Page 23

Max

"Are you sure she can handle this?”

Veronica’s words are far from unfounded. I know she has every reason to doubt Cara, but I need her to trust me right now, if not the woman whose father has been involved with some of the bleakest shit I’ve ever heard of. I nod slightly, glancing towards the bedroom where Cara is changing.

"I know she can. Just talk to her, Veronica. She’s serious about this. I know she is."

Veronica stiffens her jaw slightly, shifting in her seat.

No matter the conversation they shared the other day, there is still a part of Veronica that doesn’t want to believe it could be this easy, and I can’t say I blame her.

She has spent a good portion of her life doing everything she can to bring down the Leone family, and now, she is being asked to believe that one of them has her best interests in mind.

I don’t know if I would be able to approach it with a clear head, either, but that’s exactly what I need right now, as we enact the plan that is going to bring Lucio Leone down for good.

Cara emerges from the bedroom, and the two of us glance towards her. She stiffens, likely able to tell at once that we are in the middle of a conversation about her.

"What’s going on?” she asks, her voice a little shaky, as she makes her way over to my side. I hand her a cup of coffee, and she takes a long sip, her lips brushing along the edge of the cup in a seriously distracting way.

"Just talking about what’s going to happen today," I reply.

She shivers slightly, and I can tell that she has been doing everything she can to put that part out of her head.

"It’s going to be alright," I assure her, and she nods, gritting her teeth slightly, as though she is trying to convince herself as much as us.

"I know," she replies, and her eyes dart over to Veronica. She seems distinctly aware of the fact that I’m not really the one she needs to convince. Veronica is.

"So, run me through it again," Veronica tells her, lifting her chin and raising her eyebrows.

After Cara and I came together for the first time last night, we lay there and talked for what felt like hours—about her father, about everything she has been through, about where she stands now that she knows what he is involved with.

And in the midst of it all, we put together a plan, a plan that I have since run past my father and a few of his men—a plan that will bring everything to an end, if it plays out exactly how we want it to.

Cara takes a deep breath and lowers her head.

"Okay, so," she begins, "I’m going to leave the cabin. Look as much of a mess as I can, so it looks as though I managed to escape. You guys are going to come after me, at least make it seem as though you don’t want me out there, and I'm going to head towards the road so one of my father’s men will find me. I’ll insist on being in a car alone with him, say that I can’t trust anyone else, and we’ll drive out of the forest and right into Max’s guards. And then...."

Her eyes dart back and forth between us.

"We’re going to take him in."

That’s one way of putting it. I know that she isn’t ready to contend with the fact we are going to do more than just slap a pair of handcuffs on her father and be done with it.

No matter how much she understands about what he has done, that is still the man who raised her, and she is not ready to accept that she will help bring him down.

But after all we have been through, after all that we have seen from him, I know that none of us will be willing to stop at a slap on the wrist.

"And you know where you’re going?” Veronica demands. "To the main road, I mean?”

Cara nods.

"I have a map," she replies, patting her pocket. "I’m not great with directions, but Max walked me through it this morning. I know where I’m going."

I grimace. I wanted to take her out there, trace her journey so that there would be no doubt about where she was headed, but I know if anyone spots us walking together, it’s going to be obvious that this is nothing more than a set-up, and the last fucking thing we need is to be busted.

Because now, it’s not just us I have to worry about.

It’s her, too. And I have no doubt that her father will turn on her with just as much brutality as he would anyone else who betrayed him.

"Good," Veronica replies, though she is still not quite looking Cara in the eyes.

Cara watches her for a moment, chewing her lip.

I know everything that Veronica represents to her, all the guilt she still feels for what happened all those years ago.

I wish I could lift some of that from her shoulders, assure her that she was nothing more than a kid and that she has nothing to feel bad about, but I doubt that I would be able to cut through the weight in her head.

"I’m going to make this work, Veronica," she tells her firmly, the certainty in her voice catching even her off-guard, by the looks of it. Veronica locks eyes with her, her gaze impassive and hard to read.

"I promise," she continues, and her breath hitches slightly in her throat. I notice that she is clutching the coffee cup so tight it looks as though her knuckles are going to burst straight through her skin. I put an arm around her, steering her into the kitchen.

"You need something to eat," I tell her firmly, though really, I am just looking for a chance to get her alone.

Veronica seems to sense this, and she rises to her feet and heads to the porch, putting some distance between us.

"I don’t know if I can eat anything," Cara mutters to me, shaking her head. "My stomach’s a mess. Worse than it was when I was meant to get married to Mario..."

