Page 113 of Don’t Say Mafia

“What are you so afraid of?” he repeated.

His question settled between my shoulders as I stood there staring at the wall.

Ryan had broken my heart.

But he’d done it in small ways. Predictable ways. Spending all our money. Carelessly lying. Making me shoulder our life while he got drunk and gambled with his friends.

That all had hurt.

But it had been . . . ordinary.

A man like Jagger wasn’t ordinary. A man like Jagger didn’t half-do anything. I was sure that when he loved, it wasn’t in a small, manageable way.

If he wanted something, he took it. And if he decided he didn’t?

I turned slowly to face him and found him watching me intensely.

“I’m afraid,” I said carefully, forcing the words out before I could swallow them back down, “because what Ryan did to my heart was just . . . child’s play. He did it slowly. Piece by piece. Until there was nothing left but apologies and empty promises and me wondering why I wasn’t enough.”

His expression didn’t change.

“My heart survived him,” I continued, my voice steadier now even though my hands weren’t. “It broke. But it survived.”

I held his gaze.

“You, however, could shatter me completely. You could make me love you so hard that when you left—or when you decided I wasn’t worth keeping—I wouldn’t just be broken. I’d be gone. Erased.”

I swallowed hard and took a deep breath.

“I don’t think I could survive you.”

“I’m not Ryan,” he responded quietly.

“I know,” I whispered, “and that’s what scares me the most.”

I turned and bolted down the hallway, very aware of his gaze following each step.

Jagger

I watched her go, and it was everything I could do to not follow after her.

Fucking hell.

I scrubbed a hand over my chest like I could physically work the feeling out of it. It didn’t help. If anything, it made it worse. That tightness was back.

Letting out a quiet, incredulous laugh, I dropped into one of the kitchen chairs, dragging a hand down my face.

I didn’t think it would hurt this bad.

Not the wanting her. I was used to wanting Eden.

This was something else.

I pulled my phone out and opened my chat with Jace before I could talk myself out of it.

Me: Hypothetically. How did you know you were in love?

There was a pause. Then⁠—