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My lips hurt from the salt of my tears, and I pull them into my mouth, moistening them. “Trixie.” I shake my head. “Whoever she was, I thought she was my friend. I told her things.”
“What things?” Dropping my hair, he uses a thumb to dry the tears from my skin.
“I told her my plan to have Roberto killed.”
He smiles sadly. “Baby. That was your secret. Not ours.”
I sniff unceremoniously. “I told her that Roberto was dead before Tony could kill him.”
He picks up my hand, kissing my knuckles and then the inside of my wrist. “Again, baby, your secret.”
I had resigned myself to death. I was certain Lorenzo had placated me in Gabriella’s apartment earlier. Krista all but signed my death warrant by declaring me an informant. I didn’t have many friends, and the one I did let in was stringing me along with the hope I’d sell out my family. She held no affection for me. I feel stupid and unloved and frightened, but mostly, I feel sad.
“You doing okay?”
I shake my head. “No.”
“Tell me how to fix it,” he rasps. The helplessness in his voice mirrors how I feel inside.
“You can’t,” I confess. “Andre was my friend. I loved him.” My voice breaks, and I let go of a shaky sob.
“I know you did.”
“It’s my fault,” I slur, my lips sticking together with the excess saliva coating my tongue. “I asked you to employ him for me. If he still worked for Papa, he’d be alive.”
“Bianca,” he soothes. “This isn’t your fault. Trixie pulled the trigger.”
“Krista,” I correct. “Trixie didn’t exist. Attributing blame to someone who has lost their life seems an insult to the dead, no matter how much she deserved it.”
“If you can’t blame her. Blame me,” he suggests easily. “Icalled Andre. I asked him to go to the apartment. He was a driver, not fucking security.”
Guilt seizes his words, and I lean into his hand. “That’s not your fault.Ibrought Andre into our lives.”
“Bianca.”
“He cared about me, Vinnie,” I beseech. “He was one of the few people whoreallycared about me.”
I’m showing my soul, baring my greatest weakness and most shameful flaw. I’m alone.
Vincent shakes his head. “He did care about you, but he wasn’t one of afew.”
I shrug. “It doesn’t matter.”
“I care about you,” he murmurs.
I pull from his touch, my already broken heart splintering further. “Care for me?” I choke out. “How significantly reassuring.”
“Dolcezza.”
I roll over, giving him my back. “I’d like to be left alone.”
“I won’t do that.”
“Please,” I beg.
“No.”
Stuffing my hands under my pillow, I snuggle in, trying to reconcile the fact that I’ll never see Andre again. I swallow the caustic reality that I’m so desperate for love and connection that I fell under the spell of a woman standing on my heart to further her career. “I’m sure you have work to do. Police to corrupt to cover up Trixie’s death.”
