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“I don’t want you to change.”
My eyebrows raise. “Then why did you run away?”
“Because I was scared.”
I stand and move toward her. I sit on the couch and she shifts closer. My heart’s racing, and tension and nerves tingle down my arms and into my core.
“You don’t have to be.”
“But I do. It’s not just about me anymore—it’s about this baby too. You’re right, you are what you are, and I can’t ask you to change. I won’t ask you to change, and that scares the hell out of me.”
“So why come back?”
“Because I want to be scared.”
I let out a soft grunt. Is she saying what I think she’s saying? I feel hope blooming, and I have to work to stomp it back out. No, no fucking hope. Not until this is done.
“I want you, Sara. I want that baby. And I told you, want can turn into more. I feel it turning into more. You can run back home and pretend like none of this is real, but I feel it, and I know you feel it too. I’m not letting go.”
“I don’t want you to let go.” She moves closer. “Angelo, I told the chief of police to fuck off last night.”
I let out a disbelieving laugh. “You did what?”
“My dad set me up. He took me to the Oak Club like he wanted to have a nice dinner but instead he sat me down in front of Chief Corvine.”
“That fucking bastard,” I say and rage simmers down my spine. “Your own father ambushed you.”
“Because the chief knows he’s screwed. There’s no way their flimsy charges will stand up to scrutiny and he’s scrambling. He offered me some bullshit deal to keep Nicolas in jail and he’ll become my patron or something like that, but I told him to fuck off. I told him to free Nicolas or I’m telling the world the truth.”
“Which is what?”
“The cops did it. I don’t know how or why, but they must’ve thought there were drugs in that motel room. Something went wrong, someone got spooked, and they started shooting. They murdered those five cartel guys, and under normal circumstances they could’ve played the self-defense card, and who the heck’s going to care about a bunch of dead criminals? But the cops panicked, they thought they screwed up, they figured public opinion would turn against them and there’d be riots, so they tried to cover it up. And the coverup is way worse than the crime.”
All that makes sense. It fits the story I have in my head about what really happened, and now I can see how Nicolas got roped into this nightmare. They were reacting, and reacting poorly, and grabbed Nicolas without thinking through the ramifications of how that would play out. Ever since then, it’s been damage control.
“I broke into Detective John’s house and beat him bloody and shoved a gun in his face.”
Sara sits up straight. “What? You did what?”
“It was fun. Fucker had it coming.” I laugh miserably. “I guess we’re more alike than I realized, we just go about things differently.”
She stares at me, her mouth hanging open—and she smiles. A beautiful, lopsided smile. “You’re insane.”
“He threatened you. He deserved it.”
“He did, but he’s a cop.”
“Fuck him. He’s a dirty cop doing dirty work for the chief. You know he won’t do a damn thing.”
“God, Angelo, how did we get here?”
I move closer and reach out. She doesn’t flinch back as I brush my knuckles against her cheek and run my fingers against her neck. “Slowly, step by step, but we’re almost at the end, aren’t we? They can’t hold Nicolas. They can’t risk you telling the truth about what happened. But mostly they can’t let the coverup get out.”
“What’s going to happen?”
“They’ll either kill us or cut a deal. Which do you think they’ll do?”
She takes a deep breath and lets it out. “I don’t think I care anymore. Let them figure it out.”
“Yeah, that’s what I was thinking.” I lean closer and brush my lips against hers. “I’ve got better things to do.”
I kiss her then, deep and slow, and taste her tongue and lips, and fuck, I wouldn’t let myself imagine this was a possibility, but now that she’s kissing me back and she’s making that lovely, amazing, earth-shaking whimper, I’m going to hold on to this. I’m not going to let it go.
Everything I’ve done until now has been for me and my grandmother. All my struggle, all my pain. It’s been for my family.
And now Sara is part of that family.
It doesn’t matter what the world sees in me. It doesn’t matter what her parents think I deserve, or what the people in power think should happen. I’m Nicolas, I’m Carmine. I’m Angelo, and I don’t give a fuck anymore.
I take what I want and I keep what I love.
