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I ground my teeth together, feeling the anger come back full force, but it wasn’t aimed at her…it was at myself. “Nothing happened to me.” I turned, letting her see the blood that covered my front. My T-shirt was ruined, my jeans stained, but it was the dried blood on my face I felt the most. “This is who I am.”
She was halfway down the stairs now, her sleep shorts and tank top covering her body. “No.” She shook her head, her pale face so light under the starkness of reality.
“Yes.” I stepped forward, widening my stance. “This is who I was raised to be, Navy.” I paused, making sure she was looking right at me, but she couldn’t keep her gaze on one spot. It bounced over me, taking in every drop of blood. “This is who my dad made me become.”
“I…I don’t understand,” she whispered, taking another step toward me.
Why was she coming closer? Why wasn’t she running away?
“I’m the son of a Mafia boss, Navy. I was created for violence. Raised to protect the family.” I held my arms up in the air. “My father turned me into the best fighter this side of the river. I never lost a fight, never came out of it without putting the other person in the hospital.” I tried to catch my breath, but it was almost impossible as I confessed my past to her.
“I was fourteen and all I wanted was to learn how to protectmyself. It was fun—getting into fights that were held in the gym. It was all above board.” I swallowed, my face screwed up as I thought about the first time my father realized I could actually win the fights.
“D,” she murmured, but I was too stuck in my own head to see that she’d made it all the way to the bottom of the stairs.
“Thenhesaw me win.My father.The great Luca Beretta.” I sneered his name, hating that I breathed it in this house. I slammed my fist onto my chest, beating at it. “Then I became his new business venture. I became his money maker.”
“It’s okay,” Navy whispered, her hand touching my arm. I jerked back from her, but it didn’t stop her from coming closer, her small body trying to take the weight of what I was telling her.
“Every week he’d take me to the gym. Every week he’d make me fight grown men; not one, not two, but four or five. Each fight brought him more money.” I growled, feeling the rumbling in my chest. “It was all about the money to him.”
“It’s not your fault.”
“It is my fault!” I bellowed, causing her to jump. “It’s my fault, Navy. I should have controlled myself. I should had said no. I should have—”
“Could you have done that?” she asked, her voice tentative. “Could you have said no to your father? Could you have taken control when you were just a kid?” I pursed my lips, hating that she was making sense. “Just because he tried to make you into that, doesn’t mean that’s the only side of you, D.”
“I’m a monster.”
She pressed her palm to my chest, over the blood of the man I’d beaten. “Not to me.” I finally looked at her, giving her my stare for the first time since I’d walked into our home. “To me, D, you’re everythingbuta monster.”
“You don’t know who I really am.”
“Yes, I do.” She pressed her body against mine, wrapping her arm around my waist and trying to hold me to her. “You’re Dante Beretta, the man who makes me feel safe. The man who makes me feel like I’m the most beautiful woman in the world. The man…the man who means everything to me.”
“No. You think you know who I am, but you don’t.Thisis who I am, Navy. I kill people with bullets—with my bare hands. We’re not the good guys here, sweetheart, we’re your worst nightmare.”
She was silent for so long I was sure I’d pushed her away, sure I’d achieved the one thing I’d been hell-bent not to do.
“You’re the darkness,” she whispered. “You don’t pretend to be anything else. Andthatis why I’ll fight to be by your side, D. I love you, don’t you get that?”
“Navy—”
“I love you. I love your smile. I love your eyes. I love it when you laugh, when you frown. I love every part of you, Dante, even the monster you keep locked up deep inside you.”
I shook my head slowly, sure that I wasn’t hearing her right. How could she stand here, holding me to her while the blood of another man stained our clothes, and still confess her love to me?
“You’remymonster, D. Not your father’s. You can be anything you want to be. Don’t let the past rule the future.” She trailed her hand up to my face, pushing her point home. “You can’t push me away. It’s impossible.”
I held my breath, staring into her eyes as I searched for the lie in her words. But all I found was honesty…honesty and love.
“I don’t deserve you.”
“Yes, you do.” She lifted up onto her tiptoes and pressed a soft kiss on my lips. “You were made for me, and I was made for you.” She smiled. “Fate, remember?”
“Fate,” I echoed, burying my head into her neck and picking her up.
I didn’t care that the blood was seeping onto her clothes too. We’d clean it off together. We’d wash away my sins.
