I grinned. “I know.”
“Daddy!” she scolded, her hands fluttering around my injured body as though looking for a place that was safe to pinch.
I tugged her back into my arms and kissed her cheek. She snuggled close to my chest, sighing in contentment. With her safely in my arms, peace settled over my heart. But a shadow of guilt remained. I met Joseph’s aquamarine gaze, letting him see straight into my soul: my regret, my sorrow for what I’d done.
“I’m sorry I brought you here and didn’t tell you about my plan to meet Elio. I should’ve talked to you.”
His jaw firmed. “Yes, you should have.” He ran a hand through his hair, mussing the glossy black curls. “We talked about this, Marco. I thought we agreed that you wouldn’t isolate yourself. I thought this bullshit was behind us.”
“Joseph!” Ashlyn protested. “He’s hurt.” As though that was excuse enough to spare me from this difficult conversation.
“Yeah, and it’s my fault,” I said firmly, taking full responsibility. I grasped her shoulders and gently guided her away from me. I needed to be able to look them both in the eye. “I’m sorry I acted on my own. You both asked me to trust you, to lean on you, and I didn’t.” Claws sank into my heart when I looked into Ashlyn’s delicately beautiful face. “You were abducted by monsters because of actions I chose to take on my own. You were scared. I was trying to keep you safe and happy, but I made everything worse.”
“Marco.” Joseph said my name softly. “I know why you’ve been doing this. You think I’ll leave. You think I’ll abandon you again if things get bloody, but I won’t. I swear I won’t leave you. I’m so sorry that I ran away before, back when I escaped to Cambridge and didn’t take you with me.”
“We wouldn’t have met Ashlyn if you hadn’t done that,” I said, repeating the familiar excuse I’d made to gloss over my unforgivable actions.
He shook his head sharply. “That doesn’t make it okay. Don’t make excuses for what I did.”
“I’m making excuses for what I did!” The confession left me on a shout. All the pain of my betrayal that I’d buried so deep ripped out of my soul, carving a jagged path through my chest. “I let you think you’re a monster, Joseph. I let you believe that you’re responsible for a man’s death. But I’m the one who’s responsible. Me, not you. You’ve always thought that because the man was beaten to death on your watch, it’s your fault. But I’m the one who set up that job. I’m the one who recruited and trained the men who delivered the beating. I’m the one who killed him.
“But I let you believe it was your fault. Because I saw how disgusted you were with yourself, and I couldn’t bear for you to look at me with that kind of loathing. I let you hate yourself instead of me.”
I was the worst kind of coward. Selfishly, I hadn’t wanted to lose Joseph, so I hadn’t explained to him that all the horror he felt should’ve been directed at me. But I got what I deserved, because he left me anyway. It was a miracle that he and Ashlyn were with me now, but that’d only happened because I’d hunted him down and dragged him back to New York. Then, I’d kidnapped Ashlyn and held her captive.
I was the villain in our love story. They just couldn’t see it. And I’d never pointed it out, because I couldn’t bear to lose them.
Looking directly at their shocked faces was almost unbearably painful, but I forced myself to maintain eye contact. They deserved the truth, and here it was at last. I had endangered our lives with my secret plans. Now, I owed them honesty. They’d both begged me for honesty. They’d asked me to share my burdens with them, and I’d refused.
“I don’t deserve you.” The truth cracked in the back of my throat. “And now you know it, too.”
Silent tears ran down Ashlyn’s cheeks, and she held my hand so hard that her fingernails bit into my skin.
“Marco, no,” Joseph whispered, as though he couldn’t get enough air in his lungs. “No, that’s not true. You do deserve to be with us. You’re part of our family. We love you. I love you, Marco.”
The words hit me right in the heart. He’d never said them to me before. Not like that. Not with the weight of a vow.
“I love you too,” I rasped. “I love you both. But I’m not good for you.”
“Stop it,” Ashlyn hissed, her slight body shaking. “Stop it right now. I thought we’d promised each other forever, but you’re still keeping this barrier between us. Even though we’ve begged you not to.” Her shoulders shuddered on a sob, and she gasped for breath. “Are you looking for a way out? Is that what this is? Joseph loves you. I love you. Don’t you love us?”