Page 92 of Phantom Mine

I throw her a surprised look, caught off guard that she wants to discuss this. “What?”

“I mean, it’s pretty obvious to me why you would hate him. From what I can tell, he’s at best a narcissist, at worst a psychopath. But he’s hardly the only violent man in the mafia,let alone the Underworld, and you’re his brother.” She rips off a piece of bread and brings it to her mouth. “He must have done something to you personally for you to hate him this much. So why?”

“Many reasons.”

“Name one.”

Unlike her, I’m not being purposefully evasive because I don’t want to answer her questions. “The truth is ugly. Are you sure you can handle it?”

“Yes.”

“He murdered my first girlfriend.”

Valentina’s eyes close, a pained expression furrowing her features. Her lips part and a soft, surprised gasp slips out.

“You loved her,” she says.

Not a question, a statement.

I shake my head slowly. “No.” Her eyes fly open. “That’s the worst part, I didn’t,” I admit. “I was eighteen and we’d just started dating. I really liked her, but I hadn’t grown to love her yet. He killed her because he thought I did. She had her whole life ahead of her and she lost it because she was with me. I’ll feel guilty about that until the day I die.” My gaze slides back to Valentina. “Now you understand why I told him you were nothing, why I keep telling you to stay away from him. I won’t have that happen again, especially not with you.”

She fiddles with the stem of her glass, looking away from me. “I’m sorry for your loss,” she whispers. “I know a lot about that kind of guilt.”

I tiptoe carefully into the opening she offers. “From the soulmate you lost?”

She nods.

“Something happened to him—

“Her,” she corrects in a hushed whisper.

A knot loosens in my chest. She swore it wasn’t a past lover of hers, but she’d called him her soulmate and I realize that the jealousy that’d burned in my belly since had been slowly rotting my insides. Knowing it’s a woman soothes the abused flesh of my stomach, but knowing she trusts me enough with those small yet important bits of information heals it altogether.

“Something happened to her when you were with me?”

Valentina nods.

A piece of the puzzle finally slots in. “And that’s why you never came to the hotel that night?

Another nod.

A knot forms and settles deep in my stomach.

I finally know why.

Instead of feeling relief that she didn’t disappear because of me, there’s sorrow knowing the real reason caused her so much pain.

“Losing someone I loved that much has hardened me. I find it difficult to be vulnerable, it’s not something that comes naturally to me anymore. I’ve lost so many people — what’s the point of opening myself up to more pain?”

Grief pours off of her in waves. It’s obvious and I’m not sure how I didn’t see it before. What I previously interpreted as aloofness, I now understand is actually a kind of self-protective toughness. It’s bubble wrap encasing her, keeping additional pain from getting through to her.

“It’s not your fault.”

“You don’t know that.” Her gaze finally lifts back to mine. The raw vulnerability in them splits me open and calls to the protectiveness deep in my blood. “You don’t even know what happened.”

“I don’t need to have all the details to know it wasn’t your fault.” I want to tell her that I’m dying to know the details, thatshe can trust me, but I don’t want to spook her into sayingpavona.

“It is. I… I—” she swallows thickly, her voice thickened by tears. Finally, she whispers so low I almost miss it, “I lied.” I don’t say anything, waiting for her to keep talking even as my stomach tightens at the obvious misery in her voice. “The night it happened, I told her I was going to the bathroom and that I’d be back soon. Instead, I met you and I–I was gone for over an hour. When I was asked where I was when she was taken, I couldn’t face telling the truth and admitting it was my fault, I said I was only gone for ten minutes. I was acoward.”

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