"It’s okay," I promise her, as I cup her face in my hands, gazing into her eyes. "You’re going to be okay, Cara. You believe that, don’t you?”

She hesitates for a moment before she responds. It's just a second, but it’s enough to set off alarms in my head. The hairs on the back of my neck stand up, and I narrow my eyes at her.

"Cara," I repeat. "If you have any doubts about this at all, you need to tell us now. You can’t go out there into the midst of all of this unless you’re?—"

"Of course, I have my doubts," she replies softly, a small smile tracing up the corners of her lips. "Of course I... I don’t know if I can do this. This is the longest I’ve ever spent away from home in the first place, and now, I’m going up against my father...?”

She trails off for a moment, the emotion cracking her voice.

"But I can’t just stand by and do nothing," she admits. "I’ve done that for too long. I looked the other way when I should have done something about it, I haven’t… I haven’t been the kind of person I want to be."

"You didn’t know."

"I knew enough," she murmurs, her head drooping down to her chest for a moment. "The moment I saw Veronica that night, I should have known something was wrong, I should have known?—"

I clasp her by the shoulders. I can’t stand to hear her talking down on herself like this, as though there’s anything more she could have done. She has been through enough as it is, and I will not let her turn on herself, not now.

"Hey," I cut her off softly. "You’re doing something now. That’s all that matters, okay? You’re going to bring an end to all of this, once and for all. You should be proud of that."

"I’ll be proud of it when I know that it’s done," she replies, sighing heavily. "But... I just can’t help but worry that he’s going to see through all of this. That he’s going to know that this is a trap..."

"Why would he know that?”

She chews her lip for a moment.

"Because I don’t think he would believe I would be able to escape," she confesses.

My heart clenches in my chest. Hearing her speak about herself in those terms, as though it’s so damn impossible for her to believe that she’s capable of doing what needs to be done, I hate it.

She’s so much more than she thinks, capable of much bigger things than she will give herself credit for, and I hate that her father seems to have stamped that flame out of her.

"It doesn’t matter what he thinks," I reply hotly. "You can do this, Cara. I know you can. I believe in you, you hear me?”

She looks up at me, her eyes wide, searching for the promise that she will be able to get through all of this.

"You do?”

"Of course I do," I reply. "I wouldn’t even think about sending you out there if I thought you couldn’t handle this. Because I’m not going to lose you. I won’t."

Even as I say it, I am surprised by the intensity of my words—by how much I mean it.

Even though I have only known her a few weeks, there is something about her that I know I cannot lose, because, even despite everything that she has been through at the hands of her father, even with the way he has tried to brainwash her into believing that he did nothing wrong, she has seen through it, she has stepped out into becoming her own person.

And that person—that is a person I am falling in love with.

I press a kiss into her lips, and she lingers there, like all the time in the world for this kiss still wouldn’t be enough.

"Thank you," she breathes back. "I think... I needed that vote of confidence."

"We can go over it again, if you want," I offer to her, but she shakes her head.

"No, I think I’ve done enough of that," she replies. "I have the directions down about as well as I’m ever going to, it’s just that..."

She grips to me a little tighter, as though unwilling to let me go.

"It’s just that I’m worried I might not make it back to you. And that scares me. Because I... I feel like I have something here that I’ve never had before in my life, and I don’t want to lose it now that I know what it feels like."

I wrap my arms around her and pull her against me with a passionate protectiveness, my head against her neck, my breath on her skin. I inhale the scent of her, just as I did last night, wanting to burn it into my memory, as though I could ever forget it.

"You won’t," I promise her fiercely. "I won’t let him. I won’t let anything take you from me, you hear?"

She smiles against my neck. I can feel the movement of her mouth, a small sign of her trust in me. It seems a miracle that I could have earned that trust at all, given the circumstances under which the two of us met.

When I pull back, I can see that she has steadied some part of her resolve. It's clearly not easy for her, changing sides like this after she has been raised a certain way her whole life, but I know she is capable of it.

"I wouldn’t be asking you to do any of this if I wasn’t sure," I promise her, and she nods as she reaches for her coffee again.

"I know," she breathes back. "I think I just need to catch up with being sure of myself, too."

I press a kiss to her temple and go to make her something to eat.

All things going to plan, she will be out of this cabin in the next hour, in the forest and fleeing towards the location that we plan to lure her father to.

I know it’s not going to be easy, not any part of this, but if it’s enough to bring him down for good. ..

Then it’s worth it.

At least, that’s what I have to tell myself, as I glance at her out of the corner of my eye once more.