I look down at Jacopo, still sitting on the sidewalk, and offer him my left hand, the less painful one. He takes it, and I pull him up, but I don’t let go. “I’ve always known you were right.”
“Huh?” he grunts, holding onto me as he dusts himself down with the other hand.
“About Renato.” Jacopo’s head snaps up at my words, his attention drawn away from his dirty clothes. “I know you killed him because he was going to kill me.”
“You…knew?”
“Not at the time. I didn’t know he’d turned, and I didn’t want to admit that you were right. What did it say about me, to be so easily fooled? It was easier to hate you than him. Easier to hate than to forgive, much easier to hate than admit you wereright. But…you were.” I let go of his hand. “You were right, Jack. And I was too proud and too humiliated and too angry to admit it.”
His eyes are still guarded. “And saving your life again tonight—that’s finally earned me this apology after all these years? What’s changed?”
“I’ve made a fool of myself again,” I say with a shrug. “The MacCallum boy…”
Jack’s good eye goes round. “Holy shit. You reallydo—”
“I don’t know what it is,” I say quickly. “I feel…something. I don’t know.”
“Bullshit. When you know, you know.”
I flex out my fingers. They’re still aching from the fight. “Perhaps I’m afraid to admit it,” I concede. “But despite my feelings, I knew—Iknew—something was off about him. I ignored my instincts, because I wanted…” I take a breath. “I wanted to believe it was real. Just like I wanted to believe it was real with Renato. I was a fool then and I’m a fool still. But you, you’ve always had good instincts. And since I can’t trust my heart, I’d like to have you looking out for me.”
Jack goes very still. “You want to just bury the past few years? Pretend like you didn’t keep telling me how much you were going to enjoy killing me? Just forget about the time you told Miller to stay away from me, forget all the insults you threw my way, all the bullshit you’ve piled on me? Just—move on?”
I try to comb my hair of out of the blood on my face and give a small shrug. “Yeah.”
“Well, gee,” he says, “I think there might be a few magic words you’re forgetting in there, Sandro.”
“I’m sorry,” I tell him, but it sounds stilted. I try it again. “I’m sorry, Jack. Very sorry. For all of it. For taking it out on you.” I look him in the eye at last. “I’m sorry.”
“Alright, well—don’t get all mushy on me.” He offers his hand for me to shake, and as I take it, we both wince. We’ve smashed up our hands pretty well, beating on each other. “That songwasgetting old,” he says. “Time to put on a new record. But listen—” He reaches out to take my shoulder. “You’re not a fool. As far as Teddy goes, I’ll eat my hat if he doesn’t feel the same damn way you do. Miller and I were convinced there was something real there, even though…”
“Even though you hoped your friend would have more sense than to fall for a man like me.”
I’m still in shock after the events tonight. The betrayal—the fight—the car. But I can’t help feeling a tiny spark of hope at Jack’s words. That maybe Teddy really did feel something for me.
Maybe…maybe he still does, despite everything.
“This life,” Jack says, and gestures down the road, the direction of the SUV. “Shit like that,” he mutters. “It scares me having Miller so close.”
I shiver, picturing how I would feel if Teddy were in danger. “I understand. Yes.” I look down the road again after the car. “You really think they were trying to kill me?”
Jack is massaging the knuckles of his right hand. “Yeah,” he says. “I really do.”
“You recognized the car?”
Because I did.
He thinks for a moment and I see when it comes to him, his face setting grimly. “Funeral.”
It confirms what I was thinking myself. I’ve seen that car before, at my father’s funeral.
Where Teddy’s mother was leaning against it, watching the burial from behind dark sunglasses.
CHAPTER41
TEDDY
I stayin the empty room for a long time, curled up on the floor, shaking, hugging my knees, trying to pretend that this whole night never happened. Alessandro’s eyes are all I can think about—the fire slowly turning to ice.
