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“I’m sure you wouldn’t appreciate it if I talked down to Ms. Valentini.”
DeLaurentiis merely glowered at me then, to Star, drawled, “Crayon is working with the Camorra now.”
“He’s alive and well?”
“He’s earning himself quite a salary,” Valentini mused, placing a hand on DeLaurentiis’s forearm and gently squeezing.
Star frowned. “You’re paying him?”
“He’s very skilled at what he does.”
“You must have coerced him into—”
“That’s between Crayon and the Camorra, Star. It has nothing to do with you,” DeLaurentiis retorted.
She released a breath. “He was doing you a favor.”
“I know. I don’t have to like it, though, do I?”
“No use blaming Star when it was your grandfather’s plan,” I argued, squeezing her shoulder and encouraging her to back into me for support.
DeLaurentiis eyed her up and down. “I heard what happened to Ovianar.”
Shit.
Star immediately tensed.
“It’s dangerous being your friend,” Valentini concurred.
From the outside looking in, Star appeared as staunch as ever, but I felt her sag, ever so faintly, into me.
“Isn’t it dangerous being friends with any of us?” I countered, annoyed at their dismissal of her. “And there’s no denying the lengths she’ll go to for those she considers her people.”
“It was Alberto’s plan,” Star whispered. “I just helped coordinate.”
“He should have asked me,” DeLaurentiis snarled, looming over her, his usually affable features puckering with rage.
And hurt.
As well as grief.
I understood. How couldn’t I? But nothing was simple with Star.
Nothing.
“He couldn’t ask you. Couldn’t involve you. Why would he when I was there? You’d never have been able to do what had to be done, Hunter.”
“You don’t know what I’m capable of,” he argued.
“You’re not capable of arranging your grandfather’s murder,” she snapped, bristling. “And that’s not a fucking insult. That’s a compliment. I wish I didn’t have it in me to…” She sighed. Broke off. “Hunter, without you, I wouldn’t be here today. I wouldn’t almost be at the end of the road with the Sparrows. Thank you for that.
“I understand if you can’t stand to be around me, and I understand if you can never forgive me, but know I’m grateful for what you’ve done for me in the past and I hope, one day, you can find it in you to know that when or if you’re backed into a corner, I’ll be there, trying to figure a way to get you out.”
With that, she grabbed my arm again and pushed us toward the box Declan owned.
When we made it in there, hidden behind the curtains, she turned into me and buried her face in my chest.
Her shoulders didn’t shake, and I didn’t feel tears through my shirt, but her arms enveloped me in a crushing hug that I returned.
