“You thought you could play both sides and have what you want in the end.” Liam chuckled—a low, sinister sound. He crouched down in front of me, his face inches from mine. “You see, Max, I never wanted my daughter involved in this life. Infact, I’ve workedveryhard to keep her out of it. But you ... you dragged her into it.”
“She was already in it,” I reminded him.
He stood up, towering over me, while I was still tied to the chair. The gun rested against my forehead again, the cold metal a reminder of the power he held in his hands.
“You took away her innocence. And for that, there’s a price to pay.”
I closed my eyes, bracing myself for the inevitable.
Then the pressure lifted. I looked up to see Liam stepping back with a strange look on his face. He was clearly conflicted, torn between his duty as a father and his role as a boss. For a moment, I saw the man behind the mask; the father who loved his daughter more than anything in the world.
“I got your little note. The one that arrived with Mason.” He stood still, his admittance a shock to us both.
I glared at him as realization set in. “It was you?”
CHAPTER 49
ROSALIE
“He’s not here,” Daisy said with regret.
With the harsh shrug of my shoulder, I tore the veil from my hair.Of course he isn’t here.Deep down, some part of me had known this all along, hadn’t it?
My fingers trembled as I untangled the delicate lace from the braids. Each pull and yank felt like a desperate attempt to tear away the layers of shame and humiliation that clung to me. The lace was so fragile, so easily torn, just like the trust I’d foolishly pinned on him. The more I struggled with it, the more it seemed to tighten, as if it were mocking me.
My face burned with a familiar flush. I knew my cheeks were likely bright red, and the stinging heat was nothing but a cruel reminder that everyone could see my mortification.
The whispers and murmurs of my family only continued to grow louder. I caught their pitying glances and felt their judgment as clearly as if they’d spoken the words aloud. “Poor thing,” they were probably thinking. “How could she not have seen this coming?” And maybe they were right. Maybe I had been blind, willingly so, because facing the harsh truth for a second time seemed too painful to bear.
There was something painful crushing my heart, weighing me down, until I collapsed to the floor and cried, without a single breath of air. Daisy threw the useless clipboard onto the stool and kneeled beside me without hesitation. I felt her hand tighten around mine. She didn’t speak. What could she say? I wasn’t even sure what to think.
Why was this affecting me so much? I knew he’d do something like this. It shouldn’t bother me.
I wiped away the tears with the back of my hand angrily, as if the very act of crying betrayed my own convictions. Why was I crying? What was the point? I knew better than this. I’d known better than to trust him. To think he’d show up. He was a Romano.
I sat there for a moment staring at the discarded veil crumpled on the floor. My heart was still racing, but my mind was starting to clear. This was ridiculous. He wasn’t worth it. I knew that, didn’t I? I wasn’t some naïve girl who’d honestly believe a man like him. I was stronger—smarter—than that. I was supposed to be anyway.
Max was always going to do something like this. It was payback, I suppose. He’d found a way to get back at me. I’d seen the signs, the red flags, the dark things he was capable of. I wasn’t blind to the mistakes he’d made. I just ... I don’t know. Maybe I’d wanted to believe he’d change. But people didn’t change, did they? Not really. They just became more of who they already were. And him? He was always going to be a man in the Outfit—the kind who liked to have people to play with.
It was almost pathetic that I’d hoped for anything else.
I should be relieved, honestly. I’d dodged a bullet. This entire thing, it was a blessing in disguise. So why was I still sitting there on the floor, feeling as if the ground had been ripped out from under me? I couldn’t be that stupid, right? At least I shouldn’t be.
But I was.
“I trusted him. How could he do this to me?” I asked Daisy as she watched me struggle to catch my breath.
She brushed a stray tear from my cheek. “You did nothing wrong,” she whispered, her voice gentle. “You trusted him because you felt something for him. That doesn’t make you weak—that makes you human.”
Her words blurred together. To love, to trust, to believe in someone so completely—was it really a sign of strength, or was it the cruelest joke the heart could play? I’d given him my trust, and for what? To be left questioning my own worth; my own judgment?
My thoughts twisted in on themselves, creating a tangled mess of hope and anger that dug its way into my core. How could he have done this to me again? How could he have looked into my eyes, held me close, and still betrayed me? Was it so easy for him to disregard my pain? Was it easy for him to cast aside my feelings as if they meant nothing to him?
Everything was a mess.
Iwas a mess.
Nothing seemed right.
