Page 26

CHAPTER

TWENTY-SIX

PRESENT DAY

“ W hen I woke up in the hospital, my father told me what had happened. They beat him for what he did to me but left him alive… I was in a private hospital in Cancun for a week before we flew home. He’d fractured my cheekbone, damaged my vocal cords and left me with some minor internal bleeding.” I wiped away a stray tear.

My eyes fell to my hands, quietly trembling in my lap.

Telling Marco had been just as disturbing and excruciating as I had anticipated. The emotions from that night swirling back with unwelcome clarity, as well as renewed waves of vulnerability and weakness.

I had never spoken about that night—to anyone.

Not when my mother pressed me for details in the hospital. Not when the Doctors wanted answers. No one .

And while I had anticipated, at least to some degree, the discomfort that recounting the story would cause, I hadn’t anticipated the sense of release that it would also bring. Somehow, getting it out into the air made me feel stronger. Not so alone.

I looked across to Marco. He was still sitting on the edge of the bed, facing away from me now. Motionless and taut.

The silence continued to hang in the air, heavy and suffocating, until I couldn’t stand it anymore. I reached out my hand tentatively, caressing his shoulder.

“Say something,” I said gently, desperate to hear the comforting tenor of his voice.

He launched himself off the bed, pulling away from my touch with startling force. Marco stormed across the bedroom and began pacing furiously. The muscle in his jaw twitched violently against the skin, as he ground his teeth. His hands latched onto his hips as his blazer strained against the tightness in his shoulders. His head jerked side to side incoherently as he muttered vehemently under his breath.

He was incensed by anger. Almost deranged .

I shrank back into the headboard, fearful of what this version of Marco was capable of.

“Say something. Please ,” I begged. When he continued to pace as if I hadn’t spoken, my voice became strangled. “Marco, you’re scaring me!”

“What would you have me say!” he shouted, spinning toward me. “That everything’s alright? That fucking bastard strangled you. Raped you. NOTHING IS ALRIGHT!” he roared, causing me to shrink away from him.

“Don’t you think I know that?” My voice trembled as I fought through the tears.

A hand tore down his face. “I’ve got to go,” he muttered, stalking toward the bedroom door.

“Where are you going?” I demanded, jumping off the bed.

“Mexico,” he answered simply, not bothering to even look over his shoulder.

“ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING ME? I’ve just told you what happened to me, and you’re leaving ?” I shrieked, outraged by his callousness.

He wheeled back around. “You expect me to allow that fucker to live?”

“No! I don’t.” I stumbled to him. “I just—please. Please don’t leave m-me.” My voice was broken and desperate by the end.

I couldn’t face being alone right now. Not with everything that had happened during the course of the day.

I needed him to stay.

A fresh wave of tears spilled down my face. “Please stay with me.”

His eyes softened as he observed my vulnerability and pain.

He puffed out a long, faltering breath. A solid minute ticked by, but finally he walked back over to me. The second he was close enough, my arms wrapped around his neck, and I buried my face into his chest. Breathing in his comforting and familiar spicy scent.

His strong arms encircled my waist, and his cheek rested against my hair, the stable pounding of his heart calming and grounding me as the minutes drifted away.

“I’m so mad.” Marco spoke softly, sounding exhausted. “I’m so pissed I don’t even know what I’m maddest about.”

I just nodded against him, not sure what to say.

“You should have told me before,” he sighed.

“It’s just… I didn’t want you thinking less of me for it.” My ears burnt with the confession.

I could feel his head shaking. “Never.”

His hands came round to cup my face, tilting my chin so his eyes could search mine. A gentle finger traced a line from my temple down to my jaw.

“I’ll sort this. I’ll do what your family should have done. I’ll kill him.” Suddenly a dark look clouded his eyes. “Though, I have no clue why they haven’t done that already.”

“Because it would have been bad for business…” I shook my head, unwilling to say the words as sickening images flashed back to me. “They weren’t as forgiving the second time,” I added darkly.

No.

My father had shot Tyler when he burst into my bedroom that day. Shot him right between the eyes. Then Leon and another cousin had dumped his body at the bottom of Lake Mead and put a suicide letter through his mother’s door.

A growl resonated in Marco’s chest, his voice taking on a biting and revolted tone. “You mean to tell me that Ricardo was the one that took your v?—”

“Yes.” I interrupted, unwilling to talk about it anymore. “Please can we just talk about something else. Anything else.”

I heard his teeth grind together and a tremor move through his body.

I sighed, knowing that unless I changed the subject that moment, he was about two seconds away from marching off to Mexico again.

Then I remembered something.

“You said earlier that we were engaged. That a marriage contract had already been signed. Is that true?”

I felt his tense body relax infinitesimally. “Yes.”

I pulled away to look up at him. “That’s not much of a proposal,” I teased, but then my smile faltered.

What if he regretted it? Would he, could he even want me after everything I’d told him?

But after a short minute, a small smile stretched across his face and my insecurities melted away.

“Well, I was getting to that part. Besides, was there even a point in asking? We all know you are desperate to marry me. You did sleep with me at a wedding after all,” he finished mockingly, referring to my conversation with Jesse and Enzo at his cousin’s wedding in Sicily some months previous.

I rolled my eyes. “As usual, your overwhelming arrogance no knows bounds, Don La Torre. Who’s to say I don’t have another, more powerful Don out there pining after me?” I challenged.

"You most probably do, but I doubt he’s as handsome,” he toyed, the last of his anger finally melting away.

“Arrogant. So, so arrogant.”

“Can I take that as a yes to you marrying me?” Marco asked still smiling, eyes softening.

“Hmm…” I sighed, pretending to be deep in thought for a moment. “I don’t think I’ve got anything planned for the next year. I suppose I could marry you.”

His charming, boyish smile flashed across his face making him so devastatingly handsome it hurt.

Knowing that my secret was safe with him and that he would protect me— love me despite everything I told him… It made my heart ache with happiness.

And fear.

I tried to ignore the unsettling feeling that I would meet Ricardo again as it pressed against my sanity like a cloud of sleet and snow. I didn’t doubt that Marco would protect me or that he had the means to deal with Ricardo just as one would swat a fly… But it didn’t make my father’s words any easier to forget: Make no mistake, he will stop at nothing to get what he wants .

I held Marco a little tighter as a gnawing sense of dread coalesced in the crevices of my heart.