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“This information Johnny gave you. You could have taken it, walked right into their compound, and told him that my father was planning to take over the Russos since day one and wanted to use you to do it. They’re not powerless. They could have done something. Started a war.”
A war of my own starts in my mind as I try to bring my thoughts to words.
To tell Dante the truth.
Because the truth will give him all the ammo he needs against me; the power will shift to his hands. The truth will reveal just how much he means to me.
“Because it put you at risk,” I admit, and now it’s my time to distract myself with the streetlights, watching as they speed past us.
Dante doesn’t answer, but his eyes burn on me intermittently.
Finally, I look over at him and catch him glancing at me before looking forward again.
“If my family decided a war was necessary with the information I gave them, you could have been hurt. You’d be the obvious person to retaliate with. The obvious first hit. I need . . . I need a better plan. I need more information. I need . . .” I need a million things.
“You didn’t tell them because you wanted to keep me safe,” he says, and it’s not quite a statement, but also not exactly a question.
Neither of us talks.
I watch four minutes pass on the digital clock in silence before I finally answer.
“I guess so,” I say.
“That’s how I know,” he says in a whisper that I almost don’t hear over the quiet hum of the engine.
“What?”
“That’s how I know we’ll be okay.” I stare at his handsome profile but don’t respond. He hits the blinker, pulling over, slowing the car onto the shoulder before he slams the car into park and turns to me, cupping my face in his hands.
“That’s how I know we’ll make it through this. You sacrificed your revenge to keep me safe. You have what you need to take them down. Proof that the club has illegal games, that there’s been at least some talk of prostitution. You know your father is deep in debt. Find the right FBI agent, give the information to your family, all the dominos would collapse and you’d be standing there, free and clear and smiling. But you let it sit. You let it eat at you, burn a hole in your pocket because using any of that will bring me down too. I’m not clear, Delilah. I might not be toxic filth, but I’m far from clean. I’m far from good. I broke a man’s wrist for touching you. I’ve done worse—much, much worse. And you know that. But you feel it.” His nose rubs mine, and my eyes sting as he says the things I haven’t admitted to myself.
“I will sacrifice everything to keep you safe. I will tear my own father down for even thinking of hurting you. I will make everyone pay, Delilah. I will put you on your fucking throne. This will work because, for some fucked-up reason, the world put you in my life and everything changed. You changed everything for me. And in a way, I know I did the same for you.”
My throat closes up, tears lining it.
“It’s going to be hard. I won’t bullshit you. Change isn’t easy, and this kind of change with these kinds of men? It’s not just difficult; it’s dangerous. I can’t just fight, force the takeover. As much of an ass as he is, Paulie has pull with the capos he brought on and the soldiers loyal to Tony. We need to be smart. Strategic.”
“Your plan?”
“It’s changing, but it’s still there.” I sigh. I hate this. I hate it so damned much. “I need to reassess. I need to keep you safe. Keep us safe. Give us a fucking future. I don’t want a future where you don’t have what you need and I’m constantly worried I’ll be sent off to prison, where I can’t see you every day. But change like that—it takes time.”
Time.
I don’t want it to take time anymore.
“I’m tired, Dante.” A single tear drops. “I’m tired of hiding. I’m tired of being kept in the shadows. I want to be me. I want to be me with you.”
“I know, baby. We’ll have that beautiful life, I promise. I’m going to give you the world.”
“You can’t even give me your mornings, Dante.” The look that flashes in his eyes tells me that my words hit, and they hurt.
He is a man who has everything and probably has never been unable to give everything to a woman in his life—and here he is, unable to give me something so fucking simple.
“Play pretend. For a weekend.”
“What?”
“We’re going away, you and me. No one will know us there. We’ll be free to be us.”
