Page 56 of The Temptation

I gasp. “By Dante?”

He shakes his head. “No. He was a year ahead of me, the golden boy who everyone loved. We didn’t really talk back then. But years later, my uncle brought me to a dinnerat Dante’s place. He recognised me straight away and, I don’t know … something clicked. He took me under his wing. Treated me like I was family from that day on.”

“He’s a good guy,” I admit.

“The best,” he says quietly, like he means it.

I tilt my head to the side. “So where does the priest come into this?”

He lets out a breath, followed by a ghost of a laugh. “Before Dante and I became friends, I was copping it pretty bad. Relentless shit. Fuck, I hated school back then. It was a nightmare. And with what was waiting for me at home ... I didn’t have anywhere safe to land.”

That confession hits me square in the chest. The thought of him dealing with all that alone, as a kid, is brutal. My mother was my safe space, and when I lost her, Arabella became that person.

“Father Flannery was an Irish descendant who grew up on the streets but eventually found his calling. He ran a youth club next door to the school. Took in rough kids … kids slipping through the cracks. I wasn’t exactly wayward, but he saw something in me and thought boxing might help.”

I blink. “A priest taught you to fight so you could beat up your bullies?”

He smirks, a hint of mischief in his eyes. “Basically, yeah. Though, to be fair, I’m pretty sure he was teaching me how to defend myself.”

I raise an eyebrow. “With a right hook?”

He chuckles. “Sometimes a good right hook is the most righteous thing you can throw.”

“That’s badass. The priests in Italy were more interested in getting you to submit to their ways by guilt, or by putting the fear of God in you.”

“Most here are too. But Father Flannery was different.Tough as nails, but never judged. Just gave me gloves, showed me how to throw a proper jab, and listened when I needed to talk. We still keep in touch. Every now and then, he checks in.”

I smile. “He sounds like the kind of priest the world needs more of.”

He nods, gazing off into the distance. “Yeah. He probably saved me, in more ways than one.”

He sits up straight in his seat, turns on the ignition, then reaches for his seat belt. “Are we leaving? What about your gate and the door to the garage?”

“I text one of my men, he’s getting it sorted. Given everything that happened tonight, I should get you back to the safe house.”

I’ll admit that the flyer spooked me. Who knows how many more are out there? But Romeo gave his mother and her boyfriend a final and deadly warning before they left.

He even called her an Uber so she could take her injured boyfriend to the hospital, which was pretty damn generous, considering they were there to rob him. But he made her swear not to say a word about me. He told her straight. That her life depended on her silence. She eventually agreed, but can we really trust her?

Like she said, ten grand is a lot of money for someone with her kind of addiction. Desperation makes people reckless. Unpredictable. And now that I know more about her story and how she ended up like this, I understand her a little more. It doesn’t mean I forgive her for all the shitty things she has done to her son. She probably would’ve perished a long time ago if it weren’t for him.

I used to drink occasionally to shut out all of the pain and anger. I thought I was escaping it all by numbing the suffering, but it wasn’t an escape; it was a cage. Every time I sobered up, my problems were right there waitingfor me. All it gave me was guilt, shame, and a pounding hangover to add to the pile of shit that was my life back then.

It wasn’t relief. It was a delay—a slow bleed. And when the bottle was empty, all that pain came rushing back, with interest.

“When are you going to tell Dante about what happened tonight?”

“I’m going to call him as soon as we get home.”

Home.

Our living arrangement was never meant to be permanent, but I’m not ready for it to come to an end.Not yet.Maybe not ever.

I need more time to make this man see himself the way I do. To prove that real love doesn’t have to break you. It isn’t built on betrayal, pain, or survival.

He needs to understand that home isn’t something you have to run from; it can be a place you choose.

The world drains those who feel the deepest. Soft hearts carry heavy loads, not out of weakness, but because they refuse to become what broke them. What we don’t talk about enough is the emotional cost of being good in a selfish world.