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“We have a trip to Italy coming up,” I told her. “It’s a week-long excursion, and you’re coming with me.”
“No, I’m not.”
I straightened. “I thought I was passed this hot and cold shit with you,” I bellowed, leaning forward. “What the fuck is your problem, Sienna?”
“Oh, you thought I’d be passed it because we fucked a few times?” she asked. “That’s all it was, wasn’t it? There were no declarations of love and life-long commitment. Have you never fucked someone before?”
I tried to read her, but as always, I fell short of completely understanding what I saw there. Her expression and everything about her seemed closed off and angry, but her eyes told another story. I saw uncertainty and sadness there. I saw jealousy and wondered if this had all been because of Fiona.
“I can assure you, I’ve fucked plenty of people,” I told her, barely managing to keep my calm. “We’re still in the same situation as we were before we had sex. I’ve loosened up on the guards around the house because of more pressing matters on the streets. I assure you, it has nothing to do withyou.You’re still not leaving my side.”
“You seriously think I’m going to go to the police with this? After all the time I’ve spent here?” she snapped.
I paused. I didn’t think she’d be ignorant enough to go to the cops, especially not after all she’d seen. I did, however, think that she was hiding something. And until I learned what it was, I wouldn’t let her go.
“You’re not being honest with me,” I told her.
“Are you looking for more reasons to keep me here?” she pushed.
Yes. That was precisely what I was doing. After everything, I still wasn’t ready to let go of this fiery redhead, even though logic told me to abandon ship for both our sakes. She may have been more trouble than she was worth, but I needed more time to decide how to finish this. I wasn’t delusional enough to think I could keep her forever, but I didn’t plan on letting her go until I was ready.
“You’re going to Italy with me. You’re not going to argue with me about that.”
“Like hell I am.”
“We’re leaving in three days. Prepare your things however you want. If you need to go shopping, give Lucia a list of things you need. Until then, I have a lot of preparations to make, so I won’t be around as often.”
“You’re demanding to take me out of the country?” she shouted, standing. “And you think I’m going to go willingly? With you?”
“You’ve done plenty of more substantial things with me,” I told her. “Willingly.”
She scoffed and stormed toward the door. “I’m not going. Why don’t you try bringing that hooker Fiona? I’m sure she’dloveto join the mile-high club with you.”
17
Sienna
I couldn’t go to Italy—not with my fake passport. I couldn’t let him get far enough in his plans to kill Valentino. More than any of it, though, I needed to end this before I found myself emotionally attached.
I’d been trying to remind myself of the man I was killing and the reasons he deserved it, but it had become harder in the past few days. I saw the differences between him and his father. I saw the mercy he had for innocents and the love he had in his family life.
But as I walked into the room and found Fiona sitting nearly in his lap, stroking a hand down his arm seductively, all that rage exemplified. Everything came to the surface, and I couldn’t hold it at bay.
I couldn’t believe he had me questioning something I’d been striving to do my entire life. How had I let a man’s dick swayme so far from what needed to happen? Valentino, the man who raised me, was counting on me, and I wouldn’t let him down. He didn’t have to take me and my mom into his home after my father died, but he’d done so because hecared.
And when Mom died of a broken heart a year later, he’d kept me.
He’d raised me.
He’d given me a purpose.
I wouldn’t throw it away for misguided feelings of lust.
I remembered Lucia mentioning an allergy in my first days here, and I’d acquired a bag of ground sesame seeds after three days of being watched like a hawk. It wasn’t easy to sneak out of the house and into an Asian market down the street, but I’d accomplished it and hidden them well.
Using another weapon on him, like my shiv, would be too messy I realized. I needed to take Dante out in a quiet manner—so that there would be no time for anyone to act before I could escape with my life.
It was time I stopped this once and for all.
