Page 87 of Mob Boss's Second Chance

I’ve done terrible things. Things I won’t apologize for. The Cross legacy demands sacrifices, and I’ve made them without hesitation. Regret won’t change who I am. It doesn’t matter that everyone I’ve crossed paths with had it coming.

It doesn’t matter who her parents were. If she said I murdered them, then I possibly did.

Something flickers across her face. Doubt clinging to the frayed edges of hope. Doubt shattering when it finds nothing to cling to.

“You killed them?” Her voice quivers, each syllable fragile as if saying the words out loud will make them real. Her hand drifts protectively to her stomach, and she swallows a sob.

“I—I thought you were going to deny it. God—I—” She turns away, voice barely above a whisper. “Idon’t know what I thought.”

“How could you?” I hear her pain, raw and torn, as it drives a knife into my heart. “How could you? They were in Fairhill to visit friends. They didn’t deserve it!” She whirls on me, eyes wild. “We don’t deserve this!”

Fairhill?

Something about the name drop tugs at the edges of my mind, searching for a connection. I never ordered a hit in Fairhill—it wasn’t an active business area for us.

But—

Anthony did.

I remember it clearly now. One of his reckless mistakes dragged us into pointless gang wars. One of the many times I had to step in to clean up after him and clip his wings before he burned everything down.

I didn’t kill them.

My cousin did.

But what difference does it make? The thought is bitter as I catch the pure hatred in Natalie’s eyes. Anthony and I may not have been the same person, but he was a Cross. His sins are my sins now. His blood is my blood.

And indirectly, I’ve caused the greatest pain to the woman I love.

“I’m sorry,” I mutter, the weight of it sinking into my bones. My knees threaten to buckle under grief, under the realization that no apology will ever be enough. The words barely hold any life, but I give them to her anyway. “I should’ve stopped him long ago. I should’ve stopped him. I didn’t know.”

I turn away.

“You said you should’ve stopped him,” she speaks, her voice thin, unraveling. “Who? Anthony?”

I look back at her. My throat tightens, but I nod.

She takes a breath, but it’s shaky and uneven like she’s trying to hold herself together. “He was the one who killed my parents?”

“Yes.” The word is heavy. Final. It doesn’t take away my guilt, though. It doesn’t lessen the burden either.

Natalie’s eyes search mine, desperate, grasping for something to hold on to. I don’t want to give it because I don’t deserve her, but she finds it anyway.

“Is that why you killed him?”

“I’m no saint, Natalie,” I say quietly, the weight of my words settling deep in my chest. “My cousin killed your parents because I let him go unchecked. I might as well have been the one who pulled the trigger.”

She doesn’t recoil. Doesn’t run.

Instead, she steps forward, refusing to let me escape this. Her presence consumes me, her warmth just within reach, and I breathe her in like a dying man desperate for one last taste of salvation.

“Tell me you haven’t killed anyone who didn’t deserve it,” she murmurs, her voice raw, searching. Her fingers brush against my chest, tentative yet unyielding. “Tell me you never let someone else take the blame for another man’s sins.”

I catch her hand, holding it tight against my heartbeat—against the part of me that has always belonged to her. “I swear it, Natalie.” My voice doesn’t waver. “I am not my cousin. I never was.”

Her eyes search mine, endless depths of grief and pain. There’s also strength shining through. Keeping me from falling apart.

“I know,” she whispers, her soft voice curling around the darkness I brought to her doorstep, bringing light to the heaviness in my heart. For a moment, I let myself indulge… I allow myself to believe that there’s a world where her pureness isn’t tainted by the evil things I’ve done.

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