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“Don’t make my family sound like saints compared to yours. My parents kept a massive secret from me.”
“Don’t you think I’d keep all of this a secret from you if I could?”
“You’d spend a lifetime lying to me about who you are?”
“I already will. There is so much I can’t and won’t tell you. Half-truths, lies by omission, flat-out bold-faced lies.”
“That’s out of necessity.”
“And you don’t think your parents felt the same way,piccolina?”
His voice is lower, but his tone feels condescending. Like I should see the obvious. I get what he’s saying, but that doesn’t help how I’m feeling. I get up, no longer wanting anyone near me. I need space to think. Apparently, my boyfriend doesn’t agree. He gets up, and I hear him suck in a breath rather than groan in pain. Then he’s sliding an arm around my waist as I look out the window. He moved fast and silently. I almost jump.
“You should be in bed.”
“Only if you’re in it with me.”
“Is that all you can think about?”
“I didn’t mean sex, though I think about that a lot now that I know you. Let me hold you while we talk.”
“I need to think without being distracted. I can’t do that while I’m touching you. I either want to fuck your bones or fall asleep.”
“Fall asleep?”
“Yes. I feel so comfortable and safe with you that I can relax. But I need to think right now.”
“Talk to me. Let me hear your thoughts as you work through them. Don’t shut me out.”
I rub the bridge of my nose and between my eyebrows, then scratch my temple before swiping my hand over my forehead. None of it eases the headache that’s back, nor does it make me think any more clearly.
“Can you stand? Or do you need to sit down?”
“I’ll stand as long as you want. Chellie, this isn’t the worst injury I’ve had.”
“That is not what I need to hear right now. But if you don’t mind holding me like this, I can think straight. But I need to do it on my own. I’m not ready to talk yet.”
He kisses the temple I’d just scratched. His arm remains around my waist, but he says nothing more. It’s the security I need without lulling me to the point where I can no longer keep my eyes open.
I get why they don’t want the O’Rourkes involved. They don’t need any more hands in the cookie jar. I know that as many problems as the Kutsenkos have had with the Mancinellis, they’ve had just as many with the O’Rourkes. I don’t know all the details, but I know the fucked-up shit that happened to Laura when she was dating Maks involved them.
Laura is the one person I want to go to for advice since she’s the only one who can understand my position — an outsider now sucked into the heart of a syndicate. But I can’t. Her new family and the one I intend to marry into are enemies. I can’t ignore or downplay that. It was childish of me to think that I could.
Will marrying Enzo and becoming a Mancinelli end my oldest friendship? Possibly. Could I walk away from Laura to be with Enzo? Yes. And that makes me feel like shit. But I also know exactly how Laura felt almost three years ago when she made that choice. When she picked Maks. I didn’t fault her; I just didn’t understand her. Now I do, and that brings me right back to why I wish I could talk to her.
“Do you want to talk to Laura about this?”
I wasn’t prepared for Enzo to ask that.
“Are you standing close enough to hear my thoughts?”
“No, little one. I just know she’s the one person you know who can understand the position you’re in. I wish I was that person. The one you want to turn to. But I know I’m not.”
I twist in his embrace and cup his face.
“It doesn’t mean I love you any less.”
The relief I see in his gaze floors me.
