Page 78 of Hide Little Traitor

Men like us aren’t supposed to show emotion. It’s not the way of the Mafia man. But Chloe has a funny way of bringing a softer side of us out.

“Why didn’t you stay with her at the time?” I ask. “It’s clear you care for her, why did you send her away to the De Marcos?”

“It wasn’t safe for her at the time. Hawk was still in its infancy, and I was gathering more enemies by the day. After everything she went through, she deserved to be safe. I’d known John De Marco a long time, and I knew he had the resources to keep her safe. I never could have dreamed how healing it would be for her to help raise Camilla after losing the baby.”

My chest tightens at the reminder of the child we never got to meet.

Sometimes when I’m alone, unable to sleep and staring at the ceiling, I allow myself to think about what could have been.

It used to hurt so fucking much, but at my lowest, it reminded me what happiness felt like. What love felt like.

I’d imagine that Chloe and I went to college. I’d think about sunny afternoons in the Californian sun, lying in the grass with my hand on her swollen belly.

My mind would wander to how my love for Chloe would have grown watching her bring our child into the world, and then to the little being itself. Sometimes my mind would conjure a little girl with bright green eyes and vibrant auburn hair like her mom, and other times it was a little boy with Chloe’s nose and my hair.

But we were always happy. In every version of my own imagination, our lives were perfect because we had each other.

If there’s one thing I’ll never forgive my father for, it’s how much time we lost.

I’m dragged back from my thoughts when we turn toward our destination.

“We need to pick up some burners and a few other things. The cabin is well stocked, but most people don’t keep backup phones and satellites at their vacation home,” Kingston explains.

“You don’t think our current burners are secure?”

“They likely are, but if I know your father as well as I do, he’ll be pulling out all the stops to find you and your brother. Plus Camilla has been blowing up my phone, demanding to speak to Chloe, but Salvatore will be waiting for that.”

I scoff. “That doesn’t surprise me. She’s kind of terrifying for someone her size.”

“She has to be to corral all those men of hers.” He smirks, but it quickly falls away. “Can I ask you something?”

“Sure.”

“Do you trust your brother?”

I open my mouth to say yes, to tell him there’s no one on earth I trust more than Damon. But something stops me. A niggling doubt that hasn’t shut up since he arrived at the airfield. “I don’t know.”

“Ryker also has his doubts, but I would like to believe he’s here for the right reasons. Until we can confirm his intentions, he is not to be alone with Chloe at any time. I won’t risk her being hurt again.”

“Understood.”

Leaving Damon and Chloe alone is risky at the best of times given the animosity between them, but if he was sent here by our father to bring me back into the fold, Chloe is the bait he knows I’ll chase.

CHAPTER FORTY-NINE

DAMON

NOW

I’m in hell.

That’s the only word I can use to describe this cabin, unable to escape three people I despise and my brother, who seems content to give up everything we’ve worked for.

Everything we’ve sacrificed for.

I’ve given up everything to be the leader of the Lombardi family.

Everything.