“Glad to hear it,” I say.
“Thought you might be.” She lifts her chin, pride and fear warring in her eyes. “My father told me of some intelligence which he believes could place me in danger. That I’m dating you doesn’t help matters, and he’s asked me to end things between us as well. Not that we’ve really started anything. Fuck buddies isn’t too deep, is it?”
My stomach tightens, and I ignore her jab at our relationship status and home in on what her father divulged. “What did your father tell you?”
Her breath stutters. “That they’re using me to possibly aggravate the Morettis, which seems to be working in their favor. That they’re using the guise of needing a lawyer to use me against you, possibly. I mean, I don’t know what these people are capable of. I can only imagine the worst, given the family's history, but I don’t want to get involved or mixed up in any of it. I had a brother who died a couple of years ago, shot in thecrossfire of gang violence, warring groups.” She pauses. “I have a great job that I will not jeopardize.”
“You had a brother?”Shit.That’s new information and not something I can dismiss. That her family have lost loved ones to crime doesn’t make my pursuing of Dallen any easier. If anything, it makes it harder. In a way, I can’t blame her parents for wanting me gone.
She nods. “I’m all they have left.”
I take a calming breath at hearing the everything I’ve been dreading. The bridge between our worlds is collapsing under the weight of truth and history. Under the weight of what being involved with a Moretti brings to someone’s life.
“And me?” I ask, even though I already know. “Are you going to do what Daddy says?”
Her silence is answer enough.
“He told me to stop seeing you,” she says eventually. “I’ve worked so hard for everything I have. I don’t know how to navigate this path.” She pauses, meeting my eyes. “It’s not a secret I want you, but I don’t know if that’s enough.”
The words land like a blade, slicing clean and precise. I don’t react outwardly, but inside, something coils tight, feral and furious. Losing deals, losing territory, losing men—I’ve survived all of it. Losing her? I don’t know how to live with that.
“So, what are you going to do?” I ask. “Be a good or bad girl?”
She looks at me then, really looks at me, like she’s trying to decide whether I’m worth the risk of everything she’s been taught to believe. Debating whether my provocation is enough to make her walk away. She should walk away. Her life would be better for it. Safer.
But she’s not going anywhere, no matter what she decides. I’ll force her to see reason before I allow anyone, any fear, past or present to make her to step away from me.
“I don’t know,” she admits. “I don’t know who you really are.”
The fear claws at me then—not fear of exposure, not fear of consequences, but fear that the truth will finally cost me something I can’t replace. Lucien stated she needs to know the truth of the family and allow herself to decide. I grind my teeth, bracing myself to reveal a part of my world that, other than blood, no one knows of.
“What do you want to know?” I ask.
“Everything,” she counters. “I know what you choose to tell me. I know what the internet says, what the Romeros think, and I know what my father’s seen in thirty years on the force, what he’s advising me to do now. But I want to hear it from you. I want the truth of your life, both past and present.”
I nod slowly. “That’s a lot to take in. Are you sure you’re ready to hear without judgment? You’re a lawyer after all.”
Her eyes search my face. “I need to know before I can make any decision in my life.”
I hesitate. I’ve faced judges, enemies, men with guns and grudges, but this—this feels like standing on the edge of a cliff and deciding whether to jump.
I hate heights.
“My father was a killer,” I say. “And up to a point in my life, the eldest three boys in the family, myself included, had dealings in the underworld that are not legal.” A nicer way to say that I’ve killed without coming straight out and saying I’ve shot people in the head, buried them where they’ll never be found, or dumped them far out at sea.
Nothing I’m proud of, but also when one wants to survive, to kill or be killed, one does what’s needed. Lucien tried to shield us, and I do believe he thought he’d succeeded, but our father was a crafty old bastard, and there was a lot Lucien was utterly unaware of.
Dallen stills.
“Not rumors. Not exaggeration,” I continue. “My father was mafia personified, through and through. He built his reputation on spilling blood, preferably not his own.”
Her hands lift, as if she doesn’t quite know what to do with them, then drops them at her sides. “And you?”
The question is quiet. Dangerous.
“I’ve done things I’m not proud of,” I admit. “Things I won’t soften for you. You’re an intelligent woman. I’m certain you can fill in the blanks.”
Tears gather in her eyes, and it guts me. I want to pull her close, shield her from the ugliness of it, but she deserves honesty, not comfort.
