Page 3 of Sweet Union
“Yeah, because I’d been watching the place, ready to tell me when he arrived, so I could have one of my men call in an anonymous tip to the cops. I had no idea you were there.”
“And I had no idea you were going to call the cops on him that day. If I’d known, I wouldn’t have gone.”
“Well, you never asked.”
“And you never told me.”
We both pause, breathing heavily. Fuck. Why does she have to look so sexy when she’s riled up? All I want to do is throw her across the hood of this car and fuck her. A remarkable sight right before a police station. Alek would probably kill me if I did that, though.
Nat speaks first. “I know I messed up, Luca. But I was trying.”
“It hurts.”
“What hurts?”
I lower my voice. “It hurts that you didn’t trust me enough to handle the plan. It hurts that you didn’t trust me enough to call me when you ended up here.” I nod at the police station. “Instead, you called your dad. How is that supposed to make me feel?”
“I …”
I look at her more closely. “Do you trust me, Nat? Do you trust me to take care of you?”
She hesitates too long.
I scoff and look away. “Seriously? After all the times I’ve saved you? You really don’t trust me?”
“I do trust you, Luca,” she says after a beat. “It’s just …”
“Just what?” I shout.
Alek steps toward us, but Nat shakes her head at him before turning back to me. “Everything with Romeo … I don’t like it. I never liked how you kidnapped his niece. I never liked you involving the police in your plan. You were supposed to end this right away, and you didn’t. There’s a darkness in you that I love. I have that same darkness, but … it’s also scary. I don’t fully trust that darkness, and it …”
“It what?”
“It makes me doubt you,” she admits.
“You doubt that I’m capable of protecting you?”
“Well, Romeo has kidnapped me twice now.”
“And part of that was because of you,” I snap back. “Because you keep going against my plans.”
She places her hands on her hips. “How?”
I tick off my fingers. “First was with Isabella. You just had to return her to her uncle without my permission. You went against my plan. And in doing so, Romeo caught on to what I was doing and kidnapped you. The second was the warehouse shipment plan.” I make sure not to mention the word cocaine so close to a police station. “You went to him and tried to change the plan, and look where it got you. If you just trusted me, Romeo wouldn’t be a problem anymore. He wasn’t taken by the police; we know that much. But now, we don’t know where the fuck he is. And that’s on you, Natalya.”
She looks at me like I’m a stranger. But I’m not going to apologize. Apologize for what? All I’ve done is try and protect her.
“I think I’m going to stay with my parents tonight.”
I blink. That wasn’t what I expected her to say. “What are you doing, Natalya?”
“I just … have too much on my mind. I don’t want to say something I’ll regret. And I think it’s best if I stay with my parents tonight. Or maybe longer than one night. I need to think things over, and I can’t do that when you’re like this.”
“Like what?”
“Mad at me,” she whispers. “Trust me, Luca. I know I messed up. But too much has happened for me to just be ok with everything. So, I’m going to go home with my dad.”
“So, that’s it. You’re leaving me?” Panic fills my chest.
