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“There’s the issue of Alex.”
“If this is about honor and loyalty toward him, what about honoring me, the woman you’ve deflowered,” I snapped. God, his omissions were only adding to my irritation.
His hand collared me, the fingers around my throat promptly making me feel better, which only added to my annoyance.
“Hey, I’d take my honor toward you over him any day, but he’s my sef. I owe him everything, my life and that of my family. I must ensure their ongoing safety by doing this right. What he giveth, he may taketh away.”
He was talking in riddles, but something penetrated through my fog of frustration.
“He has a reason to take everything away, doesn’t he,” I demanded.
I’d been in the game long enough to catch when someone was being vague. He was hiding something. We lived in a world where there was little ambiguity—unless something was wrong. Then everything turned murky as hell, with no guideposts to lead the way through our swamp-filled world.
He swallowed hard.
“Yes,” he affirmed. “He has reason to. It’s complicated, and I won’t get you mixed up in it. This is my burden alone.” His voice dropped so low I almost didn’t hear him. “It has been for so long.”
“Will this secret compromise my ability to serve the Hagi?” I asked.
A normal woman might be more alarmed at the possibility of a looming secret, but secrets were run-of-the-mill in my world. Everyone had secrets. Hell, I was keeping a huge secret from my father and clan right this instant, but it was my duty to my clan to ask.
Offense lit up his eyes and turned them into two glittering black flames. “What do you take me for? You have a clan to lead. Barriers to break. History to make. I wouldn’t ever let anyone or anything harm you. I will always protect you. First, foremost, and always. Don’t you think I want to tell you, I want to share the load, but I can’t unburden myself at your expense. I’d die before I tolerated such a thing.”
His face was set in a fierce mask of anger.
I’d insulted him.
Sitting on his haunches, his shoulders abruptly dropped in defeat. My heart cracked at having injured his sense of honor. Tatum was one of the most honorable men I knew.
I reached out to him, grazing my fingers down his chest. “I’m sorry. I don’t know what to think when you can’t tell me what it is.”
“It wouldn’t touch your ability to rule, but it would compromise my family, and I cannot allow that to happen.”
“Obviously,” I repeated because I knew who he was. At his core, he was a protector. He always showed more concern for his mother and sister than he did for himself. This secret must be of epic proportions because while mafie men were notoriously possessive and protective, Tatum took things to the nth degree. He wasn’t just normal macho mafie protective; he was OTT protective.
But this added another unnecessary wrinkle to an already complicated situation. Did this have anything to do with Grigore’s digging? I thought for a moment but shook off the idea. This was clearly personal to Tatum’s family, whereas Grigore was looking for dirt on Alex.
“You might have mentioned this to me earlier?” I pointed out softly.
Releasing my throat, he scraped the scruff of his jaw with his knuckles. “There was never the right time to bring it up, and honestly, there never will be. Either it will never become an issue, which is what I pray and work for every day, or it breaks open and destroys my entire life here.”
“Fuck,” I squeaked out.
A grimace passed over his face.
“Your reaction is not exactly encouraging,” I said. “If there’s a big secret looming over you and your family, and that’s pretty much what it looks like from where I’m standing, shouldn’t you tell me what it is? I know that you think you’re protecting me, but if this is a big deal, then I need to know what I’m getting myself into.”
“Does it matter?” he challenged.
“Of course, it matters.”
“It doesn’t, though, because we’ve already fucked. We’re already blood bonded. I’m within my rights to demand we get married, if I wanted to,” he countered.
My jaw clenched. “Is that a threat?”
A muscle pulsed under his skin near his jawline. “Of course not. Like I said before, I wouldn’t have laid one finger on you, much less taken your virginity, if I thought there’d be any blowback on you or your clan with this.”
Frustration gnawed my chest. Lips pursed, I squinted at him in vexation. Rolling my shoulders loose, I took a bracing breath.
