Page 37 of Rotten Men

“No,principessa. I see you as the dream I will never have, in the hands of a man who is a stranger to me,” I admit softly.

My love reaches out to me, wrapping her arms around my waist and enveloping me inside her warmth; no longer upset with my poor choice of wording, wishing to console our two lost souls instead.

“I’ve lost dreams too, Gio,” she whispers.

“Have you? From what I can see, you’ve moved on easily enough, while I’ve spent the last ten years missing you,principessa. Missing your smile, your laugh, your love. Now that I know someone else is enjoying all of that instead of me, I don’t think you lost as much as I did.”

“That isn’t fair, Giovanni. I lived my life the best way I could, considering I could never have who I truly wanted. Are you going to lie here and tell me you didn’t try and do the same?” she exclaims, with her brow arched high.

I let out a pitiful chuckle.

“I warmed my bed but never my heart, if that’s what you’re implying. That was always yours, Selene. I could never tarnish the memory of our love by marrying another. Not like you have.”

The corner of my mouth twitches at the cold, hard truth of it all. I might have given my body to women who did not merit it, but my heart was never mine to give away. Selene took it with her when she left us; to this day it remains her hostage and captive. And as naive as it may be, my heart—in her hands—is exactly where it should stay. It will always be hers, after all.

She moves up on the bed and straddles me; my throat and chest tighten at the sight of it. So fucking gorgeous is mybella. Even though her hair no longer has that beautiful ruby flare, she is still very much the girl who brought me to my knees when I was just a boy. Sporting that same hard exterior to conceal her capacity for loving so fiercely, she’s my own beautiful savage. She places one hand on my chest, while she grips my clean-shaven chin with the other, commanding my full attention.

“I did what I had to do to survive, Giovanni,” she declares steadfastly, and my soul believes her statement, even if my heart hurts to hear it.

“Why didn’t you take me?” I ask, finally voicing the question which has tormented me for a decade and has been on the tip of my tongue from the minute my eyes landed on her again.

Her eyes look puzzled with such a question, and a flash of bitter resentment resurfaces anew. How could she be so clueless?

“I wasn’t lying when I said I missed you,bella, but I also hated and begrudged you, too. You left this place and never once thought of taking me with you. I would have gone if you had only asked. But you didn’t. You never asked, Selene. Why?”

The sorrow and pity in her gaze are too much to take. I turn my head away from her, unable to see such sentiment slapping me in the face. But my love won’t even give me this one small mercy.

“Look at me, Gio.Look at me. If I asked you to come, you would have hated yourself for leaving Vincent and Dom behind. You would have ended up loathing the person you’d become, and then ended up resenting me even more than you do now. I couldn’t do that to you. And my selfishness, for wanting to keep our love alive in any way I could, stopped me from making such a request.”

“You lied to me,bella. We promised each other we wouldn’t have lies between us.”

She doesn’t dispute it but doesn’t seem apologetic for it either.

“I would have gone to the ends of the earth for you. I would have made the sacrifice. I would have left them without a second thought. Left everything and everyone just to be with you.”

Her soft smile returns, and her eyes glimmer with unshed tears.

“Who’s lying to whom now, Gio?”

I open my mouth to deny her remark, but then seal my lips shut.

“You love them just as much as you love me. If I had told you of my plans, you would have encouraged me to go, but you would never come with me. You wouldn’t be able to leave Vincent and Dom when they needed you most. I know you through and through, Giovanni DeLuca. You would sacrifice yourself, but never the people you love,” she reasons with her rich, even tone, never missing a beat.

“You’re making me sound like some sort of martyr. I’m not that good of a man, Selene.” I huff out.

“It takes one to know one. And I’m not that good of a woman, either.”

“So they kept their souls at the expense of my own,” I rebuke solemnly, thinking of all the ways I’ve changed since I became a truemade man—a role I needed to take on to give Vincent and Dominic some purpose in their lives, as well as my own.

“They would have done the same for you if they could,” she replies sympathetically.

“I never wanted to become my father,bella. And look at me now,” I bite back.

“Your father is a good man, Gio. Just as you are. Don’t cheapen your worth. You are a far greaterconsiglierethan your predecessor. I know that much,” she continues, referring to her own piece-of-shit father. I take my eyes off her for a split second to look at our dire surroundings. WithThe Butcher’sname lingering in my mind, I am reminded of why I have to make love to myprincipessain such a grotesque environment.

“I wish you didn’t have to stay in this place,” I confess, distraught.

“If we are going to start debating wishes, then my first wouldn’t be changing my motel room,” she laughs off, falling onto my chest and placing a kiss at the hollow of my throat.

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