I send Nat a message to let her know I’ll be there shortly. I blow air out of my mouth, contemplating how I’m going to tell the woman I love I’m indirectly responsible for her loveless marriage and the situation she is in now. I hope it’s enough that I saved her back then and I will save her now.
“Would you do it again?” Ben asks. “Knowing what you know now?”
I nod without hesitation. “Absolutely. Carlo was a depraved bastard. Her life would have been sheer hell if she had been forced to marry him. He would have ruined her, Ben. I hate that my actions led her to Gino and that she’s in harm’s way because of me, but at least we have a heads-up now.”
“If we play our cards right, you can be together.”
“That would be everything I have ever dreamed of, but I can’t allow myself to hope. Right now, keeping her safe and alive must be the only goal.”
Even if I have to sacrifice myself to ensure she lives.
44
Natalia
“Come in.” I step back from the open doorway of my penthouse apartment to let Leo inside. If I wasn’t sure my husband is still in Chicago, I would tell Leo to go. Gino will freak out if he ever discovers he was here.
But screw him.
Gino is never available when I need him.
Brando brought the boys home safely, and they are currently sleeping. When he told me Caleb was mixed up with drugs, I immediately placed a call to my husband. We need to handle this together, and he needs to come home to talk with Caleb. But, of course, he didn’t pick up.
He’s probably too busy screwing his replacement wife to bother answering my call. My blood boils every time I think of how neglectful Gino has become. It’s like no one else matters but her.
“How is Caleb?” Leo asks, shutting the door behind him.
“Asleep.” I lift one shoulder, urging him to follow me across the lobby toward the living space. “He was barely coherent when Brando brought him home, so I didn’t bother questioning him. I was just so relieved to see him safe.” I wanted to yell at him as I hugged him, but I bit my tongue. The lecture can wait.
“Wow, someone likes beige.” Leo’s eyes pop wide when he enters our dreary living room.
“Juliet,” I say. “It’s ghastly, right?”
“Hang on here a second.” He slams to a halt in the middle of our living room. “Are you telling me he hasn’t let you redecorate the place since you moved in?”
“Pretty much.” I shrug, having given up caring how much Gino still loves his ex-wife a long time ago. “It has been repainted, and some of the furniture has been replaced, but it has to be like for like. I spent years arguing with him at the start, begging him to let me inject some color into this place, but he refused. Why do you think I rarely host family gatherings here?”
“I just assumed it was because Angelo’s and Ben’s homes were much larger and it was easier to accommodate the entire family.” He shakes his head as he looks around. “He’s a fucking psycho,” he supplies, stopping in front of the wall of family photos. His hands ball up at his sides as his gaze skims over the legacy to Juliet. “This is so wrong, Nat.” He purposely moves past the small wedding photo of Gino and me, shoved at the bottom left of the wall, almost out of sight, focusing on the multitude of wedding photos of Gino and Juliet and the family pictures of the boys with both parents when they were babies. There are a few token ones of me with the boys, from over the years, but never any family ones.
Because my spot in this family has always been a placeholder.
And Gino has always wished I was invisible.
I was more of a nanny than a wife, now that I think back on it.
“This whole apartment is a shrine to Juliet.” Taking his hand, I pull him away from the wall. Leo reels me into his arms, kissing me passionately. It takes iron willpower, but I break our lip-lock and push him away. “We can’t! The boys could wander out here at any moment.”
He presses his brow to mine, lightly holding my hips. “I hurt for the things you have had to endure, Nat. I had no idea it was this bad.”
No one does because I have always hidden the true extent of the situation.
“I don’t care anymore,” I truthfully reply, reluctantly easing out of his hold. “I stopped letting it get to me a long time ago. The boys are my world. I put up with it for them.”
I walk into the kitchen and head to the coffee machine. “Take a seat.” I switch the machine on and grab the airtight container with the muffins, setting it on the table along with some plates and mugs. “I didn’t sleep a wink all night. I was too worried, so I baked to stop me from driving over to Mott Haven.”
“I would have spanked your ass if you went there.” Leo pries the lid off the container and takes a chocolate chip muffin from the pile.
I blush as I remember Leo tying me up and spanking me with his hand and then a flogger.
