Page 113 of Blood in the Water

He lifted his splinted hand. “Wait. Stop. You’re the only thing that kept me alive in there. You don’t need to apologize.”

The tears grew even heavier on my face, soaking my cheeks.

“Hey, it’s alright,” he whispered as his fingers brushed against my tears. “Come here.” I leaned into his side as gently as possible, wincing when he grimaced, but his free arm clamped around my shoulders. “Don’t you dare move. You owe me this, so let me enjoy it.”

“I’m just so happy you’re alive.”

“Me too, princess,” he breathed into my hair. I hadn’t taken a shower. I’m sure I smelled terrible, but he breathed me in like I was life-giving oxygen.

“I don’t even know where to start,” I mumbled. Though it was only a few days, so much had happened since we’d separated. I’d learned so much, both about myself and my father. All of it felt impossible to communicate in a single conversation.

His arm gently squeezed around me. I rested my cheek on his chest, and the strongthrumof his heartbeat grounded me.

“Tell me you missed me.”

I laughed. “I missed you, you big dummy.”

“Oh, thank God. I was afraid you’d forget about me.”

“Never.”

“I know,” he murmured against my hair. “That was the right place to start. Now you can tell me everything that happened.”

I took a deep breath and splayed my hand over his heart. I couldn’t look at him, but I could watch how he shivered as I trailed my finger up and down his chest.

“Did you know?” I asked finally.

“Know what?”

“About my father.”

“What about him, princess?”

I told him everything I found in those files. Everything Max said.

I told him how we’d found even more traffickers in what was supposed to be Vero territory. I told him about Max and the drugs and the warehouse.

The more it poured out of me, the more all the pieces fit together, and the truth settled in my chest like a weight dropping to the bottom of the ocean.

It was all true.

Some part of me still wanted to run from it. To hide from it. But I couldn’t.

When I finished, he pulled me tighter against him. “I didn’t know, princess. I’m so sorry. I’m so fucking sorry.”

I looked up and caught his gaze. Even his eyes were wet with tears.

In all my pain, I’d overlooked the fact that my father was as close to a father as Cas had ever known. Losing him, learning about his betrayal, broke Cas’s heart as much as it broke mine.

“What do I do now?” I whispered, searching his face for answers. Were we supposed to run? To fight? But what was there to fight for when my name and my father’s reputation were all ruined?

“What do you mean?” He smoothed my hair out of my face, and the gesture almost broke me all over again.

“Max killed my father because he was a shitty Don and a worse man.” I straightened and folded my legs under me. “Was he wrong for killing him? I wanted?—”

“Yes, he was so fucking wrong, Leona,” Cas cut me off, fury lighting his words on fire. “He should have exposed your father. Told the rest of us in the Family, told the othercapos,what he thought Don Luciano was doing. The Family could have dealt with it. He should never have planned a violent coup and murdered him at your birthday party. In no world would heeverbe right for that.”

I stared at the dried blood under my fingernails. “But?—”