“Yeah?”
“All those diamonds and pearls are real. That’s how my grandfather and Gio’s used to transport stolen jewelry from Europe. Kitty even wore them in her hair and no law enforcement suspected it. They’ve gotten wise to it now, but back then, they had no clue.”
He searched my eyes but didn’t say anything after that. He set his hand on my lower back and then opened the door to our room. He shut it behind us, and I stood there for a second, thinking about everything Kitty had said to us. I thought about how each of her sons took after her more than they did their fathers.
What if her grandsons took after her, too, in ways that went deeper than the flesh?
I refused to make eye contact with Big while I grabbed a silk robe from the drawer and went to take a shower. He usually joined me, but when I stepped out, he was sitting on the bed, his eyes down.
“Am I enough for you?” I blurted. “Will I be enough?”
His eyes slowly rose to meet mine, and then they narrowed. “Kitty told you.”
“Us. She told us. Over lunch.” I cleared my throat. “She had big dreams, and that included a life of glitz and glamour, and two men to fulfill her needs.”
“If I’m going to start getting measured by Kitty Ducci’s life choices, just fucking kill me now, Aphrodite.” He pulled a gun from behind his back and held it out to me.
He was being fucking serious.
“See!” I motioned toward it. “You also have a recklessness that I refuse to keep up with. Life is dangerous enough. Why call it to us unnecessarily?” Something snapped inside of me, and it felt like pent up rage exploded from it. “A life I can finally love is mine,mine, Big! And the man I lovebigis fucking gambling with it! Why?Whywould you do that? I’m not going to allow you to do it.” I went to walk away when he took me by the shoulders and spun me around.
He forced the gun into my hand. “You walk away from me, from my life.” He held the barrel to his heart. “Might as well pull the fucking trigger.”
“Why does it have to come down to dying?” I cried.
“Tell me what it comes down to, Aphrodite, and I’ll fucking do it!”
“Words, Big,” I said, the anguish in my voice coming out through the tears on my face.
“Words? Fucking words?” He took the gun and flung it on the bed. Then he pressed me against the wall and crowded me in. “I love you more than life? My next breath? More than the blood in my veins and the air in my lungs? You’re the arrow in my heart and the bullet in my fucking brain. Your very essence makes me drunk—stronger than anything I’d ever put to my lips before. Is that what you want to hear? Do you want to hear that I’ll kill any man who even looks at you the wrong way—and I expect you do the same if a woman goes after your fucking territory? Me. Yeah, you don’t think I know how this works? You’re mine and I’m fucking yours—until we both close our eyes for good. Because you’re my home. The place I’ll live and die.
“Are those words enough? Or do you want to hear that I’d never leave you on purpose? I can’t control death, but you control me. I’ve never been fucking reckless while I was racing. But I wanted to kill that motherfucker, and would, all because he winked at you and smiled. I would have killed him, but I knew killing him with my hands would only get me killed. You don’t kill in this life without permission—Mario is owned by the Faustis.” He pushed against me harder. “Are those words good enough, Aphrodite?”
A madness had overtaken his eyes. The usual blues and greens were as dark as the sea outside. And it was a polarizing moment for me. I knew Big thought differently, but it was almost a shock to my gut to make sense of his words. He thought he was keeping himself safe (for me) by not killing Mario with his own hands because the Faustis would killhimfor it.
I shook my head, trying to clear it. “They are enough.” I brought my voice down and leaned my head against his chest. “I just don’t want you to take unnecessary risks.”
“Crashing the car into his.”
“Yeah,” I breathed out. “Crashing the car into his. Or crashing any car into anything—on purpose.” I looked up and met his eyes. “When I tell you I love you big, I can’t even put into words how true that is. I’m shocked by it. Besides my brothers, I’ve never loved this hard, and it’s a different kind of love, but both I’d give my life to protect.”
After what seemed like hours of trying to hold his stare, I rested my head against his chest again, but he refused to let me squirm away. He tilted my face up.
“I guess this means you love me big.”
His unexpected comment made me laugh and cry at the same time. It was a weird sound that came straight from my heart. “Yeah, I love you big, and I guess this means you love me big too.”
“Fucking huge.”
“Since the love is huge, does this also mean it’s just me and you—for good?”
“Get the fuck outta here.” He lifted me up and flung me onto the bed. “Now you’re just trying to fish for more words.”
I laughed until he undressed, flinging his clothes to the floor, and crawled toward me in bed. When we touched, my entire body went weak, even though my heart was about to pound out of my chest. And when his lips touched mine, it felt like it was the first time in centuries. Then I pushed against his chest to put a little separation between us.
He had that insane look in his eyes again. My hand was over his heart, and it beat against my palm like a starved hunter.
“More words, Aphrodite?”
