How could I be so stupid? I just can’t help it, can I?
“I know you’re hurt and upset, but we have to do this,” Nero says. “We don’t have a choice.”
“Youhave a choice.Youcan let me go.”
“I can’t. This is the only way I can keep you safe. I’ve already explained that to you.”
“You haven’t explained shit. You just said that if I’m your wife, I’ll be protected. I don’t understand what that means, Nero. Protected by who? Maybe if you want me to go along with your plan, you should start by telling me the full extent of it, instead of saying I’m better off not knowing.”
Nero lets out a heavy sigh, his jaw clenched tight. “All right,” he answers gruffly. “I’ll tell you.”
I look at him. He turns off the truck and darkness wraps around him like an old lover. Shadows dance across the tense expression on his face.
He’s terrifying. How did I not see it earlier? How did I kiss those lips and not realize they belonged to a killer?
There’s something wrong with me. There has to be.
His gaze lifts to meet mine, and my heart breaks all over again. When I stare into those hazel eyes, I still see a hint of the man I thought I loved.
I have to remind myself that Rowan was never real.
Why couldn’t he have just stayed out of my life and let me leave Darkwater Hollow like I wanted to?
I wish I could go to sleep and wake up in a different reality, one where he never drove me home in the middle of a blizzard, never convinced me to fake date him, and never told me all those things that made me feel like I was special to him.
It was all a lie.
Nero drums his fingertips against the wheel, thinking, calculating. At least that’s how it comes across, and it raises my guard. I asked for an explanation, but I’m hesitant to believe anything that comes out of his mouth.
“When we arrive in New York, I’ll go and see my old boss, Rafaele. Once he knows I have a wife, he’ll take you under his protection.”
New York.
Nero De Luca’s old playground. That’s where he ran from so that he wouldn’t be killed by a rival mob family.
I swallow past the tightness in my throat. “Why would he do that?”
“Because that’s law.Ourlaw. And despite what happened with me, Rafe won’t break it.”
He makes his old boss sound like someone noble, but these people are mobsters. How can I ever be safe if I’m surrounded by mobsters?
“And what about you?” I demand.
“What about me?”
“What will happen to you? Don’t you also need protection?”
A muscle in his jaw ticks. Seconds pass, but he doesn’t answer.
Dreads slithers through my veins. “You told me earlier that the other family, the Ferraros, wanted to kill you. That’s why you pretended you were dead. So why would you go back to the city that you ran from? Won’t they find you there?”
“Maybe they will.”
“I don’t understand.” What am I missing here? It sounds like he’s saying we’re going to New York for my benefit, despite the risk to his own life.
“We can’t outrun the men that are after me,” Nero says quietly, his gaze on the chapel. “Not now that they know I’m still alive. They’ll find us eventually, and then they’ll kill us both. It’s better for me to just give myself to them to do as they see fit. At least you’ll be safe.”
Yeah, right.I refuse to believe that. He is not capable of a sacrifice like that. Surely not for my sake. He wasn’t even capable of letting me leave Darkwater because of his own selfish desires.
