Page 98 of Sin & Secrets

“He’s the one who killed your father.”

25

ROCCO

“Iwanted to see it for myself.—that you would do for the Guild.”

“You are a hundred times the man your father ever was.”

“You are going to do great things, Rocco.”

Carmine Bellini’s final words echo through me as I watch his daughter collapse in on herself.

The grief is insurmountable. Regret laces my every emotion, every fiber of my being, as Cas looks up at me.

She’s finally seeing me for what I truly am: a monster.

“Please,” she begs, but I already know it’s too late. The truth is out now, and there’s nothing I can do to take it back.

I should have done more to save Carmine. I should have torn the gun from his hand the second he drew it. I should have said something, anything, to stop him from pulling that trigger.

But I failed, and I will have to live with those consequences for the rest of my life. Even if that means losing Cas in the process, I know in my heart that I deserve it.

“Not your knight in shining armor anymore, is he?” Lazzaro drones on. He’s like a fly buzzing around this shit show with unbridled joy. “I told you I was saving you.”

“You killed him,” she whispers.

Her words fall upon me like their own kind of death sentence. It takes everything within me to stop my legs from buckling in shame.

The only thing I can manage to gasp is, “I’m sorry.”

“Too little, too late, amigo,” Lazzaro observes. Vaguely, I’m aware that more people have entered the room. “Shall I kill him for you, Cas?”

She just continues to stare at me, those perfect lips agape in despair.

For one terrible moment, I think she might nod to offer her affirmation to Lazzaro’s question—the final nail in the coffin of whatever relationship we once had.

I wouldn’t be able to blame her, either. I couldn’t resent her for it. It was my fault her father was dead, and she was well within her rights to demand my death in payment.

Instead, something perhaps more terrifying happens.

An eerie calmness seems to wash over her. Her tears stop flowing, her mouth becomes a hard, unreadable line, and her eyes…there’s nothing behind them anymore.

When she looks at me, there’s nothing of the person I once knew when she speaks again. Her voice is like pure ice being injected into my veins.

“He’s dead to me.”

Lazzaro starts laughing again, and when I turn back to him, I realize why.

Five men have arrived, dressed head to toe in Cartel black. None of them seem particularly inclined to let us leave without a fight.

I can take them. I know I can, but…I will have to unleash a side of me intended only for my enemies. It’s the kind of violence necessary for our survival, for Cas’ survival, but it will only reinforce the fact that I’m a monster.

A glance back at her unfeeling face is my only hesitation.

I was supposed to be her protector.

But I can’t run from the truth forever. The job has to come first; when all is said and done, I’m no better than Lazzaro.

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