“Would you have let me go if you had known I was a prisoner all my life?”
He sighs, running his hand down his face. “No. I still need you. Your father is a problem and you can help me with him. But maybe I wouldn’t have put you into that cage. Maybe if I had known I would have been…”
“Kinder?”
“As kind as a mafia man can be.”
“My mother kept me locked away in that house all my life. I never fully knew why. She would tell me how evil men are. How I needed to stay with her. But I was tired of that life. The way she would hurt me.”
His eyes tighten. “How did she hurt you?”
“She would slap me or kick me. Scream at me. Make me feel like the worst person in the entire world. I believed her at times and other times, I knew it couldn’t be true. That I wasn’t evil. I went back home with her because I had nowhere else to go. But it was a mistake. I have no one, Leo. No one to help me. No one to keep me safe. I am not working for Alessandro Greco because he is a man I have never met before. He is a man I never knew existed until you told me about him. You have to believe it.”
“I’m starting to. I know I was wrong to have judged you the way I did. You’re innocent, Emma. I know that.”
A heavy sigh leaves my body, helping to relax the stiffness in my shoulders. “Thank you. But since you know that I’m innocent now, why won’t you let me go?”
“You just said it yourself: you have nowhere else to go. But I’ll keep you here. I won’t put you back in the cage. I promise. That was… a mistake.”
“What does that mean? Me staying here?”
His lips quirk into a smile that makes me blush. “You’re still my wife. I have a claim to you. I still need to keep you here to make your father back off.”
“So I’m still a prisoner.”
“You can move around the house. I won’t keep you locked in this room. But you can’t leave the house. Not when your mother is out there, wanting you back. Not when your father wants you. He could hurt you.”
“I don’t even know if he would. I don’t know him at all.”
“Trust me, Emma. He would hurt you. A man like him has no compassion.”
“And you do?” My tone is soft. Non-judgmental. It’s just an honest question.
He ducks his chin for a long moment before nodding. “I don’t always have compassion. But I do have compassion for you. I have a soft spot for you, Emma. I’ll admit. I won’t keep you asa prisoner if you promise to stay in this house. But you have to stay.”
“You hurt me,” I whisper as tears hit my eyes. “You filled me with hope and ripped it away. That has hurt me the most out of anything that has happened to me.”
Guilt forms in Leo’s eyes but to his credit, he doesn’t look away from me. “I know, baby. I know I hurt you. And I don’t want to hurt you again. I can’t promise I’ll always be nice. I have a darkness in me. I think all mafia men do. But I do know that I don’t want to put you back in that cage. Especially knowing how your mother treated you. Why didn’t you tell me before?”
“Because it was too hard,” I admit. “I felt shame for how my mother raised me. I felt embarrassed. I just couldn’t get the words out.”
“I’m glad I know now. Your mother is a problem just as much as your father is. But we can take them down. Together. If you stay here with me. Promise to stay here with me.”
Or he’ll have to lock me back in that cage, I realize. Leo has to do what he has to do for his job even if that means hurting me. But it’s obvious he doesn’t want to. It’s more than what my mother has given me. And as for my father, I don’t know how he’d treat me but hearing him at the theater, I know he’s not a good man. There was a darkness in his eyes that frightened me.
So I give Leo the only answer I can give. “I promise,” I say. “To stay here as long as you don’t lock me away again.”
“Deal.” The second he says the word, I feel a weight lifted off my shoulders.
“Leo, what happens if my father doesn’t back down? What will you do with me then?”
“Let’s not worry about that now.”
I stare down at my bandaged hands. “Thank you for helping me last night. I wasn’t sure if you were coming to kill me or not when you showed up at the farm.”
“I don’t want to kill you, Emma. I never have.”
“But you will if you have to, won’t you? If my father never backs down. You’ll have to kill me then?”
