“Why is it so hard for you to accept that I’ve moved on from you?”
His eyes darken. “You should be grateful I’m showing this to you. You should be grateful I still want you back.”
“Why?Why do you still want me?”
“Because I put everything on the line when I started dating you. Do you know how my family warned me against you? What they told me about your father? Your mother? I probably know more about your family’s crimes than you do.”
My vision blurs. “My mother? Leave her out of this.”
“Your mother is not as innocent as you think. She helped your father.”
“What are you talking about?”
“When she was pregnant with you, she’d pretend her car broke down and lure innocent people to help her so that your dad could steal their shit. Your mother was an accomplice. And your father… Well, I won’t even get started on him.”
The office starts to spin. “You’re full of shit,” I choke out.
Brett steps closer. “I’m not. Every word I've said is true. My family warned me against you, and I ignored them all because I was in love with you. I liked the way you weren’t like the other girls. How you weren’t impressed with my wealth, even though you didn’t have any money, and how you always had your head screwed on straight. I told my father I want a woman like you as a mother to my children. I still do. I’m going to prove my family wrong about you.”
Hate runs through my veins like fire. “All of this is about preserving your pride? About saving face?”
Anger morphs his expression into something horrible. “What is wrong with you? You’d rather be with a criminal than me?”
“Rowan is not a criminal,” I snap, squeezing my fingers around the photo I’m still holding. “I’m leaving.”
“Don’t you want to hear everything I found out about him?” he calls after me.
But I let the door slam behind me and walk out of Frostbite for what I know is the very last time.
CHAPTER 38
NERO
I prop my feet on the coffee table and pick up my book.
La Vita Nuovaby Dante.
I’ve read the thing more than a dozen times throughout my life, but every time I read it, I pick up on something new. It’s the kind of book that never gets old.
And now, as I read about Dante first meeting Beatrice, a woman he perceived as being more divine than human, his words hit me even more profoundly.
“Here is a deity stronger than I who comes to rule over me.”
I get it, buddy.
The house doesn’t feel right without Blake here.
Is it pathetic that I’ve done nothing all day but watch the time pass and wait for her shift to be over? Sandro and I gave the company the rest of the week off, and I’m regretting that decision.
I run my fingers through my hair. Whenever I’m around her, I’m fine. Happy even. But whenever I’m alone, that empty feeling reappears somewhere deep inside my chest.
I can’t very well demand Blake never leaves my side, although she seemed happy enough to spend all of yesterday in bed with me.
During our breaks, she’d traced the tattoos on my chest and asked me about what they all meant. I tried to be as truthful as I could, but I still ended up feeding her a slew of lies.
That fucking fish. It’s a tattoo many in the Cosa Nostra have to show we know how to keep our mouths shut. In the mob, no one gets a tattoo screaming their allegiance to any given family unless they're an idiot, but symbolic images are common.
She traced the fish again and again. Lingering on it. Making me worry that she didn’t quite buy the story I told her.
