“Adriana. We’ve gotta go.”
She looks at me. And the expression on her face?—
Nothing. No anger, no relief. Just empty. Vacant. Void of any emotion at all.
A shudder runs through me. It’s the cold CEO mask I saw in the very beginning… until I was able to chip away at it and uncover what lay underneath. But now it slides back into place like it never left. Like it was waiting just below the surface to take over once again.
Her defense mechanism.
Against the world. Against me.
But she turns and walks over to the passenger door.
We pile into my truck without another word. I put the truck in reverse and peel out of the concrete lot, heading in the direction of Gavin’s apartment.
“This can’t continue,” she says, her voice low and tight. “All of this bloodshed, brutalizing people in an attempt to claim territoryand power and control.” She shakes her head and stares out the window. “It doesn’t work. It just makes the hatred fester until the next blowout where more lives will be lost. We need to find a new way forward.”
I sneak a look at Cillian in the rearview mirror and he gives me a shrug.
Find a new way forward.
Just like us.
I know I hurt her so badly, but I almost feel like that last part was meant for me specifically. She has to know I’d never intentionally hurt her or her family, that I was tangled up in the web of my father’s threats, that I had to protect my brothers from him. She knows exactly what Eamon is capable of… and that he wouldn’t think twice about hurting his own family if it lined his pockets.
What the hell else was I supposed to do?
But I swallow all of that down. We need to talk, but now’s not the time.
“How would your father feel about that?” I ask instead.
“He’s awake, obviously, but he put me in charge. He knew I’d have to make hard decisions. This is one of them.” She gives me a sidelong glance, her lips pursing. “And it’s not the only one, either.”
I want to press her on that but something in my gut warns me to let it go… at least for now. She has to know I’ll support her however she needs; that I’m always going to stand by her side.
The rest of the ride to Gavin’s is silent and thick with tension. When I pull in front of his building, Cillian jumps out. “I’ll see you upstairs,” he calls out. The door slams shut. I turn off the engine and turn toward Adriana. My heart dips low in my chest when she continues to stare out the window.
“Your father was right, you know.” A shiver slips down my spine. Why does her voice sound so damn distant right now? “You are sentimental. You walked into that warehouse trap knowing you might end up dead. It didn’t stop you.”
“I wasn’t leaving you there.”
“No. You weren’t.” She finally turns, meeting my eyes. “But it doesn’t change anything. Too much has happened. That shouldn’t have happened. Too much that could have been stopped.”
“Adriana, we can talk about?—”
“No,” she says, her sharp tone eating my next words. “I watched Vincenzo die today. Your father was going to kill me next, all part of his grand plan to decimate my family, since he already tried to take out my dad at the gala.”
I scrape a hand down the front of my face. “I fucked up by not telling you what I found out about the attack and your dad being a target. But you have to understand what was at risk.”
“You knew something.” Her jaw tightens. “You chose not to say anything. Even though I told you to never lie to me. And you lied to me every day since.”
I swallow hard. “Don’t,” I say, my voice cracking.
Because I know what’s coming next.
“I know you love me,” she whispers. “I believe that. But I can’t trust you. And I can’t be part of this sham anymore. I wanted so badly to be wrong about you. I wanted you to be the man you promised me you were, the man I fell in love with. But you are exactly who I thought. Your secrets and your lies destroyed what we were building, Lochlan.”
“Adriana—” Air abandons my lungs, the blood roaring in my ears.
