Page 115 of Toxic

"Oh, thank God," I blurt out, feeling a sense of relief I've never felt before.

"Who is Dante?" Brenna asks.

"He's a Marino."

The blood drains from her face, and her lips tremble harder. I spend the rest of the time trying to convince her the Marinos aren't bad people, but Giulio seems to have brainwashed her. We pull up in front of the house, and she panics further. She has the notion that the Marinos are going to kidnap and hurt her worse than Giulio did.

Headlights fill the inside of the vehicle. Someone pulls the handle next to her, and she jumps, cowering against me, squeezing her eyes shut.

"Bridget," Dante booms, and more relief fills me.

Brenna shakes harder.

"It's safe," I tell her again. "That's Dante and—"

My door opens. "Brenna! What's wrong?" Finn frets.

I squeeze her one last time, release her shoulder, then get out into the freezing cold. Thick snow falls, and I can barely see. I tell Finn, "She didn't know who my father was and is worried about the Marinos."

Finn gives me another hate-filled look, and I cringe inside. He's never going to forgive me, but I can't linger on it. Dante's arm circles my waist, and he steers me into the Marino mansion, directly to a private corner of the hallway.

All I want to do is kiss him and tell him how relieved I am that he's safe. And I want to tell him that I love him—that I've been stupid not to allow myself to realize it until now. But when he looks at me, his dark eyes are full of too many things.

Pain.

Betrayal.

Rage.

An intense awareness hits me. This is the end for us. I've pushed him too far with my lies, and he's not going to be able to get past this one. My other sins didn't directly involve him. This one goes against a promise I made to him.

Dante Marino wormed his way back into my life. He dug into the depths of my heart without me realizing it. Now, I'm going to lose him. There's no way to gaze into his wounded eyes and not know my fate.

23

Dante

Anything I thoughtabout Bridget's and my relationship no longer is true. I assumed she only wanted me. Sure, she hasn't told me she loves me or that I'm the only man in her life. But I thought I had her exclusivity.

I don't.

She lied to me and went to the club.

Why was she there?

Who did she want to see?

Has she been sleeping with someone else this entire time?

Since learning from the O'Malleys that Bridget was going to the club, I've struggled to stay calm. Every bone in my body wanted to go to her house and confront her. Yet, I couldn't risk anything going wrong during Brenna's rescue.

Killing the Abruzzos felt good. But my satisfaction didn't last long. As soon as I left the club and the adrenaline started to die down, the ache in my heart expanded until it became hard to breathe. Oxygen felt stale. Pain seized my chest. Even the top-shelf scotch I drank in the SUV only succeeded in burning my insides further.

Seeing Bridget step out of the SUV gave me a sense of relief that she made it safely to our compound. It, too, is a moment of false emotion. Everything I'm raging over races back, dissolving my relief. I'm so angry, I ignore Papà's menacing scowl as he motions for me to go into his office.

There are going to be consequences for what I allowed to happen this evening. Papà ordered us not to shoot the club up, but in my eyes, there was no other way to get Brenna and Bridget out of there. Plus, Giulio and his men wouldn't have stopped searching for Brenna.

Papà may have reasons for wanting to keep the peace, but he wasn't there. I made the call we needed to make. I'll pay for it later, but for now, I whisk Bridget past him, my brothers, and Killian.

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