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“Don’t, Raven.” He shook his head. “Someone’s been trying to mess with the families for the past several months. We found him. We’ll be in and out before the guy even knows what’s happening.”
“Then let me help.”
The words were out before I even realized I was saying them.
Nico’s eyebrows reached for his hairline.
“Icould help,” I said for a second time, meaning the words this time.
Vito trained me at hand-to-hand combat for years, and I was quite the proficient marksman. On days we both didn’t feel like working up a sweat,ZioVito made sure I knew how to use a gun.
Nico stole a glance at me, looking me at like I had fangs in my mouth. “You’d do that... you’d fight with Costas?”
I didn’t really think about it that way. All I knew was that it was going to be dangerous wherever he was going. If I could help keep him safe then I’d fight with Costas. Yes. Sofia Luca would fight with Costas.
I’d fight alongside a pride of dancing lions if it meant keeping Nico’s heart beating.
“Yes.”
He squeezed my hand once more then released it. “I can’t let you do that.”
Pop.
I had a vagina. No one would ever let me be useful or do what I could do because I had a freaking vagina—which, mind you, could take quite a beating. Certainly more than ding-dongs can, I’m sure.
“What are you thinking, Raven?”
“I’m thinking that I spent eleven years learning how to fight, how to use weapons, and I don’t know why Vito even taught me all that stuff if women are expected to shut up and sit pretty.”
Nico scoffed. “Not wanting you there has nothing to do with what body parts you have—though, I am very fond of yours. I don’t want you there because I’d spend every second watching you, worrying about you, because…” He clamped his lips shut. “Because…” He looked away, glancing out the window. “Because you’ll always be a Luca.”
He might as well have just stabbed me in the heart with his finest knife.
I thought of the way his eyes blazed earlier as he filled me, in and out until I was stripped bare. No lies, no barriers between us. No one else had ever come so close.
But I held on to a single thread of hope I knew was more brittle than my strength could make up for.
There was always something that would come between us.
I chuckled. The only person who had come so close needed to be as far away as he could be.
I stepped out of the car and closed the door behind me as gently as I could.
I headed to the concierge, my movements feeling slow and heavy.
“Miss Raven Ferrari?” the receptionist with a cleft chin said as she handed me my replacement card key.
I nodded once.
I didn’t let a single tear escape until I was behind the closed door of my hotel room.
It’s Sofia Luca, I guess.
Chapter Thirty-Three
Nico
“Nico, can I speak with you,per favore?”Mammaasked the minute I arrived home. She caught me as soon as I walked back inside the house like she was waiting for me.
