“I know this situation is…impossible, for you.” He doesn’t look at me as he says it. “But this is your world now, Emma. Please. For your sake. Adapt. It will make it easier on us all in the end. Please. Don’t fight.”
Such a strange thing to say. I approach him thoughtfully. He looks down at me when I reach him at the door. “Let me go,” I say, “and I won’t have to.”
Suddenly, gently, he places a rough palm against my cheek. “You loved me once.”
The words are astonishing. Full of something that burns and gleams. Something that frightens me. But I don’t pull away. “Yes.”
“You’re safe here, Emma. Let me build you your own world. All I ask is that you let me.”
I stare at him in shock, but before I can think of what to say, he drops his hand and leaves.
This time, the door to my room remains unlocked when he goes.
This time, the door to my room remains open.
8
Malcom
“It isn’t what I imagined for myself.” I admit this as I cross to the car. Pete follows, loading in my bags. I resist the urge to turn and look up at the old, ivy-crawled stone walls of her room. “My father would be disappointed.”
“Your father was a man who knew when there was no room for compromise.” Pete says this with his usual softness, closing the door once my luggage is in. “Malcom, Sampson is a good man. He always has been, despite the things he’s had to do.”
I nod, jaw clenching as I face the sea, and Blicktenner, a series of blunt spires against the horizon.
“The world makes rough men of the best,” Pete says. “When Sampson lost his son, he lost his way. He’ll never appoint someone like him—someone without a line, someone without a future or a legacy. Perhaps it’s cruel it must happen this way. But Clarence is the only other man he’d appoint, and he knows your brother is, deep down, a monster.”
I grit my teeth. Pete is right. Sampson isn’t the stoic, clear-eyed ruler he once was. His judgement is whiskey-drowned and clouded by residual grief. Samuel’s death broke him, and mourning made him blind to reason. What would my best friend think if he knew what had become of his father? If he knew the cruel measures I’ve had to go to to convince Sampson I’m worthy of the mafia crown?
I remind myself then that for almost an entire lifetime, I’ve made my living by killing. I am a stone man. A statue. Made of marble and lies.
So why, then, do I feel I’ve also lost my way?
“She doesn’t deserve this,” I say, almost under my breath.
Pete averts his eyes. “She is a good woman. A very good woman.”
“Yes.”
“Make her understand, Malcom. Tell her the truth of the situation. Clarence would turn a decent syndicate into anarchy. Even if Sampson refuses to acknowledge this, it’s true. Your brother is not who he once was either. And his rule would only lead the mafia to danger.”
I nod. “I know. I knew this would be difficult. Knowing doesn’t make any of it any easier.”
Pete opens my door and I climb in. I’m about to close it, but stop myself. It takes me a moment to formulate the words. “I want her to feel free. She nearly died for that last night. She would have died to escape me.”
“But she didn’t, sir.”
“No.” And it’s a miracle. A miracle she let me save her. A miracle she asked me to. Is there some part of her that doesn’t want to resist? Does some part of her remember me as I was so many years ago? Could affection bloom where force and brutality have made barren ground? “Make her feel free, Pete. Make this place feel safe. Like a home. Like a dream.”
“I will do what I can to help her feel this way.”
“I don’t want Rosehill toseemlike a new life for her. I want it tobeone.”
Pete studies me. “Yes, sir.”
I sense there’s more he wants to say. “I have to go. I’ll be back by the end of the week. And Pete—if I need more hands on deck, I’ll get them.”
“I failed you once. It won’t happen again, sir.”
