All the hatred?
Gone when he got a taste of Les on his tongue.
Because that was the thing about hate, too.
Love always won.
Corrado flexed his hands, the pads of his fingers scraping against the brick wall as his mouth ghosted over Alessio’s when he whispered, “I fucked up tonight.”
“You had a moment. We all have them. He’s a prick, and so fucking what if he was made, they’ll handle it, Corrado.”
Right.
But no.
“I meant with Ginevra, not la famiglia.”
Alessio let out a slow stream of air. “It scared her.”
“Of course, she was.”
“She comes from violent men. She’s sensitive to this kind of thing. Give her a second to come back. We’re not them, and it might take a bit for her to figure that out.”
Corrado looked away, the reality a little too sharp for his liking. It stung. “I—”
“We’re not saints, Corrado. This is our life; we are who we are.”
No exceptions.
No apologies.
He heard what Alessio didn’t say. This had always been their way.
“And what if it’s not the life she wants?”
“You always want what you love, even when you’re not supposed to.”
The door beside them swung open before Marcus stepped out into the alley. Corrado didn’t bother to step away from Alessio at the sight of his oldest brother—he no longer cared to make others comfortable by hiding the best parts of himself.
Because that was another thing.
Alessio?
Ginevra?
They were the better parts of him.
His better pieces.
“What?” Corrado asked.
“The cleaners have arrived. They will take the body out the back here.” Marcus fixed his suit jacket and shook his head. “You made a mess—I have to call Papa and make him aware.”
“Whatever Gian wants,” Alessio blurted before Corrado was able reply, “we’ll be happy to do for him.”
Marcus nodded, turning to head back into the club. “And Ginevra ... she asked to leave, and so I had someone take her home.”
“Home as in our pent—”
“Home as in my home,” Marcus said. “She asked for some time, Corrado. Let her have a moment.”
Right.
Yeah, he expected that.
It still fucking hurt.
Corrado went cold all over.
Alessio’s hand tightened on his shirt. “It’s fine.”
No. Not at all.
24.
Ginevra
Knowing something was different from it being your reality. Out of everything Ginevra learned since being put in the lives of Corrado and Alessio, that seemed to be the most important lesson to stick with her.
She’d known about many things before them. For life, about herself, and even the bad parts forced upon her. And then she met them—one by one, everything changed into something else.
About life.
Herself.
And even the bad parts.
Still, a piece of Ginevra had been hiding one aspect of who those men were and what it would mean to her. She understood what Alessio and Corrado did for a living—they were connected. They were more like the people who hurt her, and less like the boy who sat next to her during her first class of the morning at the community college.
She understood it, but knowing those things was different from seeing it. However, being shoved in her face, a man capable of violence that scared her and did it without retribution, reminded her she was not like these people.
Her life had been different.
She hadn’t seen their version of life through their eyes and experiences, and she’d been shaped differently because of it. And yet, she chose to turn her cheek.
That wasn’t right.
Even she got that.
And yet, that other part of her was clear, so much so it became impossible to ignore. Knowing might not be the same as seeing, sure, but she had still known and still stayed.
In fact, she wanted to stay.
Ginevra realized far too late, as she sat staring out the bay window of Marcus Guzzi’s beautiful townhome the morning after the night at the club, that she was not having an internal dilemma about Corrado and Alessio.
Of them, she was most sure.
Them, she wanted.
It stuck her in this dark place because of her own complex about who she thought she was, and how much changed. Ginevra never said she was a saint, but she had some morals. That in the end, she was the person who understood where right and wrong fit in her life.
The mafia came for her when she barely knew it existed.
She’d almost been forced into an arranged marriage.
Her mother had been murdered.
All those things meant Ginevra should have made the easy choice—with freedom at her fingertips, she should run from these people, and those like them, that had done to her what they did without as much as a blink about it.
Because they were made differently.
And somehow, Ginevra found herself inexplicably and irrevocably in love with men who, while they’d not done bad things to her, had done them to others. She overlooked it before, but not so much now. The man they killed, she bet like others in their business, said awful things—he was not a good man, and to some, he deserved to die for it, and for other reasons.
But to someone?
That man had probably been a father—maybe a good one. A husband. He’d been a son, perhaps a brother, a grandson, and more. He was a person.
Her dilemma in a nutshell
For herself—just her.
After knowing what they could do ... what had been done to her ... After everything, Ginevra still found that need deep in her bones that she wanted to be with Corrado and Alessio more than she had wanted anything in her life.
Ginevra was not who she assumed she was before them. And she would never be the same after, either.
That terrified her.
And changed nothing.
“Ginny.”
Turning on the bench seat in front of the window, Ginevra found a very familiar face in the living room’s entryway room. Chris smiled, but the sight didn’t quite reach his eyes.
“How’re you doing?” Chris asked.
Ginevra shrugged under the oversized sweater that Marcus found for her. “I’m not sure.”
Chris cleared his throat. “Hmm. Corrado called—Les, too.”
She swallowed the ache in her throat. It only became even more painful with every beat of her heart, making it impossible to ignore. Somehow, she talked through it. “I just ... need a bit of time.”
To keep thinking, and to realize, this was the life she wanted. To get over herself, in a way.
After the time she had spent with either one, or both men in the past months, they should at least give her a day to herself.
“Let them explain,” Chris said.
Ginevra’s brow furrowed. “What is there to explain?”
She understood perfectly well what happened. The mess in her heart and soul needed dealt with now, and they couldn’t help with that. This was on her.
Right?
Chris’s features went stony, leaving Ginevra confused. “I will let them know, then.”
“A lot was taken from me,” Ginevra tried to explain, “and I’ve shoved it aside while I was here ... so it’s catching up in different ways.”