Page 18 of Ruined Vows (Borrelli Mafia #5)

I’m elated with her omission. She agrees with me.

.This is a step in the right direction. We come from similar backgrounds, of course, I understand how our fathers stopped us from developing self-esteem.

I know how skillful they are in twisting truths to control us.

And they expected us to keep all their dirty little secrets.

Yes, we’ve survived, but we have scars that aren’t readily seen.

And those are more dangerous than the physical ones.

And suddenly, it’s not just attraction that is fueling my desire. I’m feeling something else as I stand next to her.

It’s an ache in my chest. Like I want something that isn’t mine, but I’ll never be complete without it. It’s the thrill of wanting her and the anxiety that she might not want me in return.

Not only is my reputation on the line, but my heart and soul are too. Does she want me? Does she feel the magnetic attraction between us? Or is it in my head?

I don’t want to consider the fact that I might fail.

But for now, it’s only me and her, in a room of dogs, and they’re calm. It’s as if they know we’d never hurt them.

“You want one?” I ask, redirecting the conversation.

She scoffs. “What, a dog?”

“Yeah.” I give her a side-eye so I can see her face, and when our eyes meet, she smiles .

She raises a brow. “That, coming from a man who only had dogs that could kill on command?”

“Maybe I want to learn what it’s like to have one that lets me sleep without checking the door five times.”

Her smile fades, but not because she’s unhappy. It fades because she feels it.

This moment. We’re sharing a part of our painful past.

We both come from places where love had conditions, and softness was punished. It’s as if our fathers wanted to tarnish our goodness because we represented something they could never be. Therefore, they had to ruin the light and goodness inside us.

We both understood that survival always meant keeping a close eye on our surroundings.

We come from families where you keep your family close, no matter how dysfunctional they were, because it’s all we had.

There was nowhere else to go. It was a lonely world, one that meant that we couldn’t trust anyone but ourselves.

And we put up walls to protect ourselves.

It’s a terrible way to live, but it kept us alive. It was survival.

But right now?

She’s not watching anything. And for once, she’s not building more walls. And perhaps I made a few cracks in the walls she uses to protect herself.

And neither of us knows what to do with that.

I vow I’ll tear her walls down, brick by brick. I don’t care how long it takes. One day, she will see that I’m not the bad guy. And one day, she will be mine.

So today, I say the one thing I know she’ll believe.

“You deserve something that’s yours. Something that doesn’t ask anything from you—except that you love it back.”

Her breathing hitches. She pauses, at a loss for words. She places her hand over her heart. I know my words touched her.

“It feels good to give something that doesn’t expect a piece of your soul in return,” I calmly state, knowing that my words have weight.

She stares at me.

And for a second, I think she might cry. But she doesn’t.

She whispers, “So do you.”

She doesn’t move. Neither do I. We’ve bared our souls, and we’ve never trusted anyone enough to do that before today.

We stay in that silence, hovering in something neither of us knows how to navigate.

Then, the spell is broken, and she opens the cage, and I meet Meatball. He’s a cute pup. I know she wants to take him home. I saw it in her eyes.

He needs a home. But before we could talk more, my phone buzzed.

Once.

Then again.

A third time. Priority alert.

I glance down at the screen and immediately feel the shift in my chest.

Business. Family. Blood.

Duty.

I clench my jaw. Not now.

Bianca watches me, her soft eyes growing wide with curiosity. She knows. She always knows .

I step back. And all of a sudden, being alone with her is too quiet.

“Something wrong?” she asks.

“Something I need to handle.”

She nods once. Doesn’t ask. Doesn’t pry.

She’s used to men walking out—but this time, I want her to know it’s not away from her.

I slip the phone into my pocket, then lean in, brushing a strand of hair from her cheek.

“Don’t look at anyone else while I’m gone,” I murmur .

She smirks, but it’s not smug. It’s softer, and it runs deeper than words.

“You’ll text me?” she says, as if it’s no big deal.

But it is. It tells me she likes to hear from me. It means I’m making progress.

I nod. “I’ll text later, Princess.”

Then I walk away. I hate to leave. I love spending time with her. I’ve never been so at ease around a woman. She completes me. She fills holes in me that I never knew I needed to fill.

And every step I take feels like I’m leaving the most important thing in my life. And perhaps I am. Maybe tomorrow, I’ll have to work harder to regain the progress we’ve made tonight.

But I don’t care how long it takes to win her—the part of her that is buried under the hurt and the pain that has her shielding herself from love.

And in the process, I hope we find it in each other. And oddly, I might find redemption.