Page 23 of Titan

He came a little closer to me. I tried not to fiddle with my clothes, wary of how I came across to him.

“I wasn’t sure I would see you again,” I admitted when he didn’t say anything.

He gave me a shrug.

“I wasn’t sure either.”

I couldn’t help my smile. The fact he had come to see me made me irrationally happy. I could watch him and not feel guilty about it. We’d be talking, so I had the perfect excuse. It’s what I told myself, anyway. It was okay for me to admire him from afar.

“Have you been okay?”

Gil moved over towards the bed and stared down at it. I was sitting across from it on the sofa.

“Not particularly.”

“Is it the same thing or did something happen?”

“Something’s always happening in the mafia, but yes, things have gone from bad to worse.”

I didn’t know if I should ask him what had occurred or not. He was very blunt about his feelings last time, but today felt different. I couldn’t put my finger on why.

He turned his head and looked me right in the eyes. I swallowed hard at his gaze. It was stripping me of my defences all over again. Like he had some strange power over me. My heart pounded in my chest and the sound of it rang in my ears.

“Can I ask you something?”

“If you’d like…”

He walked up to me, keeping his eyes pinned to mine. I fought against the urge to rear back and press myself against the sofa. It wasn’t fear, but the knowledge Gil was deadly. I’d seen him stab a man in the hand without a second thought. He would do it again.

I’d noticed last time he was here that he was constantly checking his surroundings as if alert to any threat and poised to strike if one presented itself. Even as he stared at me now, I could feel his attention was on the door too, making sure the room was still secure.

“Do you ever wish time would stand still for one minute so you could just breathe? I feel like I never get the chance to breathe.”

“You can do that now if you want.”

If I answered his question with the truth, it would open me up to old wounds and long-buried memories. A past where all I wanted to do every day was breathe fresh air and yearned for freedom.

He didn’t respond to my statement. I rubbed the sofa with my fingers, feeling the leather under the tips, and wondered why I wanted to spill my guts to him despite all of my fears.

“Yeah, I have felt that way,” I finally said in a barely audible voice.

He nodded slowly.

“I think someone is trying to stir up trouble between me and my cousins.”

The sudden change of subject had me struggling with my composure. Gil’s mere presence gave me a riot of feelings, ones I couldn’t keep up with.

“Oh?”

He paced away, tearing a hand from his pocket and rubbing his stubbled chin with it.

“If I tell you exactly what happened, it would be including you in something illegal and dangerous, so I’m not going to do that. I don’t want to put you at risk.”

He turned to me again.

“I don’t know if I made the right decision today.” He put a hand on his chest. “It was my call. I had to make it as the boss, but I keep going over in my mind what I could have done better. If I handled it right. And I can’t ask my father what to do any longer.” He sighed and dropped his hand to his side. “Not that he thought anything I did was ever good enough. Not one of us was good enough for him.”

“You mean you and your brothers?”

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