Twelve years.
For most of those, I’ve lied to myself about what she meant to me. Fooled myself into thinking that it wouldn’t matter, that it couldn’t have consequences. And now my loyalties are divided between a woman and my family—a decision I didn’t think I was capable of facing.
Blood. You always choose blood. It’s the easiest choice and the obvious answer.
I watch Carina fill a cup with the coffee I brewed an hour ago. It must be cold by now, but she doesn’t appear to care as she sips. She still looks tired, and I’m annoyed I notice.
I watch her sink down into the chair across from me, noting how she rubs a finger against the mug’s handle the same way she stroked the glass whenever we met at a bar.
“Can you shoot?” I ask abruptly.
She sips. “A gun?”
I nod once, impatiently.
“No.”
“Your father should have trained you.”
“Well, that would have required him spending time with me. Or caring.”
I surmised they weren’t close, but the bitterness in her tone is new. More than she revealed last night.
“Why did you run?”
Her finger rubs faster. She exhales, the sigh long and defeated. “My father wants me to marry Nico Morello.”
“So, marry him.”
A scoff. “Easy for you to say.”
It wasn’t. My throat stings since those words sliced like razor blades as they exited my mouth.
“I wasn’t supposed to … my entire life is in Chicago,” she continues. “I didn’t know if I ever wanted to get married, but I know I don’t want to marry some criminal I’ve never met.”
“You’ve never met him?”
She shakes her head. “I, uh … I left the night I was supposed to.”
I would have paid a lot of money to see the reactions when they found out she’d run.
“Have you?” Carina asks. “Met him?”
“No.”
“But you know who he is? He’s—he does what you do?”
I lift an eyebrow. “What do I do, Carina?”
She raises one back. “Things that get you ‘mugged.’”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
She shakes her head, shoving the coffee away and crossing her arms. “Stop it. I told you the truth. Be honest with me. I’m all—” Her voice breaks. “My father, my brothers—they’re all?—”
“You have brothers?”
“Yeah. Three.” Her gaze drops to the table. “Should I have not told you that?”
