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My heart swells in my chest. God, I love him. I love him so much, even if he’s not ready to say the same to me.
“I love you,” I say, unable to help myself, and Dante puts an arm around my waist, being careful not to stretch his shoulder.
He doesn’t answer me, like usual, but he nuzzles against my neck and that’s almost good enough.
When I open my eyes the next morning, it’s because Dante has opened the balcony door, sliding it open gently. I haven’t been sleeping that well lately, since the kidnapping, so it wakes me instantly.
He’s on the phone, and I shift and am about to call out to him when I hear what he’s saying.
“I’m still going to kill the bastard,” he says in a low tone.
Shit. He’s still going after Vincenzo.
21
DANTE
Leonardo calls me way too early in the damn morning, sounding like he’s just gotten out of the strip club downtown. “What the hell is this I hear about you working with Lorenzo?” he snarls.
I stand up, looking over at Mia, who’s still sleeping, but fitfully. My heart aches. She’s not been sleeping well, having nightmares, ever since the kidnapping. It makes me wish I’d have killed the sonofabitch myself.
I slide open the balcony door quietly. “I’m still going to kill the bastard,” I say in a quiet tone. “I’m just playing the long game, Leo.”
“Real fucking long!” Leo cries. Leonardo had been close to my father, almost like a surrogate brother to me, like Nico, and we’ve always gotten along, but he’s too impulsive. He wants what he wants now and not later, and that can be a problem with what we do.
I sigh, looking out over the grounds. The gardener needs to come and cut the grass again.
I know how Leo feels. I’d felt the same way, at first, when I went over to Luca’s to deal with Vincenzo.
“Listen, working with him just makes him trust me more,” I explain. “I don’t want him to see it coming. The Lorenzos are a big famiglia, and what good will it do us if I get popped right after I take care of him?” I pause.
“First you marry his daughter,” Leo mumbles. “Then you don’t take care of him. Every second he lives is disrespectful to Uncle Enzo,” Leo insists, breathing hard. He’s probably drunk and pissed off, but that doesn’t excuse this kind of behavior.
“Who do you think you’re talking to?” I ask in a calm, even tone.
Leo pauses. “I’m just...I thought you were going to take care of it.”
“I’m going to take care of it,” I promise. “I’m going to cut off his fucking head. Is that what you want to hear, Leo?”
He pauses again, so long if I didn’t hear him breathing, I would have thought he hung up. “Sorry,cugino,”he mumbles.
“Capo,to you,” I growl, and Leo goes quiet again. “Now ditch this phone, you asshole.”
I hang up the phone, huffing out a breath, and when I turn, Mia’s standing at the balcony door, her blue eyes wide.
I freeze for a second. Did she hear the whole thing? Does she know who we were discussing? I don’t remember what I said, so what if she knows what I’m planning?
I slide open the door, frowning. “What’s wrong, pretty girl?” I ask, reaching out to touch her auburn hair, which is mussed from sleep.
“Nightmare,” she murmurs, pressing her face into my chest. She wouldn’t act this way if she knew the truth about my plans, right? She’d be devastated. Screaming bloody murder at me.
And why do I care so much that she still comes to me. That I don’t hurt her?
I know that I’m getting too close to Mia. I know that I have feelings for her, deep ones, and last night it was all I could do not to say that I love her back. But I have to keep myself at some kind of a distance. I know that she’ll hate me after I kill her father, and the very idea of it makes my stomach churn. Unless... unless I can keep it secret from her, set someone else up to take the fall?
Gallo would have been the obvious choice, but now that obviously isn’t going to work. If there was only a way to keep it from her. To keep her loving me.
Despite how hard I’m fighting it, I can’t help myself from falling for her.
