Nell wasn’t a plan. She wasn’t strategy. She was a consequence.
One bad night. One lapse in discipline. An innocent couple who never should’ve crossed my path. I realized what I’d done only after, when I found the address, the proof that something fragile and innocent had been left behind.
A child.
I didn’t watch her because I wanted to.
I watched her because the guilt wouldn’t let me leave.
It may have been stupid of me to do, but watching over Nell as she grew up gave me purpose, connected me back to a part of me I thought had been lost a long time ago.
As she grew, I told myself I was protecting her. That distance and money and shadows were enough. But by the time I understood what was happening, I was already woven into the edges of her life. I had gone from an observer to a devotee.
I fell in love with the idea that I could keep her untouched by the darkness I knew so well.
That was my sin.
Not so much a desire, but possession disguised as something else.
I never told Nell the truth, that I had been the one to rip her parents from her that night. But it was not because I was afraid tolose her. It was because she would’ve finally seen me clearly. And I wasn’t ready to be seen.
Elliot was different.
She met me with her teeth bared. She pushed back. She challenged me—used me, even—to get what she wanted.
She chose me knowing exactly what I am. Knowing what I’m capable of.
I love Monty. And that’s why…I need to let her go.
“You’re not going to go get her, are you?” Vittoria asks. “Santiago will be expecting you to. He’ll want a fight.”
“I know,” I say. I draw in a breath and hold it until my chest burns. “But I’m not going after her.”
Vittoria’s brows lift. “Since when do you let anything you want walk away?”
I don’t answer right away. My gaze drifts to the elevator door which Elliot had disappeared behind.
“She wasn’t happy,” I say at last, my voice flat. “Not with me. I took her choice away when I turned her. I?—”
“So what? You’ve made mistakes.” Vittoria looks at me. “Besides, she loves being a vampire. It’s obvious. You did her a favor.”
But I shake my head. “If there’s even a chance she can find peace without my shadow over her, then I don’t want to interfere.”
She scoffs. “You’re just going to let this destroy you? You love her. Even I know that.”
I glance at her. “Life will go on. As it always does.”
Vittoria watches me like she knows I’m lying—to her, to myself—but she doesn’t argue. Instead, she says quietly, “For what it’s worth, this might be the cruelest thing you’ve ever done to yourself.”
She’s probably right. But if letting Monty go is the only way she might find happiness, then I’ll bear it.
Because the more I think about it, the clearer it becomes.
As much as I hate to admit it, I was never capable of loving her the way she deserved to be loved.
Chapter
Fifteen
