Page 141 of Inevitable Endings
But Isabella, she doesn’t deserve that. She doesn’t deserve the chaos that follows me, the truth that sits like a shadow, creeping closer with each passing second. She is Salvatore’s daughter. How can I tell her that? How can I ruin her life like that? She thinks her mother was her real mother, but it’s a lie, all of it.
Her real father? Salvatore. The ex-head of the Gambino mafia.And he’s dead. Just like her mother.
I can’t bring myself to say those words to her. Not to the woman who looks at me with trust in her eyes, who believes in something better than what I can offer. She doesn’t know the monsters she’s tied to, the bloodline she shares. It will destroy her, and I’ll be the one to crush the last bit of light she has left.
I can already hear it in my head, the way she’d look at me, the confusion, the disgust.‘‘You lied to me. You will no longer want me.’’
I will always want her.
In every life. In every breath.
No bloodline, no past, no dark truth could ever make me stop.
She could be the daughter of kings or monsters, a ghost stitched from sins I can’t even name, it wouldn’t change a damn thing.
I squeeze my eyes shut, pushing the thought away. But it comes back, that moment with Sawyer, that venomous statement.
I swallow, my throat tightening. I can’t even look at myself in the mirror, not with that truth weighing on me. I’m no better than the men I’ve killed, the ones who taught me how to be nothing but a weapon. A cold-blooded killer.
I don’t deserve her. I don’t deserve to be in her life, to take part in the fragile hope she’s built around me.
I’m a monster. I’m nothing more than a shadow in the corner of her world, something she should never have been tangled in.
She’s better off without me.
And yet, I can’t stop wanting her. My mind is screaming at me to let her go, to push her out of my life before I destroy it. But my heart? It’s too late. The damage is done. I’ve already ruined everything, and I am too selfish to let her go.
The door clicks softly, the sound slicing through the heavy silence like a blade.
I lift my head, bloodshot eyes locking onto Sawyer’s as he steps inside, calm, measured, like he’s approaching a caged animal.
Maybe he is.
He closes the door behind him without a sound, his hands lifted slightly in a gesture of peace.
‘‘I come in peace,’’ he says, voice low, almost disarming.
I don’t answer. I just watch him from the edge of the bed, my wrists still strapped down, my hands resting like dead weight on my knees.
I feel the tension ripple under my skin, muscles coiled tight, ready for war even though my body screams exhaustion.
Sawyer doesn’t come closer. He plants himself at the far end of the room, giving me distance like he knows how thin the leash around my temper is.
We stare at each other; two predators sizing each other up in the ruins of a battlefield.
Seconds stretch into something longer, heavier.
Finally, Sawyer speaks again, his voice steady, but not cold. There’s a rough honesty in it that catches me off guard.
‘‘I understand you don’t like me,’’ he says. ‘‘We have that in common.’’
His mouth twitches; not quite a smile, not quite a threat.
‘‘But here’s the thing; you don’t even know me. And I don’t know you. Not really. Not what’s beneath the devil you wear like armor.’’
The words slam into me harder than I expect.
I stiffen, my hands curling slightly against the velcro restraints.
