Page 137 of The Devil's Deal

“Let me go,” Vincenzo implores. “I won’t breathe a word of this. I’ll be your inside man.”

“I wouldn’t trust you with dog shit,” I chuckle. “Let alone our lives.”

“I can hel—”

Dante pulls the trigger, silencing him as the bullet carves into his brain.

I turn to my brothers’ solemn faces, all of us determined to end the war once and for all.

Chapter Thirty-Five

Chiara

Shivering from the crisp,chilly air stirring around me, I wrap a knitted yellow blanket around myself, my legs pulled up to my chest on my aunt’s outdoor sofa. A warm mug is safely tucked between my palms, my hair whipping wildly past my face.

For the past week, I haven’t been able to get Dom out of my mind. I might not know the man he is today, but the boy he once was—the boy I loved—he’s still there, trapped somewhere within his heart. I have to believe that. The alternative is too painful to bear. Someone as beautiful, as kind, can’t be gone for good.

I’m torn between wanting to find out if he’s still there and not being sure if I can forgive him enough to try. For once, I’ve found someone to have a future with, something I never thought I’d have, but it’s slipped from my fingers.

Relationships shouldn’t start out the way we did. Love shouldn’t knock on deception’s door. But for us, it did, before we had a chance to feel what we could be.

He’s tried to get in touch, but I haven’t responded to any of his attempts. As soon as I got my new cell a few days ago, I received multiple messages from him, begging to talk to me, to forgive him, but all I’ve done is ignore them.

But today, there was a letter.

One I haven’t opened.

One I’m afraid to.

What if it breaks me? Breaks this cage I’ve built around my weary heart? What if I’m not strong enough to keep him out of it? What if I don’t want to?

For so long, I’ve imagined being with him, creating a whole future out of thin air, and now that he’s here…

It’s so unfair.

It may seem silly because we were nothing but kids back then, but he was my person. The one I could count on to hold me up when life tried so hard to push me down.

Picking up my phone, I read his texts again, as though enjoying the torture.

Dom: I can’t stand being away from you. Not when I just got you back. Give me another chance to prove to you that I’ve always been the man you thought I would become. I’ll spend every day of my life making it up to you. But first, you have to let me.

Placing my mug down on the end table beside me, my hand jumps to my eyes, wiping away some tears, reading the next text.

Dom: Do you remember when you told me that football player from school asked you out? That was when I realized I liked you. I planned on telling you the day everything went to hell, but I never got the chance. Even at thirteen, I knew you were special, Chiara. And to me, you still are. Always will be.

“Asshole,” I murmur, the tears cascading down my face like raindrops spelling heartbreak.

Suddenly, I realize we were both going to tell each other about our feelings on the very same day.

We could’ve had a life together, something that could’ve been more than we ever thought possible. But the mirror containing our future cracked into darkness, turning into the nightmare that became our life.

I set the phone next to my coffee and close my eyes, taking in a long breath, embracing the bitter memories and sweet recollections between a boy and a girl who were never meant to be anything more than what they are.

* * *

“Do you know Rocco, the football player?” I ask Dom, who sits beside me at lunch, stuffing an orange slice into his mouth.

“Yeah,” he mumbles, swallowing it down. “What about him?”

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