“You’re my best friend, Dom.” My voice drops to barely a whisper. “I can’t do this without you.”
Domenico Rossi is woven so tightly into the threads of my life that I have no idea who I would even be without him. Harder. Colder. Dom gives me the shelter to be human in a world that keeps trying to strip every part of humanity away from me.
His hands cover mine. When my eyelids crack open, he’s on his knees in front of me.
“I’ll always be your best friend,” he breathes. “That’s never going to change, Cat. Not ever. Butyou—,”
He searches my face, looking for something.
“You are my endgame, Caterina Corvo. And I’m fighting for forever. So you don’t get to justgive up. You want to fall apart? I’ll catch you every damn time and put you back together. But you do not get to give up on me. If you’re not going to fight for yourself, then fight for me.Please.”
I lose every particle of oxygen in my body. “Dom...”
He shakes his head, his words a rasp. “Don’t act like this is news to you, Cat. We both know it’s not. And I’m not asking for anything you’re not willing to give.”
He looks down. “But I’mhere. I’m not going anywhere. Don’t ask me not to put you first. It’s never going to happen.”
My eyes start to burn. “I…”
I don’t know what to say.
Or maybe the issue is that I have too much that I want to say. But none of it comes out, and Dom sighs. He leans forward until our foreheads are resting together, and I breathe in his familiar scent, sucking it down like it’s the oxygen he just stole from my lungs.
“What now?” I ask, and he pulls his head back. The vulnerability I glimpsed a moment ago is wiped away, replaced by his familiar no-nonsense expression.
“Now, you’re going to get changed, relax and watch some of that truly shitty reality TV you enjoy.” He gets to his feet, and I stare up at him. My head feels like mush.
“What are you going to do?”
“I’m going to make sure no fucker gets to you in here.” Leaning down, he brushes a soft kiss across my forehead. “Take tonight, Cat. I’ve got this. And tomorrow, you can rip them all apart.”
Kicking my heels off, I stretch and pad across the room to my bedroom door. “I wish it was that easy.”
If only it were as easy as fighting an enemy. The bad guys versus the good. But as the shower pelts down hot water on my back, I can’t shake off the look in Gio’s eyes. Like he’s seen something that’s changed him, fundamentally. That’s broken him.
His hatred is valid. My father is responsible for the death of his sister. And Matteo would have made sure it was not a swift one.
We are not the good guys. The Corvos are the enemy.
Nausea surges, and I heave over the drain as my dinner makes a reappearance.
What would any of us do for the ones we love?
Whatever happens to me now, more death is inevitable.
And I’m so tired.
I’ve spent my entire life within the Cosa Nostra. Raised to lead, to take up my father’s mantle when he’s gone. I have always been proud to be a Corvo, held my head high as a Crow.
But this is not an inheritance I want. One where we butcher the innocent to cling on to the last vestiges of times gone by, to claw our way to power by whatever means necessary.
As the last remnants of my own guilt washes away down the drain, I turn the water off and step out, wiping away the steam covering the mirror. The exhaustion shows in my face. The creases at the corners of my eyes. The dark smudges that only deepen.
“I don’t have a choice,” I whisper. My father has made that clear over recent months. If I balk - if Ifail- he will take everything from me.
I have to win.
Chapter fifteen Domenico
