“What do you need?” I ask. “To trust me again. What do I have to do?”
“I don’t know if there’s anything you can do. Trust isn’t something you can force or manipulate or test into existence.” She stands, crosses to the window. “You taught me that tonight.”
“So that’s it, we’re done?”
“I didn’t say that.”
“Then what are you saying?”
She turns back to me, and I see tears tracking fresh down her face. “I’m saying I hate that I still love you. That even knowing you manipulated me, tested me, violated every boundary I tried to set—I still can’t imagine walking away.”
“Then don’t.”
“It’s not that simple!”
“It is.” I force myself upright despite the agony, need her to see my face when I say this. “I love you, Janice. Not because you passed some test or proved your loyalty. I love you because you’re the only person who’s ever looked at me and seen both the monster and the man, and somehow decided both were worth knowing.”
“Pretty words won’t fix this.”
“I know. Nothing will fix it except time and proof.” I extend my hand, an offering. “I’m asking you to stay anyway. Not because you have to, and not because leaving isn’t an option. You choose to.”
She stares at my hand like it might bite her.
“You almost died tonight,” she says quietly. “When they shot you, when you were bleeding in my lap, I realized something.”
“What?”
“That revenge doesn’t matter anymore. Power, freedom, all the things I thought I wanted when this started—none of it matters if you’re not here.” She takes my hand, grip almost painful. “So yes, I’m staying. I choose you. Even when you don’t deserve it.”
Relief crashes through me so intense it rivals the pain.
“I don’t deserve it,” I agree. “But I’ll spend the rest of my life trying to.”
“You better.” She leans down carefully, mindful of my injury, and kisses me. Soft and devastating and tasting like tears. “If you pull something like this again, I’ll finish what the Zullos started.”
“Noted.”
“I mean it, Dimitri. No more tests. No more manipulation. If you need to know something, ask me. Trust that I’ll tell you the truth.”
“Can you tell me the truth?”
“Yes.”
“Even when it’s dangerous?”
“Even then.”
Epilogue - Janice
Six months after the shooting, I stand in Dimitri’s office watching him dismantle the last of the Zullo operations with the efficiency of a surgeon excising cancer.
The Zullos themselves are gone—Pedro died three weeks after putting that bullet in Dimitri’s side, though no one will confirm exactly how. His lieutenants scattered or switched allegiances. The empire he built crumbled with surprising speed once the head was removed.
Dimitri handles it all from behind his desk, phone pressed to his ear, speaking rapid Russian to someone who clearly doesn’t want to hear what he’s saying. He’s ruthless and precise, and I’ve stopped pretending I don’t find it attractive.
“Da,” he says curtly, then ends the call without ceremony.
“Problem?” I ask from my position by the window.
