Page 138 of Luca
My tongue swept over my bottom lip. “Since I learned Marchetti knew all along where we were, I wished I thought it through too. That I’d confronted you.”
Demons danced around us, dangling the ghosts of our pasts.
“I’m sorry you missed her first two years,” I whispered. “There wasn’t a day where you weren’t mentioned. Whatever I know about you, Penelope does too. She knows you held her at night when she was born. She knows you sang her songs when she fussed. And she loves you so goddamn much.”
“I know.” Our gazes held, the intensity in his eyes shaking me to my core. “She said you love me.”
My daughter’s admission inadvertently left me feeling raw, but I refused to cower. I couldn’t hide anymore.
“I do,” I admitted softly. “It took a while to recognize it, but how could I not love you?”
It was hard to read his expression. He kept himself closed off. Protected.
“Even though I killed your Da?” he asked. I nodded. Maybe it made me a betrayer in our world, but Luca was a kid. I couldn’t put those sins on his shoulders. Da wouldn’t have either. In my heart, I knew it was the reason he didn’t pull the trigger. “Despite the fact I killed your mother?”
I nodded again. “You protected our daughter from her,” I rasped. “I would have done the same.”
I watched his Adam’s apple shift and I prayed. I freaking prayed that he’d hear the truth in my voice.
“About Marchetti… I know you tried to protect us too,” I continued. “If I could go back, I would have handled it differently,” I admitted.
God, almost three years wasted. Could a person forgive that? Could a father forgive that? I robbed him of three years of our daughter’s life.
“I won’t let Marchetti have her,” Luca rasped. Conflict and confusion waged in me at his statement. I didn’t want a war. “I’ll find a way to break that arrangement.”
“Marchetti agreed if the kids don’t love each other, we’ll have a way out,” I said. “The likelihood is slim they’ll fall in love.”
“Every woman that marries a Marchetti, dies,” he gritted. “I’ll find a way to break that agreement.”
The determination on his face told me he meant it.
“Then we’ll do it together.”
I meant those words, although my chest ached.
My husband didn’t love me.
ChapterFifty-Four
LUCA
It had been two weeks since she had rescued me.
We had fallen into an uneasy routine. Penelope was the only one oblivious to it.
As Marchetti tortured me, I thought of nothing else but my family. My daughter. My wife. About seeing them just one more time before I died.
And now, they were here. With me. I saw my beautiful baby girl smiling and happy. Sheknewme. SheknewNonno.
Despite the anger of missing out on years of my daughter’s life, it’d be hard to ignore the fact that Margaret raised our baby well. She was kind-hearted, happy, and so fucking beautiful. For hours, Margaret’s words vibrated in my chest.
We’ll do it together.
It was what we should have done all along. We would have saved each other so much heartache and problems. But we couldn’t go back. We were here and the only thing ahead of us was the future.
She loves me.Her words were hard to believe yet my heart soaked up those three little words.She loves me.
I loved her too. So fucking much that it hurt to breathe. Every single day without her had been torture. There were days I struggled to believe they were here, and I’d go check on them.
