Page 55 of Mafia Scars

I’d never thought of that. It was never enough.

Never reason enough.

She reached out and touched my face. “Thank you for taking such good care of me. And helping me find myself.”

“I swear to God if that’s you telling me goodbye, I won’t accept it.” I shook my head.

She leaned forward and kissed me, nipples brushing against my chest, making me hard.

“Never. I’m never going to say goodbye to you.”

“You better not.” I kissed her back but pulled away, so I could gaze into her eyes. “I’ll change for you. I want to change for you.”

“It wouldn’t be fair… especially since I don’t think I want to be a cop anymore.”

My eyes widened. “What?”

She ran her hands over my jaw. “Being a cop’s not me, Luc. It never was. That’s Amelia Taylor. If I make it through all this, and I don’t die, I want to live the rest of my life in the way Amelia Rossi would have.”

“You will make it. But tell me, doll… Is that me? Is this my influence?”

She shook her head. “No. It’s me. I want to do that for me. It feels better already. I became a cop thinking that I could change everything because I’d been through so much and saw so much. I guess a part of me did some good. But I don’t feel the way I thought I’d feel. Being a cop wasn’t how I saw my life. I left Chicago because I didn’t want a life of crime, but then I put myself in a career that was filled with it. What sense did that make?”

I smiled at her, and she kissed me again. “How about we see what course life guides us on? You not being a cop, and me not being a mobster. We’ll see what that makes us.”

“The gardener and the dancer.” Her smile widened.

I pressed my forehead to hers, loving the sound of that.

Chapter 12

Amelia

* * *

I could have stayed there in Luc’s arms forever. Pushing reality through the door. Keeping it at bay forever.

We got out of the hot tub about an hour later, played around in bed for another hour, then headed to my family home.

The feeling I got on entering the premises was not like last night when I got to Luc’s place.

All I could remember was the day I left, and the heaviness that hung over me that night.

I felt it now, but this was different. It was the tension that came with returning and not knowing how I was going to feel when I saw my father.

The doors opened when we rang the bell.

A butler answered. A man I didn’t know.

“Good morning, he’s in his office waiting for you,” the butler informed us. His gaze took in both of us, but then he fixated on me and ushered us inside.

Nerves pricked the back of my throat and made my palms feel sweaty.

Luc kept hold of my hand but let go of it when we reached the base of the stairs. We stopped there.

The office was just ahead, and the door was ajar.

I looked around at the place that used to be my home.