Page 36 of Dangerous Deception

“I’m sorry, sweetheart. She didn’t make it.”

“No, no, no! Oh, no… no!” My heart shatters into a thousand pieces and each shard creates its own stabbing sensation through my chest. I gasp for air, and the tears pour while my head spins. Raffaele reaches for me, and his hand warms the top of my forearm. “She’s gone?”

“I’m sorry, Adelina.”

A terrible wail escapes my throat. I try to muffle it with my hand, but the grief escapes through the gaps in my fingers and I fall forward, right into Raffael’s arms. He holds me tightly as I sob my heart out, trying to understand how this could even be real.

She’s dead.

Marie is dead.

My best friend.

They killed her.

… I killed her.

“This,” I gasp, choking on my sobs. “This is my fault. I killed her.”

“No,” Raffaele snaps slightly.

“I invited her out. I did this. Everything that happened was because of me. She’s dead because of me!”

“Adelina, look at me.” He cups my face with his warm hand and forces me to look up at him.

I struggle to make out the details of his face as tears pour down my cheeks. It feels like my chest is being pried open from the inside and I can’t breathe.

“You did not do this,” Raffaele states firmly. “What happened to you and what happened to her is not your fault. Are you listening? It’s not your fault, sweetheart. It’s not. I will get to the bottom of what happened, I swear it. But it’s not your fault. You were both just in the wrong place at the wrong time.”

“But we were there because of me,” I wail, hiccupping violently as my body fights past the grief to get air into my lungs. “She’s dead because of me!”

“No, Adelina. No, she’s not.” He pulls me tight against his chest and hugs me as I cry, but his words bring me little comfort. The pain is worse knowing that she didn’t make it out with me, and she wouldn’t even have been there if not for me.

How the hell is this real?

I lose track of how long I cry in Raffaele’s arms. He holds me through it without a single complaint and only lets me go when I push him away to settle back into my own chair. He hands me a napkin to dry my tears and watches me closely.

“I have something I need to tend to,” he says quietly. “But I won’t be leaving you alone.”

As he speaks, the door to the dining room slides open and a tall woman with spiky blonde hair and square glasses walks in. She flashes me a polite smile and adjusts the belt on her jeans.

“Why?” I whimper. “Can you stay?”

“This is important, but I promise I will be back soon. This is Caterina. She’s your new bodyguard. She’ll be by your side every moment that I cannot, okay?”

Sniffling, I nod slowly. My thoughts are thick and clouded, and the urge to sleep to escape the pain is rising. Raffaele stands and then leans down, pressing an unexpected kiss to the top of my head. That spot of contact tingles even as he steps away.

“Wait.”

He pauses and turns to face me. “Yes?”

“What… What happened to Levi?”

Raffaele’s face hardens like a rock and his jaw tenses, causing the nerve along his cheek to jump. “I killed him.”

“What?”

“You came to harm under his watch,” Raffaele states tightly. “And that is unforgivable.”

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