But love could change a monster into a timid little puppy.
Well, maybe not a puppy. Mal would never be cute. He was more like a wild bear that’d learned how to coexist with humans. Not quite feral, but not tamed, either.
I needed that vicious Mal if we were going to survive this, and I hoped that finding his soul mate wasn’t going to slow him down when it came to breaking limbs and killing our enemies.
I leaned closer to him and smiled, tapping my fingers on the table. It rang like a steel bell. “Are you excited for the wedding?”
Mal softened a touch. “Not really, no. As far as I’m concerned, I’m already married to her. The wedding’s just a party.”
“Come on. Don’t pretend like you don’t want to see her in that wedding dress.” I raised my eyebrows. “And see her out of it.”
He rolled his eyes. “I don’t need a damn wedding to see Cap naked.”
“But you do need one to have a wedding night. Lighten up a little bit, Mal. You can enjoy this, you know.”
He looked away. “I’ll enjoy it when we don’t have so many damn people trying to kill us. I’ll enjoy it when I know Cap’s safe.”
“She’s safe so long as you’re breathing.”
“That’s the damn problem, isn’t it? And anyway, me breathing didn’t help your father and your mother much.”
I let out a breath like he’d kicked me in the chest. It hurt, hearing that from him. I knew he loved my parents like they were his own, but I didn’t think much about how he was taking their deaths. I didn’t want him to blame himself—he was in prison, after all. There was nothing he could’ve done.
And besides, if he were around that night, he’d be dead, just like everyone else.
I was the only one to escape. All because of a man named Rolando who turned spy for me and worked with Balestra. Unfortunately, in order to keep his cover, Rolando had to do some vicious things to Cap, which meant pissing off Mal. And now Rolando wasn’t around anymore.
I hoped he wasn’t hurting too badly. He took a prison sentence for me. He hunted down my supposed killers. He did everything he could to honor my family and the memory of my parents, and even still, it tortured him, knowing there was something he could’ve done, if only he hadn’t been in prison.
I shared that anger. Except I survived the ordeal. I’d been there and heard the screams and the gunshots. I saw the blood.
And I ran.
It burned me inside. Knowing that my parents were dead, their closest captains were dead—and I was still breathing.
Because I turned and jumped out a fucking window.
It’d been the right thing to do. I’d known it at the time, and I was still convinced I made the right decision.
But it still fucking hurt. I wished I could’ve saved my parents that night, or at least done something to make Balestra bleed. My revenge came later though—and was still happening.
I was taking back my territory and stealing away everything he took from me.
But the guilt weighed heavy on my shoulders. First, Mal had to go get himself arrested to keep me out of jail. Then, I lived when my family all died. And now I was a mess of survivor’s remorse, wondering if maybe it would’ve been better to have gone down fighting at my father’s side that night.
The bark of motorcycles coming toward us from the north pulled me from my self-loathing. I hadn’t told anyone how I was feeling, and I didn’t know if I could. Mal might understand, but there’d be no comfort from him. Cap would try to tell me I did the right thing and all that. But what I really wanted was for someone to call me a bastard, to chew me out the way I felt like I deserved it.
Nobody would, because I was Carmine Falsone, leader of the Falsone crime family.
Mal tensed as the bikes turned into view. Two men came toward us and pulled over at the curb. They rode big, black Harleys, heavy bikes studded with leather and gleaming, well-maintained chrome. The first man stepped off and ran a hand through his hair, looking around until he spotted me.
That must’ve been Cezary. He gave me a sharp, wolfish grin. His hair was peppered with gray, and his eyes were a deep, disconcerting blue, like the color of an ancient and still mountain lake. He was big, broad, and muscular, nearly the same size as Mal, and Mal was a freaking monster. He wore stereotypical biker gear—thick dark denim, heavy denim jacket over a black button-down—and I wondered how he wasn’t sweating like a pig under all those layers. He removed a pair of fingerless gloves, shoved them into his back pocket, and walked over.