“You know what I think?”
“I’m sure you’re going to tell me,” I deadpan.
“I think you want to let her go. I think you know what happened back then was wrong, and now you want to allow her to live her new life in peace.”
I laugh, the sound devoid of humor. “Yeah? What makes you think that?”
“Because you’re a lethal motherfucker, and if you truly wanted to take her back to Miami, she’d already be locked up in the cellar at home. You’ve taken out entire teams of men that posed a threat to the family with your own two hands, yet you expect me to believe you couldn’t take down Ryker and knock Chloe out long enough to get her on the jet?”
I open my mouth to argue, but quickly snap it shut again. Because he’s right. The asshole is absolutely fucking correct.
Last month I took down a whole MC before my backup could arrive because they dared to deal drugs on our territory.
And a few months before that I took down an attempt to ambush one of our shipments without bothering to call for help at all.
I am more than capable of nabbing a five-foot-nothing woman without breaking a fucking sweat.
So why haven’t I?
Ronan’s smug smile does nothing to ease the annoyance building in my chest as he takes another bite of flavorless rice.
One of the many problems with being born just eleven months apart is that he knows me just as well as he knows himself. We may as well be twins considering how close we are, but this is the one thing that’s always torn us apart.
Chloe.
“You know, admitting you don’t want her dead doesn’t make you weak. She was your friend for a long time. You were just asclose to her as you were me when we were growing up. It makes sense that you’re hesitant to follow Dad’s order when you know she hasn’t done anything wrong.”
“She betrayed us!”
“No, her fathermayhave betrayed us, but I’ve never seen any evidence of that, have you?”
I’m about to argue when I realize he’s right. Dad told me he was a traitor, and I believed him. I watched as both of Chloe’s parents were tortured in front of her, and it never even occurred to me to check that whatever they had done was worth such a punishment.
Not once did it occur to me that my father could be wrong or that he could be doing it for his own gain rather than that of the family.
“At what point do you admit that maybe our father may have been wrong about Chloe and her family and just let her go?”
CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
DAMON
PAST
FIFTEEN YEARS AGO
The gun is heavy in my palm, far heavier than it’s ever felt before.
I’ve been shooting since I was ten, it’s not like this is my first time holding a weapon. It’s not even my first time holdingthisgun.
But it is the first time I’ll kill someone, and that’s the difference.
Most would think sixteen is too young to end a life, and maybe they would be right, but it’s a right of passage in the Lombardi family to spill blood on your sixteenth birthday. A coming of age, if you will.
But even knowing this day was coming, I’m not ready.
Not that I would ever tell my father that. He’s been bragging to everyone that works for us that it was time for his eldest son to spill blood for the family for the first time.
My heart beats in my ears so loud I can’t hear a word anyone is saying around me.
