Page 27 of Vengeful Mafia Prince

"A place my parents used to keep out of town. Nobody is going to look for us there, I promise..."

She manages a smile. I reach across the car and squeeze her thigh, letting her know that I'm here with her. No matterwhat happens, I'm here, and I'm not going to let anything pull us apart.

Even if it tears apart both our families in the process.

Chapter Fifteen—Elena

I stare out of the window of the car as we come to a halt outside a small cabin. It's a little way into the woods outside of the city, and I don't know how long we've been driving for. In truth, I don't think I want to know.

Seeing my father like that, it... it terrified me. I've never seen him so angry in all my life, and I know what it means. Even though it's never happened before, I know what it means.

I know he's going to try and do everything in his power to destroy Giovanni and his family.

And I don't know where any of that leaves me.

"We're here."

Giovanni glances over at me from the other side of the car. I can tell he's having a hard time with this. The moment I sat in the car, a part of me started crying out to go back, to run to my father and tell him how sorry I am, that I want to undo it all and go back to what we knew before.

But that's never going to happen. Now that he knows about Gio and me, everything is going to change.

I get out of the car, and Giovanni keys in a code to the door. It swings open, and we step into the cozy log cabin.

"Your parents had this place?" I ask as I glance around.

He nods. "Yeah, they liked to have a getaway outside of the city. Get some fresh air, that's what they always said…" He trails off and glances around as though something is striking him forthe first time. "You know, this is the first time I've been here since they..."

"Since my father killed them."

My words are harsher than they need to be, but I know it's the truth. He killed them. He's the reason Giovanni's parents are dead. I could see from the look in Valentina's eyes just how furious she still is, and I wish there was something I could do to make things right.

But there isn't. They're gone.

Giovanni can hardly even look at me. I don't know what he was thinking, bringing me out here with him, acting as though there was any way in hell the two of us could get past what happened. After everything I've done, everything I've been involved with—most of it without even knowing—if he never wants to look me in the eyes again, I wouldn't blame him.

"That's why you got the internship, wasn't it?" I ask, turning to face him properly. "Because… because you wanted to do everything you could to take down my father. That was why you got close to me, because you wanted to destroy him, because you wanted to—"

He grabs my arms, stilling me. When his eyes meet mine, it's with a blaze of near-angry passion.

"That's not why I got close to you."

I don't pull myself away. In that moment, I feel like I can't. His touch is hypnotic, his hands on me enough to push the thought of everything else from my mind.

"What are we doing here?" I whisper to him, finally.

"I wanted to keep you safe."

"From who? Your sister?"

He lets out a sharp sigh. "From your father, too."

"You really think I need protecting from him?"

"I think he's capable of a lot more than you think he is."

The words hang there between us. He slides his arms around me, pulling me close. It's hard to parse what is real and what's not. When he looks at me like that, my whole world stills for a moment, and all I can think about is the expression on his face.

"I couldn't live with myself if something happened to you, Elena," he murmurs, reaching up to swipe a strand of hair back from my face. "You... you're everything to me. I know that I should have been honest from the start, but I couldn't. You would never have let me get this close to you."

---