Romeo The Mafia Casanova

Romeo’s [POV]

Now she’d screamed at me.

I’d said I wanted her to fight back.

I didn’t want it directed at me.

Now we were at a standstill. She said she knew, but she didn’t. Not really. She didn’t know the blood that was on my hands.

She didn’t know why.

She shoved herself away from me until her back was to the wall, her eyes wild. “You killed Tristian, didn’t you? Just admit it! Say it!”

I opened my mouth, shutting it before opening it again. Whispering, “Who told you that?”

“Nobody! I saw it on my dad’s phone. So don’t try it, Casanova, don’t even think about seducing your way out of this or lying. I’m sick of your lies! Just for once in your life, give me the truth. I deserve the fucking truth!”

The truth meant I lost her.

The truth meant setting her free while burning myself alive.

It meant not seeing Naz again.

It meant walking out of her life when all I’d ever wanted was to be in it.

I would have taken anything.

Any crumb of attention I would feast on.

Instead, she wanted the truth, when all I ever wanted to do was lie to her, to keep her safe.

To keep his memory safe.

To create this illusion that everything was perfect when, in reality, it was all completely fucked.

“The truth,” I repeated.

“God, you can’t even do that for me, can you? You say you love me, you’ll protect me, you’ll keep me safe, and yet you can’t even trust me with your truth, you can’t even”

“It was fast.” I locked eyes with her. “It was necessary.”

She gasped, throwing her hands over her mouth like she was afraid the sob would be too loud if she didn’t mask it with her fingertips.

I took a step toward her. “You want the truth still?”

Tears slid down her cheeks at her slow nod.

“Despite asking for Tristian’s forgiveness before he took his last breath, I liked it. I reveled in his death even though it pained me to have to kill him. He was my brother. I sacrificed you, Naz, myself… for him.”

She averted her eyes.

“Nope.” I was on her then, my hands jerking her fingers away from her mouth; I caged her against the wall, cupping her jaw with my hand. “You want the truth, you get all of it. Next time remember that.” I dropped my hand. “Look at me.”

She met my eyes. Her lower lip trembling. I just wanted to kiss it away, to take away the pain, to tell her that I had to no matter what.

Would it have changed things if I was honest in the beginning?

Probably not.

But there was something to be said about being honest in the end. Maybe that was why they called them happy endings. It wasn’t that everything worked out perfectly. It was that when the story finally closed, you knew you had done everything you could to own up to your truth. And in the end, how could that not be happy? When you’ve said your peace, it was your only choice. Sadness and anger were for liars.

I was done being a liar. Being forced to lay it at her feet, a sacrifice I’d never come back from. I might as well slit my wrists and stab my own heart, watching myself bleed.

“My truth,” I rasped, “is that, no matter what, I will always fucking put you first. You and Naz. Even if it means I kill my brother.” I shook my head. “My truth? My truth is the night you came running to your father with Naz, I went out and looked for him. I found him at our dive bar with this woman I thought I recognized.”

“You knew he was cheating on me?”

“Not at first. But once I started doing some digging, I realized who she was married to. One thing led to another, and it took me a year to figure out the truth of his indiscretions.”

“What did he do?”

I nodded toward the couch. “You’re going to want to sit down before I tell you the rest.”

Her expression quickly turned to worry; she looked like she might pass out. I helped her toward the sofa, crouching down in front of her so I could stare into her eyes.

She was going to need all the support I could give her with what I was about to disclose.

“Romeo, you’re freaking me out. How bad was it?”

“Enough for me to kill him.”

Her eyes widened, and I kissed the inside of her wrist, wanting to feel her pulse against my lips before I ripped the ground out from under her.

“He was going to kill you for twenty-five million dollars.”

Her mouth dropped open, her face paled, and I never wanted to take away the hurt in her eyes more than I did at that moment.

“What…” she whispered all in one breath.

“He was cooking the books for Ivan Drozdov without our knowing. When I found out, it was just a domino effect. Tristian told him that he would kill you if he made him a made man and gave him twenty-five million dollars.”

“Wow. I saw the wire transfer. I guess now I know my worth.”

