Page 129 of Brutal Legacy

Elio paused and dismissed Toni.

He jerked his head toward the door, and his people left, shutting the doors after them.

“We are not the same. You are mine to protect. It’s the only thing that matters.”

My lungs immediately threatened to close at the idea of being sent away alone. I swallowed hard, but my mouth was already dry.Great.A panic attack, just what I needed right now.

“I don’t want to go there alone. I don’t know anyone… I don’t trust anyone.”But you.

“The men there have been trained by me. You can trust them. Moreover, Toni and Ettore will be there, as well as my best men.”

“And what about you! If Casa Nera is a safe place to go, why don’t you come, too?” I reasoned.

He shook his head. “This has dragged on long enough. I can take care of whoever they send after me, as long as no one gets in my way.”

“So, I’d just be in the way, is that it?” My worry morphed into irritation.

“Yes.” He turned away.

I snatched at his sleeve. “So, I go there, and you disappear, and what… I wait fourteen years to find out what happened?”

My lungs were tightening. Fuck, I hadn’t had a panic attack in years, and now I’d had two in as many weeks. Because of this man who had come back into my life, everything I’d learned about staying calm was slipping through my fingers.

You never learned how to stay calm, you just gave up caring about things.

I turned to grab onto the table and dragged air into my lungs.

He touched my back, and the simple gesture felt overwhelming as I tried to fight off dizziness. This was his fault. He’d dragged me here, married me, made me love him again, and now, he was yanking it all out from under me. Again.

He was leaving me again.

I couldn’t breathe.

I shrugged his hands away and struggled to stay calm. I had nowhere to go. Conflicting emotions collided in my chest, wild and untethered.

“My people can keep you safe.”

“Not like you can,” I pointed out.

Was he going to stay here and take on all those men who kept coming for us?

His mouth pulled up at one side. A smile. They came more often to him lately. Soon, it would nearly look natural.

“I appreciate the vote of confidence,cara. But you don’t have to worry about me. I can take care of myself, and I always have.”

Something snapped in me at that statement. It was all too much. The threat hanging over us, the past that had fucked us both so thoroughly.

“Oh, I know that! Believe me, I know! You certainly took care of yourself when you stole that bag of cash and skipped town and left me behind all those years ago!” A twisted chuckle left me, and I pushed at his chest when he tried to reach for me. “Don’t gaslight me into thinking I’m overreacting about being left by you —again.”

“What the fuck does that mean?” he growled at me.

“You left me once and it nearly destroyed me, and now you’re doing it again!”

Silence fell between us, and Elio stared at me like I’d slapped him.

“We both know who left who. Don’t try and rewrite our past.”

“Our past — you have no idea what happened after you left,” I snapped at him, then whirled away and went to the display case at one side of my studio, picking up the damn memento box that I’d dragged across the country.

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