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“Anyway, it’s not that shit that gets to me, is my point. And in some ways, it’s not even watching him die.” He pauses, then shakes his head. “No, it is that. He was taken out right in front of me, and it never should have happened. Not like that. He was too good. I mean, I’m better.” His lips briefly lift in a familiar cocky smirk that’s just as sexy as the first time I saw it, “But he was too good to be taken by surprise the way he was.”
“Someone set him up,” I guess, putting the pieces together. “Or… betrayed him?”
Dante’s face darkens. “That’s right. Not the first shithead who tried. Dad worked for a long time. Decades. He pissed a lot of people off and had a fuckload of enemies… or he would have, if all those pissed-off motherfuckers had known for sure it was Dad who pulled the trigger. But even though the right players knew who to call when they needed a hit, Dad was hella good at covering his tracks. Unless you were the one who hired him, you could never be sure he was the one who’d actually done the deed.”
“But?”
“But then someone double-crossed him. Someone he’d done a lot of work for passed his name to another interested party. Let them know that Dad was responsible for taking out a key player in their organization. And since Dad trusted the guy, he wasn’t watching his back the way he should when he agreed to a meet.”
“And you were there.”
Dante’s lips compress into a thin line, and he nods, eyes fixated on the painting we made again. “I was there. Got recurring nightmares about it now, and what, a dozen? Two dozen canvases maybe? All with that moment—or with, you know, my feelings about that moment—splashed across them.”
“The moment he died?”
“The moment I took out the son of a bitch who was responsible for it.”
“Does it help?”
He drags his eyes away from the canvas and looks down at me, his expression softening. “Yeah, princess, it does.”
“How old were you?”
“Fourteen.”
My heart clenches. He was so young. And from what he’s told me before, alone after that. Alone and looking for family, looking for a place to belong where loyalty was a real thing instead of the mockery of it that his father had found.
“Hey now, I don’t want your pity.”
I narrow my eyes, my heart tripping. “You’ve got to stop doing that.”
“What, reading every thought and emotion on that gorgeous face of yours, like you’re a wide open book?” he asks with a grin.
I laugh, because yeah. Exactly that.
He rolls us over, pinning me beneath him, and kisses me hard. “You’ll have to get used to it.” Then he sighs, resting his forehead against mine. “But I didn’t tell you that shit to make you feel sorry for me.”
“I don’t.”
It’s the truth.
“Good,” he says, “’cause as far as I’m concerned, pity’s a wasted emotion. It’s never gonna change anything. Doesn’t get you ahead. So what’s the point? Life is fucking chaos, all the time. Unpredictable. Messy. Full of pain. Shit happens, and you roll with it or you die. And I know you get that, because I’ve seen you do the same.”
I nod, my throat tightening up with emotion. I do get that, and I love that he sees me so well. That he noticed. And if I also still feel a little sorry for him anyway, for all the shit he had to go through at such a young age, for the loss and the years before he found what he’s got now, thenhe’lljust have to get used to it.
Or at least get over it.
Or… fine. I just won’t mention that part to him. Ever. But I’m suddenly fiercely, violently glad he found the family and loyalty he craves with the Reapers. That he has Maddoc and Logan now, two men who willalwayshave his back. Who would sooner cut off their own arms than sell him out to suffer the fate his father did.
“I don’t pity you,” I tell him, “but I do feel…”
He cups the back of my head. “What?”
“Close to you.” My throat almost closes over the whispered words. I’m not used to being so vulnerable with people. I’m also not used to feeling safe enough to want to. This time, I’m the one who cups his cheek. “Thank you for telling me about your father.”
He turns his face and kisses my palm. “I want you to know me, princess. I want…”
“What?”
