The urge to run tugs at the edge of my mind. I need to get out of here before they come for me, but I can’t leave until I know Camilla is going to be okay, until I know she’s safe with her men.
But that doesn’t mean I can’t prepare now.
Yeah, that’s what I’ll do. I’ll pack up my stuff and get it ready so I can leave as soon as I’ve seen with my own eyes that she’s safe.
I reach for the handle, intent on heading upstairs and hiding away until I get word from the guys, but a warm hand settles on my thigh, pulling my attention to amber eyes.
“I won’t let them hurt you.” His words are soft and even, his presence steady in the eye of the storm raging inside me.
“You don’t understand,” I whisper. “They won’t give up until they get revenge.”
Even after all these years, I don’t know what my parents did to deserve the end they met. The days of torture, of starvation, and of sleep deprivation.
There were no signs before it happened, no indication that Salvatore suspected his right-hand man of betraying him.
It was only months after I arrived here, after numerous therapy sessions, that I remembered Dad checking I knew the number by heart. It was so casual, just in passing. I didn’t think anything of it at the time, and I forgot about the interaction almost immediately.
If only I’d asked. If only I had pulled my head out of the perfect life I thought I was living. I had my whole life ahead of me and was too caught up in starting college and my future with the boy I loved.
I had my head in the clouds, and it could have cost me my life.
A warm palm presses to my cheek, gently guiding my face until I’m looking into his worried eyes. “There are a million things you don’t know about me and my past, but I assure you that I can protect you from two assholes with a grudge. I won’t let anything happen to you.”
His confidence should settle some of my anxiety, but if anything, it sends fresh waves rioting through my chest.
It should bring me peace to know he can take care of me, but my experience with dangerous men has always blown up in myface, and knowing Ryker hasn’t been forthcoming with his past only makes my need to flee stronger.
It’s not fair of me to expect him to have told me about the thirty-odd years that preceded our meeting, and yet that doesn’t seem to make a difference in my mind.
“Let’s get you inside, and I’ll lock down the house until we hear from the guys. Does that sound okay?”
I find myself nodding without conscious thought.
This is what I need.
I need to let someone else make the decisions for a little while. I need to allow my mind to rest so I can get a plan together. And then once I’m calmer, once I’ve had time to think through my next steps, I’ll be able to leave knowing I’ve made the right choice.
But even as I think that I know it’s a pipe dream.
I’ll spend the rest of my life questioning every decision I make, because at some point it’ll be the one that gets me killed.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
RONAN
THEN
TEN YEARS AGO
She’s gone.
My ears haven’t stopped ringing since Damon told me with too much satisfaction that the love of my life left without a word.
How could she do this to me?
We’ve spent our whole lives planning for our future, it doesn’t make any sense that she would do this. That she would throw away everything we’ve worked for.
Next week we’re supposed to be going off to college together, to start a new chapter, to have space from the mafia life and decide what we want in the long term, because I’m not so sure I’m cut out to be a part of the Lombardi organization.
