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“Do I have a choice?” I asked, my eyes like daggers. Of course, he had to maintain the upper hand. Of course, he wouldn’t just give me the key.
“I don’t scare easily,” he began simply.
I leaned back in my seat. I knew that. Even as a little boy, he’d faced down all kinds of problems that were bigger than him. There had been that time a large dog had knocked me down and tried to hump me, as I recalled. When all the other children at the garden party laughed at my predicament, Vincent had bravely tackled the mutt, even getting bitten in the process.
Of course, my father had seen it all. He had shot the animal, splattering half the children with blood, including myself. My pretty white party dress had been ruined, but I hadn’t cared about that. The other children had all screamed and run off. All but Vincent and myself. We’d held each other’s eyes through the experience. Neither of us looked away or even blinked from the moment my father had lifted his weapon. We’d both known what was about to happen. Neither of us flinched that day.
And neither of us were willing to flinch now.
We were both far too stubborn to ever admit we were wrong. Not that I was wrong in this particular situation. He was the guilty party! Even if I should have thought about his possible concerns when I pulled the stunt with the shopping . . . I conceded that point, and that point alone.
But it did not matter. It was nothing compared to what he had done in retaliation. He was the one who should be groveling. I knew that would never, ever happen. I didn’t think ‘I’m sorry’ was even in his vocabulary. It certainly hadn’t been in mine. Not until I’d had a daughter. I had learned to give and take more once Angelique came along. But Vincent? I doubted he would ever learn to bend. To compromise. To show remorse.
It was one of a thousand reasons we would never work as a couple, I reminded myself. A thousand and one.
“I have never been so frightened in my life as I was when your guards told me you were missing.”
I blinked in surprise. Not what I’d been expecting, but okay. He was going to try to play on my heartstrings, I could tell. But it wouldn’t work. I would listen politely. He would give me the key, and I would tell him to go to hell.
I could hardly wait for that moment.
“The only time in my entire life that came close was when my mother jumped off the roof of our house. She simply could not face living another day with my father’s reign of terror.”
I gasped, my hand going to my chest. There had been talk about the abuse. Talk that maybe she had taken her own life. But I never knew for sure. No one did.
It wasn’t exactly like women were respected in traditional mafia families. Not back then. Not even now.
It was a backward, patriarchal world. You only had to look at what had happened to me. My father had owned me. Then my husband had owned me. But no more.
I owned myself now.
And no one would ever take that freedom from me again.
“I remember how sad she looked that day. How beautiful she was, despite the bruises. His beatings had gotten particularly vicious around that time, harder to hide with makeup and scarves. I remember how tightly she’d held me and Tony before she kissed us for the last time. She made us breakfast that morning from scratch. The whole week was full of some of the best memories of my childhood. Other than my memories of you,” he added, giving me a soulful look.
I melted. How could I not?
“Goddammit, Vince.”
He gave me a small, sad smile and continued. He wasn’t trying to manipulate me. He was being honest. Even if he wasn’t admitting he was wrong, he was telling me why he had done what he had done. He was standing there with his hat in his hand.
Only Vincent had no hat.
He was simply baring his soul to me.
“I will never forget that feeling when she told me she was going up to the roof. When she told me not to follow. I knew. I knew something was wrong. For years, I wondered if I could have stopped her. If only I had said or done the right thing. If I had followed her. If I had been good enough to make her stay.”
I wanted to go to him. To hold him. To tell him it wasn’t his fault. That there wasn’t anything he could have done. That he was good enough.
He was more than good enough.
He was everything to me, other than my daughter. The rest of the damned world could go to hell and I would survive. But without the two of them, I was nothing.
