Page 113 of Marcus

“I know Marcus isn’t William,” Cella interjected fast, not quite ready to move away from her desk, “and that’s never even been a question for me.”

“Do you want him? Isn’t that really what it comes down to, Cella? Either you want him, and being with him is worth the risk, or you don’t?”

“Is can’t not an option?”

Lucia shrugged. “Not with love, no. You’ll love him today and tomorrow and five years from now even if you don’t speak a single word to him in all that time. Shit, maybe you get out of a cab someday and look across the street to see him standing there staring back at you. And you know what? You’re still going to love him then, too. So no, can’t is not an option, but I think you already knew that.”

Yeah, she did.

“What do I even say?” Cella asked, feeling the tears starting to fill her eyes even as she tried to blink them away. “What do I tell him when I call—I’m sorry that I ran, but I basically had a nervous breakdown. Oh and then I couldn’t convince myself to pick up the phone and call you because I spent the last week and a half trying to convince myself that maybe we shouldn’t be together even though I know that isn’t true?”

Lucia blinked. “Well …”

“Lucia.”

“Is that the truth?”

Cella let the first tear fall, although she quickly wiped it away. “All of it. As stupid as it is, yes.”

“It’s not stupid. And yes, that’s what you tell him. The truth.”

How simple that seemed.

Lucia cleared her throat and nodded at the blank television. “I’ll let you finish watching the newsreel—I saw it this morning. You only have a minute or so left. I don’t mind waiting in the car.”

Shame might have filled Cella at being caught watching a newsreel highlight of current events in Ontario and Quebec, but she couldn’t even muster up that, honestly.

Her sister gave her a shrug before she turned to leave the office. Cella shook her head, but the urge to finish watching the news program was also too much for her to ignore. So, she didn’t and grabbed the remote to resume where she had left off.

Which just happened to be where the reporters had caught Marcus leaving the police station after what they reported were several hours worth of interviews regarding the attacks on a biker gang in Quebec.

Or rather, the slaughter of an entire chapter.

“Mr. Guzzi,” a reporter called to him, “we have it on good sources that you had a direct hand in the bombing and fire that killed several Riders in Quebec. Do you have anything to say on the matter?”

Marcus, in his three-piece suit, not looking at all worse for wear, smiled at the man as he passed him by on the steps of the police station. “I’ll tell you the same thing I told the cops.”

“And what is that?”

He smirked at the camera. “Prove it.”

“You know, I can just run in and grab us food to-go,” Lucia said.

Cella glanced up from the phone in her hands, realizing for the first time that they were currently parked outside of the little Mexican restaurant. Her distraction clearly wasn’t missed by her sister, and even Lucia made a pointed look at the phone she held.

“And why don’t you make a phone call?”

“You don’t know that’s what I wanted to do,” Cella muttered.

“I do when you look at your phone like it’s your whole world.”

“Every teenager does the same thing.”

“But you’re a twenty-nine-year-old woman, so …”

Cella frowned. “Sometimes, you could just let people have their pride, Lucia.”

“What is that?”