“You don’t have to walk into the bratva’s open arms,” I said. “We’re possible if you want us to be.”
“Do we ever really get what we want, Rome?”
I wish I could have told her that the mafia gave us exactly what we wanted. We got the money, the cars, the luxurious lives. Yet we were too far in, too deeply rooted in the family to think the money and infamy on the surface was all it was. Down in the dirt, the grit and power and responsibility of a city weighed on your shoulders.
“This doesn’t have to be our fight,” I said.
“It’s the only one worth fighting now. My family and my blood will be for something.”
“For what?” I whispered. “You can’t change a whole city by yourself.”
“I won’t be by myself. Bastian and the family are going to align with us. We’re going to clean up, Rome.”
“He won’t agree.”
“Why?”
“Because it’s not safe for you! Or anyone. The bratva can’t be trusted.” I snarled and slammed my fist into the wall. She didn’t listen, she didn’t even attempt to. “Look at this logically.”
“Logic keeps you stagnant and I’m not aiming for that.” She turned on a heel and made her way to the door.
As she was about to swing it open, I slammed my hand on it and shoved it closed. “Did you ever consider I might not let you walk away so easily? You’re the damn enemy now, Katalina.”
“Or an ally. Bastian makes that call.”
“We all do. Bastian’s never ruled as a dictator.”
She leaned her back on the door and crossed her arms to look up at me. “And what? You’re going to sway him to kill me? To lock me up and treat me as the enemy? You don’t want the bratva as an ally to the family, and yet, you know as well as I do it’s the best thing for the family. We could crush all the gangs and other families in the city. The power would be ours.”
“And the responsibility.”
She bit her lip as if thinking for a second. “Who better to have that responsibility, Rome? You grew up on these streets. We all know them. I know how the men operate, you know how the gangs slither through the shadows of the city alleys. I want to grab them by their heads and hold them out in the light, make them stare at the damn sun and confess their sins.”
“We aren’t gods, woman. We don’t make the rules.”
“I do now,” she shot back. “I have to now, Rome. Or else, everything I’ve ever done is all for nothing.”
“For nothing? It was to help the family and to survive.” I fisted a hand and tried my best not to let her words grate on every nerve I had. I wanted to find every man who’d made her feel this way and rip them apart so they felt her pain and then felt nothing at all. I emphasized it again, “You did what you had to in order to survive. You can be proud of that, you can be—”
“I can be more than just a survivor. I can be a savior. I can be a damn enforcer. And I’m going to be one. You either get on board or stay the fuck out of my way.”
“I’m in your way, woman, because you set me there. You fucked me and I fucked you so far into our own oblivion, I’m stuck in love with you.”
“Stuck?” Her eyes narrowed. “I’m not asking you to be stuck.”
“And yet here I am in this bathroom with you again after all these years. Let’s stop this.”
“Are you going to stop being Bastian’s right-hand man?”
“What?” I stepped back at her question.
“You want me to give up my place for what? To stand next to you? After all this? Right now, all I’ve gotten from you is a fucked-up version of ‘I love you’ in a little bathroom I just puked in. Is that what I’m supposed to want? You’ve shown me that you will swoop in to save the day and ignore me the next. You let your damn monster out to play to save my ass but then tell me it’s the reason we can’t be together.”
“Katalina, I have to keep things in line for the family.”
“I don’t give a flying fuck!” She stomped her foot and the words thundered out with fury. “I’m not here to be by your side, to be a pawn on the chess board; I’m here to rise above it. I should have done it long ago. I never should have given my heart to you when you couldn’t quiet this viciousness. You were never ready. None of you are.”
She’d already taken my heart, and now she squeezed the life from it with those words.