For a long time, I was sure I’d never reach her but then my hand closed around hers.
It hadn’t rained in almost three weeks, so the water level was low and the river lazier than usual. It cost me all my strength to drag us to a stone platform. We had been dragged a good distance away from our families. A steep ladder attached to the pillar led up to the platform. I wrapped my arm around Greta’s middle and pulled myself up with one arm until my feet reached the first step. I was out of breath when I reached the top, Greta still dangling in my hold. Putting her down on the ground, I stared at Greta’s unmoving form beneath me, my chest heaving. Fuck. I’d barely any breath left for me but I pressed my mouth to hers, and began to resuscitate her. I’d tried to make my peace with the fact that I’d never see her again, but the idea that she wouldn’t still be safe somewhere, living her life, it was unacceptable.
When she sucked in her first breath, it felt as if I could breathe freely again too. Her eyes slammed open, locking on mine.
Fuck.
I cradled her face. “Have you lost your mind? Why did you jump? Why didn’t you try to stay at the surface?” More whys flooded my head but I kept them to myself.
“To be alone with you.” I didn’t crack a smile at her failed attempt at humor. She shivered, her breath catching. She swallowed. “I wanted to stop your family and mine from killing each other. I can’t swim.”
I shook my head. “They’re probably still killing each other.”
But I knew that wouldn’t be the case. Dad would send everyone out to save me, and Remo would try to save Greta.
“You could be dead.”
“I knew you’d jump in after me and save me.”
She said it without a flicker of a doubt. Love is a fucking weakness.
“I’m married now.”
“I know,” she said simply.
I looked away from her lovely face because I would have kissed her otherwise. It would have only made me look like even more of a fool.
“Don’t allow them to kill each other, Amo, please. Don’t let what’s between us cause a war. It’s too precious to be the reason for something this horrendous.”
“What is between us?” I rasped, glaring down at her, my palms still pressed to her cheeks, my body caging her in.
She licked her lips and I lost it. I bent down and kissed her, claiming those lush lips. When I pulled back again, I growled. “There’s nothing between us anymore, Greta. You didn’t allow it to be.” I got up with a hard smile. “Don’t trust me to save you again.”
I rubbed my face to bring me back to the present. It was the only kiss I’d had in my wedding night. I let out a harsh laugh. I had, however, fucked my wife when I’d returned home in wet, blood-covered clothes. Anger fueled fucking on both sides. Cressida had sunk her nails into the still tender scar of my knife wound, drawing blood, her eyes bursting with loathing, which had only intensified when I’d pulled out before orgasm and come on my own stomach. I wouldn’t get Cressida pregnant.
It was only four in the morning but I wouldn’t fall back asleep, so I got dressed and drove to my parents’ house. Dad would be awake too. Since we’d declared war on the Camorra, his nights were as sleepless as mine. Like the Camorra, we now had too many enemies and no true allies. Even if Greta’s actions hadn’t stopped the war, they had postponed it. Nobody had died that night, especially not Isabella, or Gianna—or Greta.
I let myself into the townhouse with my spare key. Dad had taken it from me the day after the bridge incident, and had barely spoken to me for almost six months, but Mom’s insistent mediation had eventually brought us back together. As expected, dim light came from under the door to Dad’s office. I headed there. He would already have seen me approach the front door through the security cameras. I didn’t knock before I stepped in. Dad sat behind his desk, bent over several maps, a dark look on his face. Our last drug transport had been stopped by the Camorra in Texas.
“As long as the Corsican Union sells us drugs, we’ll be fine with a stopped transport here and there,” I said as I sank down across from Dad.
“We’re paying double for the same shit.”
It was true. The Corsican Union bought drugs from the Russians, transported it to their territory in the French part of Canada through Alaska and sold it to us for double the price. Our customers were desperate so they still bought the overpriced drugs, but the Russians had been trying to sell cheaper ware in our territory.
“Eventually the Camorra won’t be as focused on our transport routes anymore.”
A muscle in Dad’s cheek flexed. “If we’d killed Remo and the rest that night, we would be better off.”
“Nevio would have killed Gianna and Isa. He wouldn’t have batted an eyelash. I can’t see how that would have improved our situation.”
“It would have made my sleep more satisfactory knowing I’d killed Remo Falcone,” Dad said.
I didn’t say anything. The look in Greta’s eyes when I’d turned my back on her after I’d pulled her from the river popped up uninvited. I hadn’t talked to her since that night and I tried not to think of her—which was close to impossible.
A soft knock sounded and Mom peered in, her face clouding with worry when she saw me and Dad. But worry had become her constant companion these last twelve months, mainly for Gianna and Isa. Gianna was her usual snappy self, which was probably an act, but Isa had definitely changed, become quieter, even more obsessed with her fictional worlds and chess.
“You should sleep,” Dad murmured.