“I used to write poetry about you.” The admission comes with a self-conscious laugh. “Terrible, melodramatic verses full of yearning and romantic clichés. I burned them all before... before this.”
“I wish you hadn’t.”
“They were embarrassing.”
“They were yours.” I reach for his hand, threading our fingers together in a gesture that feels natural despite everything between us. “Everything about you is interesting to me, even the embarrassing parts.”
“Why?”
It’s my turn to consider the question seriously, to examine the feelings that have been growing stronger every day despite my best efforts to deny them.
“Because you see the world differently than anyone I’ve ever met,” I say finally. “You find beauty in things other people ignore. You love with an intensity that should be frightening but somehow isn’t. You make me feel like maybe I’m worth all the effort you’ve put into understanding me.”
“You are,” he says immediately. “You’re worth everything.”
The certainty in his voice is overwhelming. When was the last time someone spoke about me with such unwavering conviction? When was the last time I felt genuinely cherished rather than simply useful or feared? The answer is never. Nobody has ever felt this way about me.
“I’m a dangerous man, Ginni. I’ve done things that would horrify you.”
“I know what you are,” he replies calmly. “I know what you’ve done, what you’re capable of. It doesn’t change how I feel about you.”
“It should.”
“Why? Because violence makes you unworthy of love? Because protecting what matters to you makes you a monster?” He pauses and shakes his head. “I’m not some innocent civilian off the street. I was born and raised in your world, Carlo. Mafia is my blood.” His voice gains strength. “And more personally than that, you think I don’t understand darkness? You think I haven’t studied every shadow in my own soul?”
There’s steel in his voice now, the strength that lurks beneath all that delicate beauty. Evidence of the dangerous intelligence that makes Ginni far more than just a pretty boy with romantic delusions.
“We’re the same, you and I,” he continues. “We both know what it means to do terrible things for the right reasons. Weboth understand that sometimes love requires violence, that protection demands sacrifice.”
“You’re twenty-one years old.”
“Age doesn’t determine capacity for darkness, Carlo. I’ve been planning this abduction since I was seventeen. I drugged you, chained you, threatened to hurt your friends. I’m fully prepared to kill my own brother if he tries to take you away from me.” His smile is gentle but his eyes are sharp as blades. “Does that sound like innocence to you?”
The casual way he discusses potential murder should terrify me, but instead it’s oddly comforting. He’s right about our similarities. We’re both capable of monstrous things. The difference is that Ginni’s monster wears silk and sings opera and makes the most incredible breakfast I’ve ever tasted.
“You don’t frighten me,” I realize aloud.
“Good.” His smile turns genuinely warm again. “You shouldn’t be afraid of someone who loves you. Even if that someone is a little bit insane.”
A little bit. The understatement makes me laugh despite everything, and Ginni’s face lights up at the sound like he’s just accomplished something magnificent.
“There,” he says with satisfaction. “I knew I could make you laugh eventually.”
“You’ve made me do a lot of things I didn’t expect.”
“I hope I’ve made you happy too.”
The question in his voice is so hopeful, so vulnerable, that I can’t bear to give him anything less than complete honesty.
“You have,” I admit, and I’m not just thinking about the mind-blowing sex.
“Even though I kidnapped you?”
“Maybe because you kidnapped me.” The admission surprises us both. “You absolved me of all my responsibilities. Gave me an opportunity to just be.”
He smiles at me and it feels like benediction.
“Ginni?”
