Bastian grabbed her arm. “We need to talk, Katalina.”
She shook her head and held her bloodstained hands out in front of her. She glared at me and nodded, looking straight in my eyes. “Yes, we do. I need to make alliances with you for my bratva. I hope to protect them from monsters like him.”
I lunged for her faster than Bastian could pull her away and threw her over my shoulder. Dante stepped forward as she wailed into my back, but the sound that erupted from deep in my chest stopped him. I turned to face them with Katalina struggling as I pulled a gun from behind and swung it toward all of them. Every man’s hands went up. Whenever I fired, I didn’t miss. Everyone knew that. “Donotcome for her. This is our fight with each other. I bleed, she bleeds. Back the fuck off.”
She threw out obscenities at every single one of us as I carried her across the room to the back doors we’d entered so long ago together. The same trash can was to the right of them as I swung open the door.
This time, I wanted to be the one puking in it.
When I got to the bathroom, I set her down, and she tried to stomp my foot. “I don’t want to be back here with you! I don’t want anything to do with you at all.” She screamed at me so loud, she must have wanted everyone to hear.
“Same. You think I’ve wanted anything to do with you since the first time I met you?”
“You left your damn PO Box, not me.”
“You needed someone,” I explained.
“Not you. You can’t love. You killed your father and Mario. If you can’t love them, then who the fuck can you love?” She was throwing blows lower than ever before, but the pain in her eyes was there, was almost palpable. I saw our connection renewed, burning brighter in her anger than ever before.
“You!” I screamed. Or the monster screamed. Or my soul screamed. I wasn’t sure who anymore. She’d ripped me all apart. “You left and I crumbled. Don’t you get that?”
I wanted to crumble at his words. My heart did, I felt the pain of it. Knowing the one you loved loved you back should have been a happy moment. Instead, we knew we couldn’t be together. There was too much behind us and too much in front of us. Sometimes the complications around that burning flame of love snuff it out. “You deserved for me to leave. Look at our past, Rome. We can’t come back from that. You all deserved my desertion.”
“This family needs you. We need you to stand with us and be a part of what—”
“Standwithyou?” Her face turned ashen. Her little nose wrinkled up as if she was disgusted that I’d even suggested it, even though she’d done it all these years until now.
Before we could continue, she whirled and vomited in the waste basket near the bathroom door.
The motion was violent, wrenching from her soul like she wanted to exorcise everything from it.
She gripped the edge of the waste basket, knuckles turning white. “I should be used to this by now.”
“Used to what?” I walked over to rub her back and she tensed but let my hand glide up and down her spine.
“Used to those around me dying. Losing every single person I care about.”
“You haven’t lost anyone tonight.”
“I lost Mario.” She glared up at me. “Because of you.”
“He didn’t care about anyone but himself.” I tried to leash my anger by balling my fist and pressing it into the palm of my other hand.
“And yet I still cared for him. I still wanted him alive. You take a life and they’re gone forever, Rome. Wiped clean from the earth.” She shook her head at me like I should be ashamed.
“So they can’t do any more damage.”
“Was he all that bad? He loved me in the only way he knew how.”
“Harden your heart, Katalina. If you think ruling that bratva out there is going to be easier than this, it won’t be. You’re going to need a stronger stomach.”
She stepped back from the garbage and took a moment to wash her mouth in the sink. “Like déjà vu being back in this bathroom.”
“It’s more like a nightmare,” I grumbled.
Her silver eyes watched me over her shoulder in the mirror. “I think I’m in love with you. And that’s not possible. Especially not now.” The words fell as whispers from her lips, floating like light feathers over to me. And still they shattered and destroyed every part of me. I wanted her love but not like this. “It shouldn’t be possible after what you’ve done.”
In the movies, the novels, the fairytales, we could work it out. We’d find a way and kiss and make up here. Suddenly, I wanted that with her.