I grabbed her chin. “You’re worth all the money in the world.”

Her eyes lit up.

Hope.

I hadn’t seen it in so long.

“Ivan was using Tristian. Once Tristian killed you, Ivan was going to turn on him and save face for our family by telling us what he was capable of for a title and money.”

“He was sleeping with his wife?”

“Yeah. That’s what made Ivan turn on him.”

“I can’t believe this.” She shook her head. It was evident she was overwhelmed, and I couldn’t blame her. It was a lot to take in, and it was about to get much worse. “He was going to kill Naz for twenty-five million as well.”

“Oh my God!” She shot straight up, I went with her. “You can’t be serious?!”

“I’m so sorry, Eden. He only just decided that a few days ago, when he found out Naz was mine.”

It was blowing after blow that I was delivering, and I hated myself for it, but she needed to know the truth. I knew Eden, and she wouldn’t stop until she got to the bottom of it. It was better for her to hear it from me, the man who’d killed him.

The force of my statement had her stumbling back, but I caught onto her waist.

“You know?” she muttered in a low tone.

I nodded.

“How long have you known?”

“Since I first met him. It’s why I stayed away. I thought Tristian was a better example of a father. I never imagined he’d stoop that low.”

“I don’t know what to say…”

“I made a choice. I chose you. For the first time in my life, I chose you, Eden, and I won’t apologize for that,” I paused, wanting my words to truly sink in. We both know he wasn’t himself anymore. The old Tristian died a long time ago; I just killed his shadow to prevent him from killing you or my son.”

Eden swayed on her feet, her hands moving to my shoulders as she righted herself. But she was unable to hold her body up, and her knees crumpled. I held onto her waist harder.

I could do that for her.

“I killed him,” I repeated. “I killed him to save the only two people I’ve ever loved. And I’d do it again. To keep you safe, I’d burn the world, Red.”

I tightened my grip, catching her before she collapsed into a heap on the office floor, lifting her into my arms, and sitting her on my lap instead while tears streamed down her face in rapid succession.

“Would it have mattered?”

I held her tight. “Would what have mattered?”

“Had you chosen me the first time, would we still be in this predicament? Would he still be dead?”

I hesitated. “I don’t know, Eden. All I know is what’s done is done, and we’re responsible for our own choices, and our own mistakes. As humans, we’re compelled to own up to the good and the bad. In the end, I don’t think Tristian was able to do that, so he dug deeper and deeper until he couldn’t see his way out, and then he used the end to justify his present actions. He used his jealousy of me and love for you as a weapon.”

Her breathing had evened out as she laid her head against my chest.

“Does it make me a horrible person, then?”

“Does what?”

Her hands shook as she wrapped her arms around me and clung to me as if her life depended on it.

“That I feel safer in the arms of my husband’s killer? That I’ve always felt protected even when I couldn’t see you because I knew you wouldn’t let anything happen to us. That” She sniffled.

“That I kept your son from you for five years.”

My chest twisted with pain.

“It got harder and harder the older he got. His mannerisms, down to the way he narrows his eyes and stares to the side when he’s thinking hard.” Eden pulled back, her eyes blurry. “I didn’t know what to do!”

“Eden-”

“You’d said you just wanted to fuck me, and I was marrying your brother. So many times, I told myself not to walk down that aisle, that we had something, that you were pushing me away. And then the more I thought about it, the more I realized that in your stupid head, you had no choice. You were convinced I was safer without you in my life when I’ve only ever been safe because you’re in it. I let Tristian raise him as his own because I was scared of what would happen if either of you found out the truth.”

I listened to every word she was sharing, eager to see where she was going with this. I’d often wondered why she never told me, especially at night, when I was alone in my cold penthouse, thinking about her and what could have been in my bed. It had become more difficult to be around Naz the older he got. I could see everything she was saying about him.

My son didn’t even realize it, but he was exactly like me.

“I was going to leave him,” she blurted out of nowhere. She grabbed her shirt and lifted it to her cheek, wiping away the makeup.

It was only then that I noticed what she was hiding underneath it.