My eyes widened. “What?”
“Do you have too much wax in your ears?”
“No. But… why do you want to know?”
“Take me there.Now.”
My mouth worked but, like the sometimes smart man I could be, I nodded.
She scrambled off my lap but didn’t head onto the street, so I’d take that as a win. Instead, she locked in her seatbelt and eyed me expectantly.
Utterly confused but willing to comply after my admission, I drove us away from the direction we’d been heading in and took her across town.
Alina could never have afforded a plot in Green-Wood cemetery. That was Rory acting on my behalf—I’d been so fucked up after Evangeline’s death that I’d let her down even more and had asked my sister to arrange the funeral.
Like a chump.
My entire life had been like that. I could see it so easily. Fucking up, using some bullshit to escape, to fade out, terrifying my family with the repercussions, and then using violence to find a new equilibrium. Whether it was violence that came with a knife or the violence of a mind that let me formulate such terrible creations.
As we drove in silence, I vowed I’d break that cycle.
No more relying on my family to get me out of shit. Not now that I had her to protect and my siblings had children.
Not if she let me near her again and we had kids of our own.
It was time to grow the fuck up.
I owed it to Kitty to be a better man.
If it meant working every day for the rest of my life to make this right—then I would.
Because no Sicilian would let an angel walk out the door without a fight.
But more than that…thisman could never lethiswoman go.
FIFTY-TWO
KITTY
Playlist recommendation:
I’m No Angel - Dido
The silence that settled between us steamed with my fury.
But he let me wallow in it. Didn’t push me. He even rushed to fulfill my odd request.
By the time we made it across town to the cemetery, I didn’t know what to think.
This man had shown me every single bad side of himself.
What else was there left for me to see, and why hadn’t I dumped his ass yet?
Fuck.
I pinched the bridge of my nose as we pulled up in the parking lot.
Like I needed this to be the same cemetery where my da and Vinny were buried today of all days.
