk me out of chasing her numerous times, but I simply couldn’t stop. It was the equivalent of not breathing, which would probably be less arduous for me than being without Amelia.
“Yes.”
