Page 12 of The Ties That Bind

5

My only love sprung from my only hate!

Too early seen unknown, and known too late!

Prodigious birth of love it is to me,

That I must love a loathed enemy.

ROMEO & JULIET

Arabella matched my speed, pulling her own piece and aiming it squarely at my dick.

“You know, CeeCee and I used to talk about how epically romantic you and I were. The whole warring families thing was so very Montague and Capulet.” Even from a distance I could see her roll her eyes before she laughed and cocked her eyebrow. “Except I’m pretty sure Romeo never tried to kill Juliet in that little story.”

“No,” I agreed evenly. “He didn’t. But if memory serves, when it came time to choose, Juliet picked Romeo over the wishes of old Mr. Capulet, now didn’t she?”

“She did,” Arabella answered cooly. “But Romeo never gave her any reason to doubt him. Juliet knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that he loved her and would have died for her. He did die for her.”

“Is that what you wanted, Arabella? Me dead, my head served up on a platter in your family’s dining room? Would that have proved how much you meant to me? Was my word not good enough?”

“Please,” she scoffed. “You told me you loved me but when push came to shove you forgot about me,” she accused, her voice wavering.

Her gun wasn’t quite as steady as it’d been and its aim had changed. Instead of my dick, she’d directed it at my heart. How goddamn appropriate, I thought.

“I never forgot about you.”

“That’s not what Drake and Tyler said.”

Drake Robinson and Tyler Mortucci were loosely tied to the Bonaccorso family by marriage, but hadn’t actually been part of the crime syndicate. For a reason I’d never been able to figure out, they’d somehow been friends with everyone and no one seemed to care about how they flitted from one group to the next. They’d been good enough guys, but hadn’t had two brain cells between them. Harmless, really. Except … maybe not. They’d both been killed—collateral damage—when the Russians had decided to settle an old score with the Italians. Classic case of wrong place, wrong time.

“Those two fools didn’t know their own minds, let alone mine. I can’t understand how you’d believe them over me. Oh wait, you didn’t … BECAUSE YOU DISAPPEARED AND NEVER SPOKE TO ME AGAIN. I don’t know what stupid fucking story they told you or why you are so intent on believing it, but the least you could have done was ask me.”

Arabella studied me intently, her eyes roving over my face as she worked through whatever was going on in her head. Finally, with a sneer, she said, “They saw you at The Pretty Kitty a week after my dad sent me away. Drinking. Celebrating. The saw you Xander!”

“Holy fucking Christ!” I shouted, things becoming crystal clear.

I engaged the safety on my gun and shoved it back into my waistband. Raising my hands in a sign of surrender, I continued, “I was drowning my sorrows Arabella. I asked you to marry me and instead of becoming my wife you fucking left me. You chose your asshole father over us, over what could have been our family.

“I know the big, bad son of Malcolm St. John—The goddamn Enforcer—isn’t supposed to feel anything, but I was a fucking wreck and no matter what I said or did, Jayce knew something was up and he got suspicious. So when he started poking his nose where it didn’t belong, I relented and went out with him and a few other guys. And yes, I got wasted as fuck. I didn’t want to think about you or our baby, or remember how things had been between us. I didn’t even want to know my own goddamn name. What those two pricks saw was me searching for oblivion,” I finished, breathing hard.

I leveled my stare at Arabella but her face was a mask. If she believed me, I couldn’t say. The only thing I knew for certain was even though I’d put mine away, she hadn’t dropped her gun. Swallowing, I made a decision. I might have drawn my weapon first, but she’d drawn first blood. We were going to end this—whatever it was—here and now.

I took a step forward, and then another, and kept on walking until the cold steel barrel of her GLOCK rested against my chest.

“When you left me, I wanted to die but I was too damn chicken shit to do it myself so I threw myself into the job, hoping one of your goons would put me out of my misery. But no matter what I did, the stupid shit I pulled, I somehow managed to walk away unscathed. After awhile I convinced myself there must be some reason why, that maybe it was because you were coming back to me and everything would be okay.

“But when you told me our daughter—” I choked on my words “—when you told me … Lily … was gone and that we were through, I realized I hadn’t really known pain before. But the pain of losing both of you?”

I captured her eyes and held them, let her see what I’d been reduced to all those years before.

“I tried to kill myself, Arabella. Twice.” I tugged at my shirt sleeve, exposing the white lines that crisscrossed my wrists. “This was the first time.”

Her eyes widened in shock and her lips parted on a slight gasp. The gun wavered but I didn’t move to take it. I was going to make her choose—just like I’d chosen.

She was either going to kill me or she wasn’t.

Raising the hem of my shirt, I indicated the angry pink scar tissue that snaked over the left side of my body, marring my skin. “And this was the second time.”

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