Page 87 of Deception

“She's not what I expected, Adriano. We can trust her. She's more like me than anyone I've met. And we've opened up to each other.”

“That’s exactly why you should be so much more wary!” he protests, getting abnormally worked up. “If she’s as brazen and pigheaded as you are, that could be a real problem for us.”

“That’s not what I meant and you know it.”

“And you've told her who you are?”

“I think she’s aware.”

“You think? So how's this conversation gonna go? ‘Hey, Isabella. We've had a great couple of weeks together, getting to barely know each other, stranded, banging constantly. But, by the way, I'm a mob boss. Would you like to come back to my compound in another country in the middle of a war that I'm fighting with my best friend from childhood?’”

It sounds ridiculous, of course.

It also makes me immediately furious. I slam my fist down on the table.

“Adriano, I get it okay. It's complicated. But what's not complicated in my life? What’s ever been easy?”

“That’s far from the issue. Complicated is one thing, this is dragging an outsider into a life-threatening situation. Something you just recently told me you didn't want to do.”

“Well, things have changed.”

“How?”

“I…” The words catch in my throat. It’s one thing to say it to her, another to confess it out loud to my brother.

“Oh. I didn’t…” Adriano swallows, looking a little thrown off. “You don’t have to say it.”

He backs down immediately, a strange expression settling on his bold features.

His mouth opens and closes a few times before he says, “You know, we want you to be happy, brother.”

It’s quiet, tentative. And a strange sentiment, to hear him put it to words that way. We’ve never been overly sentimental, rarely addressing matters of the heart. We’re men, and Diamante men at that.

Not to mention we’ve been battling enemies and taking over territories for the better part of fifteen years together. There’s never been a question of whether my brothers have my back.

But the fact that they want me to find love, or contentedness…

What a normal, mundane thing. Yet so meaningful.

“When has my happiness ever mattered?”

“It matters to us. You raised us. Taught us how to live, how to fight. You deserve to find a partner, someone to share the burdens of life with.”

He’s not hassling me or giving me shit for spending time with her.

“Then what should I do?” I’m curious where his new line of thought is going.

“Lay it all on the table. You owe her that if she’s going to choose us.”

Us.

That’s the crux, right there. Because she won’t just be choosing me.

She’ll be choosing to join the family.

If she throws it back in my face and storms out, I’ll have to live with it.

My heart stutters at the thought. But that's what my entire life has been: risks and heartbreak. I'm just gonna have to be honest with her.

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