Page 101 of Dirty Hearts

“I don’t know,” I replied with an edge to my voice.

“What do you want to do?”

I wanted to do what I always wanted to do, and that was to be with him. “Sometimes what we want isn’t the right thing.”

I could have been killed yesterday. Or at the very least taken. I could have been taken again and used as some… I don’t even know.Something, anything to make an example out of me.

“That’s very true. But often people confuse it. They confuse it with right and wrong and never look at the middle ground in between. That slight give where there are possibilities. Possibilities and opportunities that could be molded into something else. Something you wouldn’t see if you simply thought of what you wanted as right or wrong.”

I was listening. She definitely got my attention.

“How? How do you get that middle ground when everything just feels like a disaster waiting to happen?”

“You look at what you want outside of what’s happening to you. Take it apart.”

I didn’t exactly think our situations were similar, but there were some similarities. Claudius had given me some background on Amelia. He didn’t go into much depth, but he told me that she was Raphael Rossi’s daughter.

So, sure, I had questions, maybe too personal to ask.

“When you met Luc, did you know about his past?” There, I’d said it and was surprised that she laughed.

“Ava, when I met Luc, he was a mobster,” she informed me, grabbing my attention further. She sighed, but she was still smiling. “I guess maybe he was the kind of guy I absolutely did not want to end up with because, as you must know, Raphael Rossi, the old boss, was my father. I was a cop, and Luc was a mobster.”

Okay… now I was shocked to the core.

Amelia used to be a cop.

Claudius did not tell me that part, probably because he hated cops. I knew that much. It was a pretty big thing to leave out though. That his sister-in-law used to be one.

That was the first shock, but as I looked at her, I couldn’t help but really look at her. I was never one to judge or anything like that, but she didn’t look like cop material at all. We were practically the same size. Petite. And she was really dainty like.

She laughed again. “You’re looking at me like I’m nuts.”

“No, I’m just shocked. I …” I caught myself before my foot could continue living in my mouth. “I mean surprised.”

“It’s a very long story, which I’m sure I’ll tell you soon.”

Despair tugged at my heart as everything that had happened flicked through my mind like one of those flick books. Actually, it all felt just like that, and now I was at the end seeing the full picture.

“I have a long story too.” I nodded. “Did Luc… did he change for you?”

“At first, that was what he wanted to do, and of course, that blew me away. Completely. But then I realized very quickly that if he changed for me, he wouldn’t be the same guy. That change wouldn’t be real. There would be some part of him that would miss his old life, and the risk there was that eventually, he could blame me for taking it away from him. I didn’t want that because to me, it wouldn’t be fair.”

That made a lot of sense. It did, and she was right. It was like trying to look a certain way to please someone else. That wouldn’t be being true to yourself at all.

“So, what happened?”

“He changed for himself first.” She lifted her shoulders slightly.

“What if he hadn’t changed?” That was the important question for me. “What if your life was waiting for him every day wondering if he was dead or alive, or if he was going around killing people?” Now, I was spilling my heart.

“Luc was never like that, and neither is Claudius. It’s important you understand that. I know there are some really bad crime families, but don’t expect mindless killing from either of those guys.”

In my mind’s eye, I kept seeing Claudius shooting those guys. The first guy who’d held a gun to me. He would have taken me away. The other guys had fired shots at Claudius. Did I expect him to just stand there and be shot? Or wait to be killed? That was stupid.

Amelia straightened and continued. “Luc and Claudius aren’t the same, but they’re both the best guys I know. Luc promised me once that he’d always do the right thing. He promised me that he would do that. Doing the right thing may seem wrong in other people’s eyes, but it’s having the ability to make a judgment call when you need to. So, in answer to your question, if Luc hadn’t changed, if he were still in the business, yes, I would still be with him. That’s me. There was… no one else for me. I chose him.”

“Thank you. Thanks for sharing that with me.”