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“No, that’s not what it is at all.”
“Massimo, I am prisoner of one vicious man and the target of another family of vicious men. In what way is hope not a freaking fairy tale?”
“Because those aren’t the only players in this game,” he reminded me. “And you are not some helpless victim.”
“All I have been for years is a hel—“
“You are not a helpless victim,” he cut me off. “All you have been for years is resilient and tough. And fucking determined.
“You have almost no access to internet, but you pieced together stolen minutes and did the impossible. Figured out who’d killed Cody, then tracked me down.
“Then, as if that wasn’t enough, you took a risk to track me down and ask me to help you take down the man who’s made your life hell for years.
“Hope is only a fairy tale if you don’t put in the work. You’ve put in the fucking work.”
“Anyone else would have—“
“No. Not everyone would do the same thing. I guarantee you that many people in your situation would have done the easy thing. They would have accepted their fate. They would have given into Colin and lived a life of relative peace. That is what a lot of people would have done. But not you. That’s not who you are.”
“You don’t know who I am,” I insisted.
“You’re wrong. I might not know everything, but I know enough to know that you can get through this. That you can hold on just a little longer without losing hope.”
I didn’t realize how badly I needed a pep talk until I heard the words coming out of his mouth.
I loved my brothers more than life, but they just… they weren’t those guys. I guess that was my fault, to an extent. I’d been like their parental figure. I’d been the one to give the pep talks. They’d never needed to do the emotional lifting, so they never thought to do it. Even when I was in a bad situation and desperately needed to hear that it was going to be okay.
“Hey, no, don’t do that,” Massimo said, frowning as I saw my vision start to swim with tears.
He didn’t seem horrified at the tears. Like most of the guys I’d known would have been. But, then again, he had a sister he loved dearly. Which, I imagined, subjected him to more than a few instances of witnessing female tears over the years.
“I just… I needed to hear that,” I told him as the first tear slid down my cheek.
“Well, I can’t go around giving you a pep talk if you fucking cry about it,” he told me, giving me a soft smile as his hand lifted to wipe the tear off my face just as it was about to slip off my chin.
“Thank you for saying those things.”
“Wouldn’t say them if I didn’t mean them,” he insisted. “You’re going to get through this. You’re stronger than you are giving yourself credit for,” he said as his thumb slide from my chin to trace under my lower lip.
The strange swelling sensation in my chest made the tears start to dissipate, replaced with something else entirely.
Something much more heated.
Something that felt like it was scorching its way through my system.
I saw the same heat reflected back at me as I looked at Massimo.
I didn’t think.
I couldn’t have even if I wanted to.
And I really, really didn’t want to.
In fact, the absolute last thing I wanted to do in that moment was think.
I wanted to feel.
Damn the possible consequences.
