The son of the monster who’d nearly killed her beloved cousin, Lexa. Enzo Fontana’s blood flowed through my veins. The man who had disfigured beautiful Lexa’s face—who had also given me a scar to look at in the mirror every day—had given me life.
Monroe would never want to be with me once she knew.
No, it was better for her if she wasn’t with me. If she never knew the horrors my bloodline was capable of.
Because the darkness that had lived in that sick motherfucker lived within me.
Protecting Monroe was my only solace in life. As long as she was safe, I could go through the motions of everyday life. I would protect her from every danger, every evil that tried to touch my precious one.
Including myself.
Sticking to the shadows, I watched from the alley as Monroe stepped out onto the street with her honorary cousin River and the Donati sisters. From my peripheral, I could see Theo Volkov kissing his bride, the men who were always with them watching for every possible danger to their boss and his woman. Several other men, the Donati sisters’ security detail, stood at the limo, hands on the guns under their jackets as if they expected someone to try to take the two redheads from them at any moment.
But as vigilant as all of them were, they didn’t even sense me. I’d been trained from birth to blend into the shadows. It was safer there. In the darkness where not even a single shaft of light could penetrate, I was the greatest evil lurking.
River tucked her hand through Monroe’s arm, placing her head on my precious one’s shoulder. I saw her lips move, asking if Monroe was okay, and she got a shake in the negative.
I clutched at the bricks against my back, desperate to hold on so I wouldn’t storm forward, creating an all-out war zone that would only put my girl in direct danger.
The sisters got into the limo, and then River followed. But as Monroe started to duck her head to enter, she turned, and her eyes locked right on to where I was standing. There was no way she could see me in the darkness, yet she didn’t look away.
A single tear spilled over her thick lashes, shredding what was left of my sanity, but she dashed it away with the tips of her fingers before closing her eyes and releasing a heavy breath. When her eyes opened again, the gray orbs glittered with unshed tears, and she stepped into the limo.
Moments later, Tavia got in behind her. The door was shut firmly, and two men got into the front of the limo, while the others returned to the blacked-out SUVs that would follow them back to the mansion Scarlett Donati shared with her brother, Cristiano Vitucci.
Once Monroe was behind those closed gates, I wouldn’t be able to touch her. But that didn’t stop me from following them.
&
nbsp; As I sat in my car outside the wall of the Vitucci compound, my fist tightly wrapped around the chain of Monroe’s necklace, I was able to think a little clearer.
I’d picked up the necklace after she’d tossed it on the floor. I would have to replace the chain as the clasp was unfixable, but I would return it to its rightful place around her neck.
Chapter 3
Monroe
I wasn’t naïve enough to think my parents would allow me to go to Italy alone without someone watching me. Even if it was from a distance, I knew eyes would be on me and reporting back to my mom and dad.
Why else would Daddy have a meltdown over me going to college on the other side of the country, but was completely calm when he offered to send me to the one place I’d always dreamed of going for a few weeks?
I felt so bad after upsetting him when I told them all I had chosen Princeton, I’d eventually given in and agreed to going to Italy. At least I’d be able to get away from everything for a short while. And even if there were someone following me around, they wouldn’t be watching twenty-four seven. They wouldn’t approach me or bother me unless I got into trouble.
That meant I could grieve—and hopefully heal—in peace. Which was what I wanted more than anything.
At home, I couldn’t cry without people constantly asking questions. I couldn’t be sad without Maverick or Daddy or even Mila losing their minds. And I couldn’t so much as go outside because I knew G would be watching.
Without the necklace, he couldn’t know what was going on with me. He couldn’t hear every conversation I had with my family or when I talked to myself out loud—not that I did that regularly. I’d only started doing that so I could talk to him, but apparently he hadn’t been listening or just didn’t care.
It also meant he couldn’t find me. I figured he’d used my cell’s GPS to track me to New York, so I pretended to lose my phone, and my parents got me another one before I left for Rome. I’d left my old phone in the top drawer of my bedside table and kept it turned on, so if he tried to trace it with that serial number, he would think I was still home.
My flight was early, and I had a four-hour layover in Atlanta before finally flying to Rome.
By the time the plane touched down, it was midmorning there and I was half asleep on my feet. My exhaustion wasn’t just from the long flights, though. Mom had insisted on getting me first-class tickets on both, so I’d been comfortable during the trips, but I hadn’t slept well since deciding to cut G out of my life.
Instead of sleeping every night, I couldn’t turn my mind off. All I thought about at night was “what-if.”
What if G loved me back? We could have been so happy. I would have done anything for him.