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His father tried to kill him. When?My stupid brain was already racing back, sifting through memories, through clues, and I recalled with a jolt that Daniel said he was supposed to go to Sicily, but that his great-grandfather changed his mind after meeting his father. And hadn’t Sal gotten upset with Danny even though it was his goddamn fault—
“Are you ill?”
I jolted at that voice, gripping the railing hard, and staring into the sea, the blinking lights of the boats, the vague shadow of an island.
“Sara.” His voice was pitched lower, and I sensed him at my back, causing my skin to flush, and other memories to rise up, playing havoc with me. “I asked you a question.”
“You lost the right to an answer a long time ago,” I said quietly. “Leave me alone.”
Daniel shifted and stepped up next to me, a little way down, also leaning on the railing. “You’re not mad because of the speech, are you?” He shot me a hateful smile as I gave him a blank stare. “I only wanted to keep up with you.”
“We have to babysit Mario tonight,” I said. Or rather, I expected that I would watch after Mario, while Daniel had guard duty.“So, stop. Please. We’ve been civil for two years, let’s not stop at their wedding.”
“Fine, I’ll play along.” Daniel’s green eyes glowed at me. “If you tell me what the hell is wrong with you?”
At that moment, I thought Daniel had never looked more like his cousin Ty. Or like the Ty who’d once run the Michaelson crime family before he’d become a father and a husband. His face was a study, all hard lines and intensity. There was no curiosity, no compassion, and I hadn’t realized how much of that had been there, right under the surface, until it was gone.
Now it was all about power. Daniel had gotten broader over the past two years, too, the seams of his shirt taut over a sculpted chest and biceps. His hair was a little shorter, but still shaggy, and he still had an impeccable sense of style. He was also still the most gorgeous man I’d ever seen—only now it was worse because I knew what it was like to have all that intensity honed on me and only me. To be worshipped and pleasured and teased and tormented to a level of bliss that I sometimes wondered if I’d overexaggerated it to myself. If emotions hadn’t run so high, if we hadn’t been so foolish—and… I didn’t know.
What I did know was that every time I saw Daniel, it felt as though lifetimes had passed between us. And deep down, I knew that he was never coming back to me. I’d never have that Danny that I briefly knew, the man I’d caught glimpses of—he was gone.
So, it didn’t matter what I said, so long as I gave an answer that would satisfy his ego and let him walk away the victor. I tippedmy head to the side and said softly, “Heavy, Pasquale, and Artie were talking about the first time we all met. In Lia’s apartment.”
Whatever Daniel had been expecting, it wasn’t that, and his eyes seemed to darken, his body radiating intensity. “And?”
“And it brought up some bad memories,” I said. “Reminded me of how naïve I used to be despite my shitty ex.” I gave him a brittle smile. “Reminded me that I’m not Lia—and I don’t get a happily ever after.”
Daniel stood there, his lips parted, at a complete loss for words. I shot him a hateful smile of my own and headed back inside. At the door, I called back, “So, I’ll see you later. Been nice catching up.”
I turned back inside but not before I saw Daniel staring down at the ground, his fists clenched, and the cords of his neck standing out. He seemed to be in physical pain.
It wasn’t the first time I’d left him like that, wasn’t the first time I suspected that I could level him with the right weapon.
But it was the first time in two years that I hated myself for doing it and wished that things hadn’t been so utterly destroyed between the two of us.
Daniel
You can’t ever let a bitch have any power of you,said my father’s voice from deep inside of me, from a memory that I still couldn’t erase.They are only good for their pussy and need to be reminded of that—all the fucking time.
“Shut up,” I put a hand to my head.Shut up. I never listen to the likes of you, Sal Michaelson, about a good woman.
I looked up, then, to ensure that Sara was gone, and saw that, as usual, I was alone. My eyes went to the glass doors, to where I could see Sara now dancing and laughing, hugging Lia as though I’d been talking to a different person on the patio.
How the fuck did I think I could ruin her?I gripped my hair.How could I try? Why did I do that shit?
I shook my head, clearing it. No, I wasn’t going to go there. I’d spent too many nights torturing myself and thinking of Sara, shuttling my hand up and down my cock, trying to find some fucking relief and getting none.
A grim, cruel smile played around my mouth, and I gazed out at the sea. Sara would be pleased—and probably knew that to be the case. Nothing worked. I couldn’t even look at another woman—I hadn’t been with anyone since her.
The closest I got was in dreams, when Sara was back with me, and I somehow hadn’t fucked everything up.
But I had had to. I didn’t regret driving Sara away. Maybe, in the months after, I’d been seized with the urge to go on my knees and apologize, to ask her to wait, and that I’d leave the mob one day—only now I knew why I hadn’t.
Not because she wouldn’t have waited—she would have.
And I wouldn’t have been able to keep my hands off of her.
Stay away, stay far away,I warned myself.She is not for you. You broke her heart, you ruined it. There is no going back and that’s a good thing.
