Zoe plants her palms on the desk, facing me with all forty-six kilos of her feistiness. Her words are measured, each one articulated. “What are you, Maxime? Mafia?” She spits out the word like it’s poison.
“You know what I am.”
She slams a palm down in front of me. “Say it.”
Her anger only makes me smile broader. It’s the irony of being caught in a trap I designed for her. It’s the knowledge that this little flower has slain me. “Yes, I’m mafia, but you knew that all along.”
Fire dances along the tears in her brilliant eyes. “I did not.”
This changes anything? She thinks I’ll let her go? Pretending to be ignorant makes fucking me easier for her?
“Oh, come on, Zoe. Not even you can be that naïve.”
She jerks as if I’ve slapped her. Fine. It was a low blow. Her naivety is part of what I love about her. She’s the light to my hell, the hope to my infernal darkness. Men like me are born dark. We’re born into the darkness. We inherit it from our fathers and pass it on to our sons. She’s the only brightness I’ll ever have in my life, and I don’t want her as anything other than herself, but she’s changing regardless. It happens right in front of my eyes as her features contort with pain. She tries hard to bury her feelings under a mask of indifference, but that’s my specialty. She’s an open book, a flower for the plucking.
“Fuck you, Maxime.” Her chin trembles, but she straightens and pulls her shoulders square. “You’re right. I’m too naïve. Maybe I was hiding my head in the sand when you took me from my home to teach me your sick lessons, but it was the only way I could cope with what was happening to me, so fuck you again for your petty insults.”
“Says the woman who just insulted me twice.”
Her dainty nostrils flare. “You could’ve died tonight, and I don’t know why I even care.”
I lift a brow. “Is there a point to this conversation?”
She regards me for the longest moment. Her voice is soft but complex, wrapped in layers of weariness, fear, and desperation when she finally speaks. “I want to go home.”
“No, you don’t.”
Her voice rises in anger. “You don’t know what I want.”
“I know you better than you think.”
She balls her small hands into fists at her sides. “I want to go home.”
“This is your home, Zoe. You’ve admitted it yourself, more than once. There’s nothing left for you in Johannesburg. This is your dream. This is the life you’ve always wanted. You want to run because you know who I am now. You want to run because of what you’ve lived through tonight. It’s only natural, but I’m here to protect you. I’ll always protect you.” Even from my grave.
She’s shivering like a daisy in a storm, but she’s standing her ground. “If they took a shot at you, you must be important.”
If they took a shot at you. Her words still me. She notices. Fuck. It’s a heavy truth to lay on her shoulders, but I can’t protect her if I keep her head pushed down in the sand.
“How important, Maxime? If you won’t let me go, it’s only fair that I know.”
She’s right. I wanted to keep her away from the business, but ignorance gets you killed. Especially now that she’ll be attending school in town. Especially now that she’ll have triple the guards protecting her day and night. I made an error in showing the world how much she means to me, but I won’t let her pay the price.
“Quite important,” I say.
“You’re not the boss or something like that?” she asks with a nervous laugh.
“Not yet. I still share the power with my father.”
Placing a hand over her stomach, she looks at me as if she sees the monster in my soul. “Oh, my God.”
“We’ll put extra security measures in place. You’ll take double the number of guards with you to school.”
“Me?” She gives me a wide-eyed look. “It’s not me they were after. What if they kill you?”
That coldness spreads through me again. I bury it under the fury and violence still coursing through my veins, but Zoe is perceptive. I may have made it my job to get to know her, but she’s gotten to know me in the process, too.
“Unless,” she says with a soft gasp, “they weren’t after you.”
“Zoe.” I get to my feet, but she takes a step away.
“They came after me,” she says with those big, haunted eyes. I can almost see the gears turning in her head. I see the exact moment she connects the dots. “To get to you.”
I stand helplessly, my hands hanging loosely at my sides while the truth turns her face into a mask of horror. I can’t tell her it won’t happen again. I can’t tell her I’ll let her go. I can only round the desk and offer her my arms.
“No.” She holds up a hand and takes two more steps away from me. “Don’t touch me.”
Her words hit me like no bullet can. “I’m not going to let anything happen to you.”
“You can’t promise that,” she says on a panicked whisper. “What happens if you’re killed?”
I opt for the truth. It’s better to give her these weapons than to make her vulnerable by not enlightening her. “It’s an option we shouldn’t exclude, but I’ll make sure you’re looked after.”
Her breath catches. “That’s not what I meant. What happens to me, stuck here in this city without a passport?”
I approach cautiously, like with an injured animal. “You don’t have to worry about that. It’s my job to take care of the details.”
“It’s my life. My fucking life.”
“Zoe.” My patience is running thin. It’s been a long night. “Don’t start.”
She folds her arms around her stomach. “A man died because of me.”
I slowly continue my advance. “He knew what the job entailed when he signed up.”
“Is Damian involved in the mafia? Is that why you’re keeping me?”
Stopping, I rub a hand over my face.
“Damn you, Maxime. Tell me! A man died tonight.”
The implied meaning hangs in the air. It could’ve been her. Tilting my head toward the ceiling, I sigh. “Damian is involved with his own mafia in prison. It’s got nothing to do with us.”
“Then why keep me?”
I wasn’t going to tell her, but the game is no longer the same. I’m never letting her go. What difference does it make if she knows? She’s right. After tonight, it only seems fair.
Taking a deep breath, I say, “Your brother is planning on taking back a diamond deposit he discovered. The mine currently belongs to Harold Dalton.”
“Dalton?” she exclaims. “The man who put Damian in prison?”
“Yes. He stole Damian’s discovery and framed him.”
“What does that have to do with you?”
“Dalton sells the diamonds directly to us, cutting out the middleman. We want to make sure your brother will sell to us when he takes over.”
She gapes at me. “You’re that certain Damian will succeed?”
“I’ve been privy to his plans. My money is on him.”