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“Youneed to learn some boundaries, Julian.”
I yawn. “Boundaries are for boring people. But since you ask, it’s going fine.”
“He hasn’t instructed you to take out Sandro yet?”
“Not yet.” At his grunt I go on, “What is it?”
“Listen, I know you think you’re playing the long game, and the idea seemed solid at first, but I don’t think you understand how tricky things are for Sandro right now.”
“What do you mean?” He doesn’t answer, and I’m suddenly annoyed. “If you know something, why not tell me? Iampart of the inner circle—technically, anyway. And you must realize by now that you can trust me.”
He gives a bark of astonished laughter. “Trustyou?”
“Yes,” I insist. “Trust me.”
He stares at me for a moment, then pulls his eyes back to the road. “Julian,” he says, and he sounds gentle. “What do you think trust is?”
I’m taken aback by his question. Trust, when I think about it, is a difficult thing for me to put into words. “I’m doing what Sandro wants me to do,” I say at last. “I tell him where I am. What I’m doing. I’m even telling you, now, about La Contessa, when she wanted me to keep my mouth shut.”
“Trust is more complicated than truthfulness,” Jack tells me. “It requires handing over a piece of your own power. Willingly, to someone else. Believing they’ll have your back.”
“Youhave my back,” I point out stubbornly. “I trust you.”
“Yes, but Julian...” He chuckles. “Ah, forget it.”
“No.” I turn in the seat, glaring at him. “Tell me.”
“You trust me,” he says slowly, “because I’ve never given you a reason not to, and because you understand that I wouldn’t hurt you. Do you know why?”
“Because we’re friends.”
“Friends don’t threaten to kill each other’s boyfriends.”
I start to reply, remind him that I haven’t done that for ages, but then I see his point. “You don’t trust me.”
“No.”
Something more depressing occurs to me. “You don’t think we’re friends, either. Is that it?”
Jack says nothing.
I feel…wounded. “Then why did you support me when I put my suggestion to Sandro about being a double agent? Why did you come and pick me up tonight?”
Jack still says nothing, and after that, neither do I, until we pull up in front of Redwood Manor.
“Hey.” He grabs me as I start to get out of the car, and I have to fight the impulse to break his arm. “If you want trust, you need toshowyou can be trusted. Understand?”
“God, Jack, go tell your therapist,” I groan, and pull away.
But I mull over what he’s said as I head into my home. Walking up these marble steps into Redwood always feels like entering a different world—a world where money is everywhere and power is the only thing that matters. It’s a world I’ve always been completely comfortable in, taken for granted.
Seeing Leo’s place drove home to me that gulf betweenus, the Castellanis, andthem, the Bernardis. But I don’t feel the usual smug sureness in my superiority.
Love ain’t measured in dollars, Castellani.
Perhaps he was right.
Now I just feel determined. Determined to make Leo understand that talking to his father is necessary. If that means building trust with the Bernardi Lion, then that’s what I’ll do.
