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“For a fucking genius, you’re pretty obtuse sometimes.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“It’s clear that she intended to come back. Think about it. It’s obvious in how she looks at you now that she no longer hates you. Things are different between the two of you than when you first brought her here. She’s happy here now. She’s happy being withyou.”
I just looked at Alessio, not sure what to make of what he had just said.
Alessio carried on. “Anyway, she wouldn’t have left the dog here if she was planning to stay away forever. She had Palmina’s car, and she could easily have taken Mr. F with her to L.A.”
I stopped training and thought about what he had said. I felt confused—it was a new feeling for me and a feeling I wasn’t sure I liked.
JULIANA
That night, we went to bed and Marco still remained largely silent.
I stole a glance at him, unsure if he would ever forgive me for going to L.A. Even worse, I didn’t know how he felt about me telling him that I loved him.
I hadn’t chosen Marco to be my husband, nor to be kidnapped by him. After everything that had happened between us, I wanted Marco to want me for myself—not as his captive or as someone he owned through the contract, but as someone he loved.
I knew that I was probably too late to save my relationship with him.
He had kidnapped me at the start, but then he had shown me that he cared about me. He’d wanted to protect me from my family, but I had betrayed him after all the care he’d shown me. He didn’t just want to look after me physically, but he also wanted to protect my emotions. That was why he’d let me know how my sister was after she’d been shot, so that I’d stop worrying about her injury.
That’s also why he’d not killed Jacob when he caught him entering the Marchiano estate. I’d been so distraught about my brother getting hurt, I’d ignored that Marco had actually spared him. Marco should have killed Jacob after he’d caught him, but he’d let him go and he’d done that for me.
Those weren’t things a captor would do for his captive. To him, I’d been more than a captive, more than a possession that he’d acquired through the contract between our families. He’d tried to show me this, but I’d thrown it all back in his face by running off to L.A.
Over the last few days, I kept turning over in my head recent events. I knew why he was mad that I went to L.A., but I couldn’t just abandon my sibling when she needed me. Even worse, I hadn’t even been able to help Jess because my father had turned up before she could tell me what was wrong.
Between my worry for Jess and Marco’s reign of silence toward me, I was feeling utterly dejected. The only things that brightened my days were the fact that Debi wasn’t mad at me and that I had my dog for company—both Debi and Mr. Fluffy were definitely glad to have me back.
I fell asleep, turning over in my mind the words I’d finally admitted to Marco and wondering if he could ever love me back in the same way.
MARCO
I bolted upright in bed as I was suddenly woken.
I grabbed my gun and ran my gaze around the room before picking up my phone to check the security feeds and guard reports. I already knew I would find everything as it should be.
“Marco…?” murmured Juliana sleepily from next to me.
“Go back to sleep.”
“Are you okay?” she asked, pushing her hair out of her face and gazing at me. “Is something wrong?”
I sighed. “I can’t stop thinking about our mom being killed…about my siblings having to grow up without her. I can’t stop blaming myself.”
“It wasn’t your fault, Marco.” Her voice was soft.
“Alessio was there that day, but I should have taken charge. I was the future Capo. A Capo-to-be and I wasn’t even able to take care of one scumbag soldier who was skimming a few measly grand off our profits—and I wasn’t able to stop our lunatic father from killing our mom.”
“You have to stop blaming yourself,” Juliana said, moving closer to me.
“I barely sleep some nights, dreaming about the day she died. Even worse are the dreams where I imagine a life where our mom didn’t die, and then the crushing moment when I wake to reality.”
Juliana spoke quietly into the silence, her hand resting gently on my arm. “You saved me from my family. So why can’t you forgive yourself for saving your siblings from your father, a man so cruel that he killed your mother?”
“I don’t feel guilt about many things in my life, but this is something that keeps tormenting me.”
