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“I guess I understand that. So that means you’re willing to do this?”
“Unfortunately.”
She breathed a deep sigh. “Alright…I guess this is really happening.”
“Don’t catch him off guard. You should tell him before I’m in the room—out of respect.”
“Okay.”
“And we should do it at his place where he’s most comfortable. His house has guns hidden everywhere. He can grab one at any time.”
“My father isn’t going to shoot you.”
“But knowing he can will make him feel better. You should have his brother there too. That will give him more security.”
“Now this is starting to sound like a mob meeting.”
It definitely wasn’t the normal kind of meeting where a woman introduced a man to her parents. We wouldn’t have iced tea and sandwiches over lunch and talk about how beautiful the weather was. This was two enemies meeting under one roof. “Pretty close. Your mother shouldn’t be in the room.”
“But she wants to meet you.”
“Let Crow decide that. Trust me, he’s not going to want her to be there. And I also think you should handcuff me.”
“Okay…now you’re being ridiculous. I’m not going to handcuff you.”
“It makes a strong statement, baby. I’m the one going in there unarmed with my hands cuffed together. I’m helpless and vulnerable. That’s the only way he’s going to know I’m serious, that this isn’t some kind of stunt. He’ll assume I’ve just been using you to get to him. This is the only way I can prove that’s not true.”
“It just seems excessive…”
“I think it’s not as excessive as it should be. I just hope he doesn’t shoot me the second he looks at me.”
“My father would never do that…”
I was his mortal enemy. There was no telling what he might do.
“He’d never hurt me, so I can be a human shield if it comes down to it.”
That didn’t make me feel better. “Don’t you ever do that. Accidents happen, especially when tensions are high. I can deal with him, but I can’t deal with him if you’re hurt by accident.”
“God, this is going to be awful, isn’t it?” she whispered.
I nodded. “I can guarantee it’ll end badly. There’s no possible scenario where it’ll end with a handshake. You need to be prepared for that. I know your father loves you, but he’s not going to look past his hate so easily…it’ll take him a long time. I’ll have to prove myself to him.”
“And you’re willing to do that for me?”
I was in this for the long haul, for better or worse. “Baby, I’d do anything for you.”
Twelve
Vanessa
This was really happening.
I was going to introduce my father to the man I loved.
Bones—our family enemy.
I didn’t expect this to go well. I could handle a tense and angry meeting. I just hoped bullets wouldn’t be flying, along with death threats. I hoped my father would be calm enough to be objective about the situation. He’d said he wanted me to be with a powerful man. Technically, Bones filled that criteria. He was the strongest man I’d ever met. Even my father wasn’t bulletproof.
We left Milan that morning, driving in his truck. It was a long journey to the south of the country, and since there wasn’t anything to say, we would spend most of it in silence. We were both thinking the exact same thing, but there were no further comments to be made.
It was a testament to Bones’s love for me that he was willing to do this.
But I couldn’t wrap my mind around what was coming next.
“Are you sure you want to do this?” he asked an hour into the drive.
“Yes.” I couldn’t live my life lying to my parents. I couldn’t live two separate lives, one with Bones and one with them. I’d already tried walking away from Bones, and it didn’t work. I was miserable the entire time. I’d made my way back to him because I couldn’t live without him.
“I ask because your brother is getting married soon, right?”
I’d forgotten about that. “Yeah…”
“Maybe we should wait. I’m not making excuses. I’m just being practical here.”
“Well, I’d like it if you were my date. It’s a pretty big deal…”
He gripped the steering wheel with one hand, his jaw clenched. “Baby, that’s not going to happen, especially in a few weeks. You need to let that dream go. It’s unrealistic.”
Maybe I was putting too much faith in my father’s love for me. “We still need to do this…”
“Alright. When are you going to call them?”
“When we’re an hour away.”
He turned back to the road. “Alright.”
When we were an hour away, I held the phone tightly in my fingertips. I stared at the screen without hitting the send button, my heart beating so fast it rocked my rib cage. This would be one of the hardest things I’d ever done in my life, but it had to happen. When Bones left for his mission, I was so lost without him I didn’t know what to do with myself.
