Page 46 of Captivated

“What does that have to do with what I’m saying?”

“Either you trust me or you don’t. What you’re saying might be true to some extent, but there’s one huge difference you’re missing.”

“And what’s that?”

“I would never break your trust, Cassie. When you’re with me, you’re mine. You’re under my protection. And with that, comes the protection of every single member of my family and every soldier in our organization. You’d be at the top of the priority list for everyone. I’d be there for you. Same goes for Lexi now that she’s with Vinny. You can ask her.”

“It’s not protection I care about. I can take care of myself.”

“You should care about it, because you have people from the McLaughlin family on your brother’s back right now and I doubt you can take care of yourself against an entire family. Your brother thought he could get in with the family again, but he got in way over his head.”

Cassie’s shoulders sag. “You looked deeper, didn’t you? Even when I said not to.”

“I did. I knew you were in trouble, and you weren’t telling me anything. I didn’t want you getting hurt in the crossfire of whatever your brother got involved in.”

“That’s not your business,” she says angrily, her eyes spitting fire. “You’ll tell yourself anything to justify getting what you want. You were mad I wouldn’t tell you everything about myself right away, so you went and found out for yourself and pretended you didn’t already know.” Her eyes narrow. “You knew about my mother and father already, didn’t you? For how long? You let me sit here just now and tell you my closest kept secret while you pretended to not know and feigned sympathy. You’re a good actor. Maybe you should switch career paths.”

“Cassie, please be reasonable,” I beg, and immediately know that was the wrong thing to say.

“Be reasonable?” she balks. “Are you serious? That’s all you have to say?”

“No, it’s not. I just don’t know any other way to go about a problem. I dig into it and find a solution.”

“I’m not a problem for you to fix, Nico.”

“I know that.”

“No, you don’t. You literally just said that’s how you go about a problem. My life isn’t yours to sort through and solve.”

Scrubbing my hands down my face, I look out at the calm water and wish that I felt the same way. Instead, I created a storm inside this car.

She’s not done chewing me out, either.

“You’ve only known me a short time, Nico. You can’t just show up and expect me to spill my life to you in a day. I’ve spent every night and day since meeting you, wondering about you and wishing I could know everything about you, and I hoped one day I’d get my answers. I know there’s a time and place for everything, though. You know no boundaries. We’ve had sex, Nico. Lots of crazy hot sex that has been the best of my life, but we can’t be more. I can’t trust you if I’m always going to be questioning your motives and if you promise one thing to my face and go and do another behind my back.”

Her words are fucking killing me. They’re a hot knife moving through me, searing me in half. And the worst part is that she’s right. I lied to her and she caught me.

“Cassandra–”

“Don’t call me that. No one calls me that.”

“You’ve never corrected me before.”

“I am now.”

She’s pushing me away again.

I know she loves when I use her full name, so I know this is just her way of building that thick wall back up around herself I was finally able to crack open.

“I’m sorry I lied to you. I know my reasoning behind it doesn’t make it better, but I also can’t promise you I won’t overstep again. I can only promise to be upfront about it.”

“Take me home,” she says, putting on her seatbelt and looking out the window.

Rubbing my forehead, I go through a million and one things I could say to try and fix what I broke, but I know none of them will work. She’s stubborn, and getting her to open up even a little was a miracle.

I need to think. I need to be the rational Nico everyone knows me to be and find a solution that doesn’t involve repeating myself until I’m blue in the face, or us yelling at each other to try and get through.

I drive her home and neither of us says anything. Cassie keeps her eyes on the world outside the window while my hands grip the steering wheel tighter than necessary as I curse myself out internally.

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