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He gives me a lopsided grin, and the look in his eyes makes my heart skip a beat. Is that love I see shining in them?
“I get why you’re working so hard for this case. I’m not leaving your side, baby. You want to walk the streets and find out everything you can, then you’ll be doing it with at least two men on you at all times.”
I pull in a sharp breath. I thought he’d try to dictate that I can’t continue, but listening to him say that he’s behind me, it means everything.
“When I’m not with you, Beppe will be. He’s my best friend and the man I trust above all else. I need you to be smart and vigilant. If something doesn’t feel right, tell Beppe or I. Understand?”
I grin at him. “Understood,” I breathe. “Thank you.”
“Baby, I would do anything for you. I just need you to trust that I’m here to protect you.”
I press a kiss to his lips, so fucking thankful that he’s here and not pushing me to do what he wants.
“Now that you’ve told me everything, it’s time for me to do the same,” he says, and that happiness I felt mere seconds ago vanishes, and in its place is dread. Especially when I look into his eyes and see pain and anger.
“Dario, what’s going on?”
He takes a step back, and it’s almost as though a coldness has settled over the room. Gone is the man who looked at me with love and happiness. It’s like he’s a different person.
“The first time my father hit me with the belt, that I can remember, I was seven. He fucked up and hit me across my face. He split my lip open, and I needed stitches.” His chest is heaving as he clenches his hands. “No matter what I did, it was never good enough for Aldo. I wasn’t my brothers—Rocco was his favorite, the one he would mold into the boss, and Elio was the one who could kill people the best. I was just the runt.”
I shake my head, tears falling down my face. The pain in his eyes hurts me. It actually fucking hurts. I can’t breathe right now. I can’t even speak.
“Over the years, he’d do whatever the hell he wanted. He learned to stay away from my face—too many people would notice an injury there. They’d start talking, and Aldo Gallo couldn’t have that,” he sneers. “I finally got fucking free of his bullshit at nineteen, but by then, it was too late. I had fucked up. I’d become a monster.”
I shake my head. “No,” I say vehemently. “No, you’re not a monster.” He’s never that.
His laughter is manic, and I stare at him. God, what did that asshole of a father do to him? What did he do to make him think so little of himself? “You can tell me,” I assure him.
“Once I do,” he begins, his words low and drawn out, “you’re going to want me to leave.”
“I won’t,” I vow. There’s no way in hell I’m letting him leave, not like this. Never like this. “Tell me, Dario. I won’t judge you.”
He glances away. “I was eighteen when my father made me torture someone for the first time. I had killed plenty of men before that. Traitors, enemies, assholes, I’d killed them all. But not once had I killed someone by torturing them. Gio,” he says, and I flinch. I know Gio—well, I knew of him. He was friends with my papa. He and his wife, Angela, came to our house a lot for dinners. Angela and Mama were the best of friends. When they died, it hurt my parents.
“Gio stole over six million from the Famiglia account,” he says, and I pull in a sharp breath. Fuck. That’s not good. “I was the one who had to deal with it.”
You don’t ever steal from the Famiglia. You do and it’s an instant death sentence.
“The thing was, the money that was taken, it ended up in Angela’s account.”
Fuck.
“She was ten days away from giving birth,” he says. “I had been given the task to kill both Gio and Angela.”
“You killed the baby too,” I whisper. It’s a statement. I remember what was said when my parents found out about their deaths. They had assumed that Gio had cut the baby from Angela as she went into labor, and when both his wife and daughter died, he killed himself, unable to handle the guilt.
He nods. “By the time I finished torturing Angela, the baby was already dead.”
I watch the man I have fallen for. There’s just pain in his eyes. No remorse, no regret, just pain.
“You don’t regret what you did?” I ask.
He shakes his head. “I feel guilty for the way I lost control. It was like I wasn’t there. Something came over me and I just unleashed all the anger I had pent up over the years. Knowing that Aldo was standing in the doorway watching, it was too much. I wanted him to be the one I was killing, not them. But they fucked up, Portia. They stole from the Famiglia. What was I supposed to do?”
I sigh. “Would you do it again?”
He nods. “Probably. Although I wouldn’t take the baby from the womb,” he says quietly.
