I squeezed my eyes shut. “I don’t want to believe it.”
His chest rose and fell on a long sigh. His heart still beat too fast beneath my cheek. The conversation had shredded me, but I’d asked him to lay his soul bare too. I tipped my head back so I could look up into his face. His scar didn’t mar his beauty. Not for me. It was a mark of his pain, agony that’d been inflicted by his own father.
My eyes stung as tears for his suffering welled. I threaded my fingers through his glossy curls, allowing my fingertips to brush over the indelible proof of his family’s cruelty. We hadn’t resolved everything between us, but Max had let down his guard to share his darkest secret with me.
It was more than enough for now. Tugging gently on his hair, I urged his mouth toward mine. As soon as our lips touched, he released a low groan from deep in his chest: a sound of longing and release. He’d purged a fraction of the pain and rage that constantly tormented him, and the experience had left him raw and aching.
I felt raw too. The horrible admission of my doubts about my father had ravaged my heart, making me question everything I knew about my upbringing, my identity. For so long, I’d carried my guilt over my mom’s death, thinking I could’ve run back into the fire to save her.
But if it was my father’s fault, if he had ties to the Bratva that’d made Max’s Mafia family come for retribution…
I fisted my fingers in Max’s curls, pulling him impossibly closer. My lips parted, and my tongue tangled with his. I allowed his heat, his touch, and his scent to engulf me. To consume all my senses until there was no room in my heart for doubt or anguish. My life was crumbling around me, but he was solid. Strong.
And he clung on to me like I was his lifeline. In his world of cruelty and violence, I was his safe harbor. I poured all my compassion for him into our kiss, proving to him that I could be strong enough to protect his heart, just as he kept me safe from the dangers that’d come for me.
We held each other for a long time, finding solace in one another. The kiss was tender rather than rough with passion, so sweet that it made my heart ache. Eventually, he eased back and tucked a stray lock of hair behind my ear, his touch almost worshipful.
“I need to go meet with my family.” His eyes flashed, and his jaw firmed. “I’m going to make sure that they’ll never threaten you again.”
Anxiety knotted my stomach. The last time he’d left me to see his family, he’d broken my heart when he returned to me.
“Don’t worry.” He brushed one last kiss over my mouth. “Everything will be okay. I promised to protect you, and I will. I’ll make this right.”
“Okay,” I breathed. “I…trust you.”
I stumbled over the words, barely catching the ones I’d wanted to say.
The truth hit me square in the chest: I loved Max Ferrara.
MAX
Dread weighed down my feet with each step toward my father’s study, and sweat beaded on the back of my neck. My fists clenched at my sides. I hated this fear, this weakness.
When I was with Allie, I felt strong. Whole. She looked at me and saw me, not a twisted monster.
In truth, I wasn’t sure if I even recognized the man she saw. I desperately wanted to be that man. To be worthy of her.
I straightened my shoulders and forced my body to continue to walk down the seemingly mile-long corridor. My father waited for me behind that heavy oak door, like a spider in his web. I’d texted him to tell him I wanted to meet, and he’d intentionally chosen the room that made all my senses turn against me. The trauma of the fire had embedded fear deep in my psyche, and I couldn’t shake the nearly debilitating physical symptoms of mortal terror.
I’d thought I might die that day. And after I’d woken up and seen my hideous face, I’d wished he’d killed me.
The old Max had died in the fire: the useless, entitled kid who treated life like a never-ending party. Whiskey, blow, and sex were a hell of a distraction from the nightmares of my mother’s murder that’d haunted me. I’d been a coward then, hiding from my demons by seeking fleeting highs.
Now, I accepted my sins. My failings.
My shame.
After tonight, I’d erase that shame. I would earn my father’s respect, and I would protect Allie in the process. It was a perfect plan. The only plan that would keep her safe from my sadistic cousins.
The door loomed before me, and my fingers trembled slightly when I raised my fist to knock.
“Enter.” My father’s deep voice shuddered down my spine, and the brass doorknob seemed to singe my palm.
I forced myself to cross the threshold and meet my father’s cold back eyes. His weathered face was unreadable, hard features set into stony planes. He leaned back in his burgundy leather armchair, a whiskey glass hanging casually from his fingers. The lit fire—too hot on a summer’s night—caught in the facets of the cut crystal, magnifying the flames that I desperately wanted to ignore.
The ruined skin on my brow crawled, and fear tingled down my spine, a primal survival instinct warning me to fight or flight.
Neither was an option. Not if I was going to protect Allie.
I filled my mind with her sparkling peridot eyes in an attempt to block out the fire at the edge of my vision. The burning wood crackled, and I tensed. My father’s head tipped back on a sneer.
I hated that I swallowed hard to suppress the urge to vomit. His mouth twitched with contempt at my small show of weakness.
“What do you want, Maximus?” he drawled.
“It’s good to see you, Max.” I blinked, jerking my attention away from the threat before me. I’d been so focused on him that I hadn’t even noticed my grandfather seated in the chair opposite him.
I managed a tight nod in his direction. My grandfather had been softened by prison, defeated by it. He had no interest in being head of the family anymore, leaving us subject to my father’s iron rule. The old man still deserved my respect, but he wasn’t my concern right now.
I dared to take a breath, steeling myself as I met my father’s glittering gaze head-on.
“I have something to share with you,” I announced. “Something I’ve been working toward for two years.”
His expression went slack, utterly bored. He had no expectations of me whatsoever. I was a failure in his eyes, a shameful son.
My familiar rage flickered to life deep in my chest, and I drew on it. Rage made me strong. It gave me the courage to present the proof that I wasn’t a failure.
I pulled out my phone and opened the recording app that I’d activated behind Allie’s back when I’d hugged her tightly to my chest. Her voice emanated from the speaker, wavering with grief. The echo of her distress set my teeth on edge, but I forced myself to focus on my father as our damning conversation filled the horrific space where I’d been disciplined by fire.
So, you believe me now? My voice was strangely rough on the recording. You believe that your father colluded with the Russian Bratva to murder my mother?
Allie had whispered in reply, but my phone had clearly picked up each of her words, condemning Ron Fitzgerald. Mike told me that my dad had an anonymous Russian informant that broke the Mafia case for him. You said he worked with the Russian Bratva to bring down the Mafia. He didn’t keep a record of the man’s identity. Why would he keep it secret? And now, I think the Ivanovs have Bratva ties. They’re my dad’s biggest donors. They’ve paid him millions. And today…