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“I can’t escape this,” I say, “but you’re right. It’s not my choice.”
“Why can’t you escape it?” Lexi replies. “You’ve got Elio, Luca,Colt… You have the whole Family behind you.”
“You don’t understand,” I snap. “You don’t know what it’s like to…”
I sit on the bed and almost break down in tears. Then the old instincts come back, the ones that led me when I was a kid, the ones that made it possible to keep this all locked away.
“To what?” Lexi asks softly.
I can’t tell her what I wasreallythinking about my childhood. Instead, I say, “You don’t know what it’s like to want somebody to make me disappear.”
“What, likekidnapyou?”
“I would prefer that,” I hiss. “Instead of worrying about how to deal with this mess withDad, I could just disappear.”
“What happened, Mia, to make you prefer that?”
But I can’t say. I can’t even bring myself close to saying it. It’s not like I’m special. Lexi experienced her fair share of hell and could talk about it eventually.
“It’s okay,” Lexi whispers. “You don’t have to say.”
“Maybe this will be a good thing,” I say. “Maybe I’ll be able to make myself feel something for Vito, whoever he is. Or maybe I’ll turn numb and stay numb, and that will be me from now on.”
“I can’t imagine you like that,” Lexi murmurs.
I shrug, looking at the floor.
“Listen, I’m here for you, okay?” Lexi goes on. “I know you’re not ready to talk about it right now, but I’ll be here when you are. If you don’t want to marry that man, you don’t have to.”
“Please don’t say that outside this room,” I tell her.
Lexi sighs heavily. I keep looking at the floor. If I look up, I’ll have to see the judgment in her eyes. Whenshehad a big bad wolf, that pervert Ralph, I helped her to go after him. I was pretty brave. I think I can pat myself on the back for that, but Ralph and Dad are different kinds of monsters.
CHAPTER 5
Dante
“You good?” Colt says when I return to the garden.
I won’t tell him what I’ve been doing. It was like some dark instinct drew me after Mia. Following her up the stairs, I lurked outside the bedroom, listening like I was on a job. I heard what she said.You don’t know what it’s like to want somebody to make me disappear.
An idea boils in my mind, appealing to my dark side, pieces fitting together even when I know they shouldn’t be.
“Yeah,” I say after a pause.
“Want that photo?” he asks.
I nod. “Let’s get a selfie with the party in the background. That’ll satisfy Ma.”
Mia’s husband-to-be, Vito and Leonardo Marino are laughing together on the other side of the garden. Everybody seems to like him. Nobody else seems to have noticed that panicked lookin Mia’s eyes, and nobody else heard what Mia said to Lexi. She doesn’t want to marry him. It has something to do with her father.
Colt and I take the photo. I do my best to smile so that Mom can enjoy the photo, and then I put my phone away and head for the house.
“You’re leaving?” Colt asks.
“Stuff to do,” I tell him.
“Suit yourself.”
