“You’re not going even try another way?” she asked. “At all?”
“There isn’t another way,” I said. “Not when you’re dealing with them. They are ruthless, and they’ve proven time and time again that they will take the lives of innocent women in order to prove their point. I will not let that happen to you or our daughter.”
I tried to reach out and dry her tears, but she moved away from me.
I couldn’t blame her. She was looking into the eyes of a killer. I’d tried to put these ways aside. I’d tried to forget the life I led before I uprooted my nephew and moved to Pennsylvania. I wanted to clean up my business and make it legitimate, casting out the people I knew were ruthless and keeping the people I knew would attempt to build something great with me.
Now it seemed that no matter what I’d hoped for, I could never be the man I wanted to be.
I wouldn’t allow my family to be at risk. Rose stared at me, her eyes wild with fear and fury, but it still didn’t prompt me to stop my plan. I was going to do whatever it took to keep them safe.
Even if it meant losing them in the process.
“I had a few rough years after my parents’ death,” I said. “ But after I realized the anger that consumed me would never truly go away, I worked to change. I took my inheritance and invested it into new ventures that have garnered me the wealth I now have today.”
I saw her swallow thickly, but she still wasn’t speaking.
Nor was she coming any closer.
“I wanted to clean up our family name. Pull us out from the depths of the crime syndicate we’d fallen into. I wanted to clean our money of any stench of impropriety, so I donated much of it to charities. But my family name still holds a lot of sway and implications of power. They want me gone because they don’t believe that I won’t come back and try to take back my territory.”
Rose drew in a shaky breath and it broke my heart.
“I can’t imagine how terrible your childhood must’ve been,” she said.
I turned my gaze to her while tears continued to pour down her face. And then, she did the one thing I would’ve never expected her to do during this conversation, he launched herself at me and threw her arms around my neck.
I held her close in my arms, drawing her scent deep into my nostrils. She locked her legs around me, her hair covering my reddening face, and her lips grazed the shell of my ear. “I’m so sorry about your parents,” she said breathlessly.
“Thank you,” I said, whispering.
I buried my face into her neck, feeling her tears drench my skin. I kissed her skin repeatedly, memorizing the way it felt on my lips for the last time. I honestly had no idea if I was coming back from this endeavor, but I was willing to die if it meant keeping my family safe.
With every kiss I pressed into her skin, however, I felt her body stiffen in my lap.
“But you can’t keep using violence to solve your problems, Camillo. It just perpetuates the cycle. Don’t you see that?”
I pulled away from her and looked into her eyes, watching them silently beg me to come up with another way. But I knew what I had to do, no matter what she thought about it.
“I won’t allow our family to be in danger, or to live in fear,” I said. “No matter what happens, I’m going to deal with the problem, once and for all.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE – ROSE
Lightning cascaded through my veins the moment Camillo said, “our family.” All of the daydreaming and the luscious escapades at night had all amounted to those two powerful words flowing from his lips. I closed my eyes, memorizing the way those words sounded in his rugged, beautiful accent while his hands traveled up and down my back.
For a moment, I was able to allow those words to block out the truth of everything that was going on.
I clung to him tightly as we sat there on his bed. I could hear the boys stirring downstairs, the morning sun finally peeling their eyes open. I sighed into his shoulder. I didn’t want Camillo to go. I wanted him to stay here with us. I wanted someone else to deal with the violence if there had to be some. I didn’t want him to taint himself further with the one tactic that brought him to where he was sitting in the first place.
But when I raised my head from his neck and looked into his eyes, I knew he hadn’t changed his mind.
“You’re still going, aren’t you?” I asked.
“I have to, my beautiful songbird. I have no other choice.”