“Yes.”
“You keep saying that.”
“Because it remains true.”
My laugh comes out sharp. “Do you know what the worst part is? You are standing here acting like you understand what you did, and maybe you do. Maybe you really do. But you still decided it was better to leave than allow me to choose whether I wanted you in my life after.”
He looks at me for a long moment. Then he takes off his coat and lays it over the chair by the window.
“I thought you deserved a life that didn't include me.”
The words are so quiet they nearly miss me.
I stare at him.
“What?”
“I thought if I stayed, you would keep trying to make sense of what I did. You would tell yourself you could forgive it because you wanted to believe I was better than I am. You would keep choosing me because you are loyal to people who hurt you. I didn't want to become another man you had to survive, and I didn't trust myself to stay without making that choice for you.”
My throat clenches.
“You do not get to decide that for me.”
“No.”
“Then why did you?”
His hands still.
For the first time since he arrived, Stefano looks uncertain.
Not weak. Never that. Though stripped of the certainty that usually makes every decision feel inevitable.
“Because I was afraid,” he says.
The room seems to lose sound.
I have heard Stefano threaten men without raising his voice. I have watched him walk into rooms that belonged to other people and make them his with one look. I have watched him hold a gun beneath a table while someone touched me, watched him kill a man because he believed the world was safer without him.
I have never heard him admit fear.
“Afraid of what?” I ask.
His gaze stays on mine.
“That if you looked at me long enough after Boston, you would see exactly what I am.”
I should say I already know.
I should say that was the whole problem.
Instead, I feel something inside me soften against my will.
“I did see,” I whisper.
“I know.”
“And I still wanted you to stay.”
