“You know…” Phoenix stood next to me while family members said their goodbyes and started shuffling out of the church. “You would have never been able to be together.”
I opened my mouth to tell him that wasn’t true but found I couldn’t lie, not here, not now. “I would have found a way.”
“Funny you should say that, because on the outside it appears to me that we did find a way, Violet. When you’re young and in love, you tend to get lazy—I saw you in the church that day with him. However stupid it may have been, that choice you made sealed your fate, so when you go home with your hate, remember your love did this—that tattoo is on your finger because you put it there. Not by accident, but by choice.”
He left me staring at him wide-eyed, mouth gaping. He didn’t even let me deny it because, how could I?
When I seduced Breaker?
When I loved him?
When I was on the verge of losing my mind trying to think of ways to be together?
When I mourned the loss of him?
I denied nothing.
Because Phoenix was right.
I had chosen this too.
And it was time I faced that choice head-on rather than projecting all that hate onto the one man who had saved my life and my dad’s, my families.
Valerian. Petrov.
One more night…
I hung my head and sighed.
“We’ll find a way out of this,” Tex whispered as he put an arm around me. “You were taken advantage of, I won’t let him—”
“Tex.” I looked up at him. He looked exhausted, dark circles marred his face, and his lips were pulled tight like he was going to growl any second.
“Would you ever have let me marry Breaker, as the Capo?”
He clenched his jaw shut and avoided my eyes. “No.”
“Even if I loved him?”
“Oh, if you loved him well…” He said sarcastically. Then he released an exasperated sigh. “Violet, we have rules for a reason. Junior and Serena nearly died because of it, but even I wouldn’t have prevented you from someone you truly loved. I would, however, have sent you far, far, far, far away, beat the shit out of him, made him wait seven years for your favor, and then given him someone else.”
“Um, isn’t that in the Bible?”
“Is it?” His face softened. “When it comes to our children, especially the girls, we get protective, as far as I’m concerned, nobody deserves you.”
“Nobody deserves you either.” I nudged him.
He barked out a laugh. “Vi, you are everything to me, you’re more daughter than niece, I guess now you really are in a roundabout way my daughter,” He gave his head a shake. ”How could you ever think that there would be a man worthy of the love you give us? It doesn’t exist; everything is secondhand. My love for you, however, is so vast, so wide, so insurmountable that if you came to me, truly came to me and told me you loved him—I would have found a way for you to be together even if it meant going to war with my own family, just maybe don’t tell the others that, we don’t want mutiny.”
“Good thing, then,” I whispered, “that you didn’t have to.”
He stopped walking. “You love him.”
He didn’t ask it, he declared it.
“I loved Breaker,” I admitted. “I kind of hate Valerian.”
“Love doesn’t change just because a name is different, Vi. You either love him for who he is and has always been—or you let him go.” He kissed me on the cheek and walked off to shake hands with someone who looked like he killed people for breakfast and sprinkled their blood on his cereal.
Tex always did like the scary ones.
I thought about his words the entire ride home. It felt like a lifetime ago when I had come home from another funeral when I’d mourned the loss of Claire and the loss of the old life I thought I wanted.
The SUV pulled up to Nixon’s.
Food would be prepared.
Wine would be guzzled, not sipped.
And I would have a choice to make.
My chest hurt from all the breaking, and I wondered if I even knew how to forgive him after everything.
A small part of me understood the secrecy—but what really hurt the most was that he was my best friend.
And he never trusted me with the truth.
I loved him.
And he had kept this from me for all those years. Then, when finally given the opportunity, he had decided I couldn’t handle it, had decided I wasn’t strong enough. And he’d kept it from me.
He was wrong.
I wasn’t innocent, Violet Abandonato.
I was brave, Violet Petrov.
His wife.
The more I thought about it, the angrier I got until I walked into that house, stormed past my mom, and yelled at Junior. “Where is he?”
“Oh shit,” Maksim muttered.
“Downstairs, probably beating the shit out of Ash because he said please.” Junior smirked.