Page 23
But at least I’m not alone.
At least I have his arms around me as darkness inches closer.
Damon sobs against my shoulder, and I hold onto him as tightly as I can manage, desperate to stop him from falling apart.
Desperate to stop him from feeling the weight of this loss.
The Lombardi brothers have known enough loss to last them a lifetime. I just hope that losing me isn’t the thing that finally breaks them.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
RONAN
NOW
It feels significant that Kingston is trusting me on this mission given the stakes.
The woman he loves, that we all love, is in danger, and I’m the one he’s sending to retrieve her while he and Ryker stay at the cabin?
That’s a big deal, right?
But none of it means anything if I can’t bring Chloe and Damon home.
Rocco drives us to the meeting point, not saying a word to me the entire time, and I try not to take it personally.
He was jovial with the others but hasn’t bothered to acknowledge my existence since they joined us, and I can’t decide if it’s because he doesn’t like me or if he’s just slow warming up to strangers.
Either way, my interpersonal relationships are hardly the biggest issue I have right now.
“Have you worked for Kingston long?” I ask when I can’t handle the silence for another second. After being with Chloe and the guys, and before that Ryker for weeks, I’m not used to sitting in complete silence anymore.
“Yep.”
“And he’s a good boss?”
“Yep.”
I huff out a laugh. “You know any other words?”
“Yep.” But this time the corner of his mouth quirks up ever so slightly. If I hadn’t spent my entire adult life assessing body language, I’d likely have missed it, but it’s difficult to get anything past me.
“Have I done something to annoy you?”
He sighs and glances over at me before his eyes settle on the road ahead. “I’m not much of a fan of your family in general.”
“That makes two of us.”
“Like you haven’t done shitty things in the name of the Lombardi family,” he challenges.
“Oh, I absolutely have,” I admit. “But it was never because I wanted to. It was the obligation I had to the legacy I was born into, and as soon as I realized how many lies I’d been fed, I got the fuck out.”
“And your brother?”
I hesitate for a moment, because Damon is a work in progress. He’s got so many faults I stopped making excuses for him years ago, but what Rocco doesn’t understand is how hard it was for Damon to betray the family to help me save Chloe.
It’s been drilled into him since the day he was born that his responsibility was to the family above all else. He’s never been allowed to want anything, to be anything, that isn’t the heir to the throne.
And that’s not the easy life it seems like.
