I shake my head. “No, it’s not. It’s very far from okay. I just saw red. Old familiar emotions rushed to the surface, and I couldn’t see anything, think anything, beyond my rage. I forgot everything we mean to one another in that moment, and I hurt you.” Tears well in my eyes, and it feels like my tear ducts are broken. I have cried more today than I have cried in the past ten years. “I’m so sorry.”
“Itisokay.” He draws me into his body, forcing my head to his chest. “I know you acted on instinct. Not gonna lie and say I’m happy you did it, but I understand.”
“I’m not worthy of you.”
“Stop that.” He rests his chin on my head as he runs his hand up and down my back. “I’m the one who isn’t worthy of you.” Gently, he tilts my chin up with one finger. “How can you bear to let me touch you after what that monster did?” This time, tears swim inhiseyes. “How can you even look at me knowing the same blood runs through my veins?” he adds in a whisper.
“Oh, Massimo.” I cup his handsome face, letting tears roam freely down my face. “You are not your brother. When I look at you, all I see is the face of the man I love. A man who loves me unconditionally even when I have done him wrong.” Even though I’m exhausted, I need to get the rest out. Might as well expunge the remaining sordid secrets. “I came to New York with plans to kill you and your family and Don Mazzone too.”
“That doesn’t shock me.” He brushes hair out of my face, looking at me with infinite tenderness I don’t understand.
“It should, and you should hate me.” I attempt to wrench out of his grip, but he won’t let me go.
“I could never hate you, not even if you told me your plans haven’t changed, but I know they have. You would have killed Renzo right now to protect me.”
“That doesn’t exonerate me!” I snap. “I’m not a good person, Massimo. All these years, I have been proud of the fact I do my best to protect innocents, but it’s the biggest lie I have told myself. You. Are. Innocent. So is Ben. Yet I was going to make you both pay for the sins of your families.”
“All of us are tainted in blood. We all share in the sins of our families because that is the nature of our world. I would be surprised if you hadn’t been planning this.”
“Oh my God.” Angry tears leak out of my eyes. “You need to hate me!” I cry because he’s being too understanding. “I could live a thousand years and never be worthy of you, Massimo. You are too good for me. I’m a monster,” I sob, burying my face in his neck, hating how badly I need his comfort when I don’t deserve it. “I’m a monster just like your brother. I could say he did it to me, but I’m an adult. I’m responsible for my own decisions. I could have chosen a different path, but I didn’t.”
Pain obliterates me on the inside, and everything I have been keeping hidden erupts in one violent blast. I fall apart in his arms. This man I love. A man I was going to end, and it would have been for nothing.
He did try to help me.
Eleanora and Gabe too. They aren’t entirely innocent, but they were victims too.
“I got my brother killed,” I cry.
“No, sweetheart. That was not on you.”
“And Daddy,” I sob, crying harder, releasing some of my trapped grief. “I spent years hating him. Believing he abandoned me, readily handed me over to the wolves, but he didn’t.”
“Your father loved you. He betrayed his employer to try to save your life. The only people to blame are Carlo, Primo and my father. They are responsible for everything, and they are all burning in the fiery pits of hell. Of that, I’m sure.”
Massimo picks me up, cradling me to his chest as he carries me to the couch. He holds me close, whispering comforting words and running his hands up and down my back and over my arms as I self-destruct.
I don’t know how long I cry, but it’s long enough to have soaked his shirt and made my eyes sting and my throat dry.
“I love you,” he says when my sobbing has stopped.
“I love you,” I croak, easing back so I can see his face. My fingers tenderly touch the bruise at his brow, and I really need to take care of that. “I haven’t done a good enough job of showing you, but I will if it’s not too late.”
“Mia amata.Mia regina.” He caresses my cheek. “I told you there was nothing you could say that would make me change my mind, and that is the truth. I am going nowhere.”
“So not worthy,” I whisper.
“Catarina.” The seriousness in his tone has me paying immediate attention. “I am so sorry for the horrors you endured at the hands of my family. I feel sick at what was done to you. I wish we had done more. I wish we could have freed you.”
“I know now you tried. That helps, Massimo.”
“I wasn’t lying when I said you haunted my dreams. You have, Rina. For years, I wondered what happened to you. I tried looking, but the trail was cold.”
“Saverio was always afraid someone would find out who I was. Your father was on the board of The Commission and one of the most powerful dons in the country. Salerno didn’t want him to know he had taken me in. He said he was searching for me.”
“He would have killed you if he found you.” Massimo’s jaw tightens. “I suspect that’s why your mother fled New York. Angelo Mazzone’s protection could only extend so far. Maximo would have come for you when the coast was clear.”
“It seems there is much I didn’t know about my parents. In his own way, Saverio saved my life. Before he tossed it away when he traded me to the Contis. It is all so fucked up.” Tiredness washes over me, but there is a sense of relief sinking into my bones. It feels good to get everything out on the table. There is just one more thing left to say, but this will be one of the hardest things to admit.
