Page 94 of Niccolo (Mafia Kings #7)

Niccolo

W ell, THAT went completely to shit, I thought as my taxi sped away from Taormina.

I was furious with myself.

I’d lost control.

Lost my temper.

And now I might have lost Sofia. Permanently.

The fact she was going back to Fausto was bad enough…

But I was heartsick that I’d destroyed any chance of something more with her.

I’d made every single fucking mistake in the book.

I’d taken the moral high ground when I didn’t deserve to.

I’d guilted and shamed her.

Worst of all, I had tried to use Lazaro and the deaths of those bankers as a way to manipulate her.

Yet, just like she’d said, I’d waited to bring it up until after I’d spent the night with her.

That was an unforgivable hypocrisy on my part.

And when I really opened up…

When I actually told her the truth about how I felt…

There was no reason in the world for her to believe me.

I tried to pick apart what I’d done, to sift my mistakes for some lesson to be learned.

Part of my idiocy had come from feeling guilty about Massimo.

He was on the run for his life…

And I was having the time of my life sleeping with the enemy in a luxury resort.

My own guilt led to missteps that, once taken, were irreparable.

But my worst offense was something Sofia had nailed:

I wish I could believe that. But with you, I never know if it’s just another move in your fucking game.

I was simultaneously treating her like a corrupt cop I was trying to bribe…

A chess piece to move around a board…

A puzzle to solve…

While also pursuing a romantic relationship with her.

I wanted the sex…

The romance…

The feelings.

And yet I treated her like an object to manipulate.

I was constantly looking for which buttons to push to get what I wanted.

The ugly truth?

I treated everyone in my life like that.

And when I finally found someone I wanted…

Someone I truly wanted…

I fell into all the old patterns…

All the old games…

And used every device I had in my bag of tricks.

Unfortunately for me, she’d seen right through them.

Now, that wasn’t to say she was blameless.

She was, after all, being paid to destroy my brothers.

And me, let’s not forget.

But over the last 12 hours, she’d actually just wanted to be a woman…

For me to be a man…

To ‘forget the outside world’ for a while and not talk business.

But I wouldn’t go along.

I had to keep pushing…

I had to keep trying to be the puppet master…

And I’d fucked myself royally in the process.