Chapter 22
TWENTY-TWO
Capri
That couldn’t have been more of a clusterfuck. Quite literally.
Standing in the middle of Sebastian’s suite, naked and thoroughly fucked—again, quite literally—confusion muffled my thoughts. He was an assassin. That didn’t change because I invaded his life.
He never lied to me about what he did for a living.
I had let my insecurities get the better of me.
But he didn’t get to dismiss those insecurities.
There may have been an age gap, a huge age gap, but that didn’t mean I wasn’t capable of standing my ground when it was necessary. Right now, it’s fucking necessary.
I stormed into the bathroom, swung open the shower stall, and joined him in the shower.
I had a captive audience and I was going to explain my position.
Except, when he grabbed my arm and steered me away from the door, pinning me against the wall with his very intimating form, I was the captive. How does he do that?
“Come to swim with the sharks, little minnow?” He cupped the side of my face. “The question is should I protect you from the other sharks, or should I let you fend for yourself?”
“You should let me explain myself.”
“By all means.” He stepped back, allowing the stream of the faucet to spray over him “Tell me how you came to the conclusion that I slipped out of our bed in the middle of the night, murdered your father, and then came back and had sex with you.”
“Why did Benny want me to ask you last night who Romero wanted you to eliminate?” At the time, I hadn’t given Benny’s ramblings much thought. Sebastian’s business wasn’t mine.
“He wanted to cause a rift between us.”
“But then you did leave to do something for Romero,” I said. “I heard Atticus tell you Romero wanted to meet with you.”
“He didn’t ask me to kill your father.” Sebastian wrapped his arm around my waist and drew me close enough to him that I could benefit from the water. “As much as I despise Leo, killing him would cross too many lines.”
“Because of me?”
“Yes.” He ran his hand through his wet hair. “I’ve wanted revenge on your father for so long. For years, it was all I thought about, but then I started rebuilding my life and I let a lot of that anger go.”
“Until me?”
“You did reignite the war, but I’m willing to lay down my sword and walk away if it means keeping you with me.”
“I’m sorry I accused you…” Why hadn’t I thought this through? Did I really think Sebastian would be so obvious when it came to killing my father? “Benny got inside my head, finding out that my father is trying to marry me off, fighting with my mom.”
“It’s a lot.” He hugged me.
“You said you would make sure everyone knew I was yours.”
“I will,” he said.
“When I saw your gun, I wondered how far you were willing to go.”
“You’re the priority. The Lazaro family are not good people. I don’t know what your father is thinking, but it can’t be as cut-and-dry as he’s making it out to be.”
“What do you mean?” I asked.
“I don’t know, but I’ll feel better once I have you out of this city and away from Benny.”
I hated that I had to leave like this, but I trusted Sebastian when he said I was in danger. How could my father have put me in the middle of whatever this was?
“I’m sorry that you thought I could kill your father.”
“The reality is I know that you still can.”
“I won’t deny that a part of me wants to see him suffer. I can be demanding, and I’m used to getting what I want.”
“I’m aware.” I smirked. “You forgot possessive.”
“I’ll never apologize for that when it comes to you.” When he brushed his lips across mine, a surge of heat coursed through me. “I’ll keep you safe at all costs.”
“I know.” I inched closer to him, stealing his warmth as the spray from the shower misted my skin. “I want to understand who you are and what you do.”
“I’m not sure you do.”
“Why would you say that?”
“If you could get inside my head, you would understand why I wouldn’t want you to know everything.” He closed his eyes, but I didn’t like when I couldn’t stare into them because then I couldn’t really see him. “You don’t need to be burdened with my thoughts.”
“How do you do it?” I asked.
“Are you asking me how I do my job?” He shook his head. “That’s too deep of a conversation to have inside a shower in a hotel room. I’m not sure I’ll ever be able to answer those questions.”
“You ended a life tonight,” I said. “How do you come home and go on like it didn’t mean anything?”
“I never said it didn’t mean anything.”
“You had sex with me. You’re taking a shower. You’re holding a conversation. Has it always been that way for you?”
“Are you writing a book?”
“I want… I need to know who you are.”
“I’m the man you gave yourself to. The one you trusted enough to come to my home and let me have you.” He rested his hand on my cheek. “You asked me to take your innocence. I did what you asked. I treated you with respect. I was gentle and patient. I took care of you. That’s who I am.”
“But who else are you?”
“I can’t make you stay with me if you can’t accept who I am. We’ll never work.”
“I do accept who you are, but knowing that my father is a heartbeat away from inciting you to kill him is stressful.”
“If I’m pushed hard enough, anything is possible.
” He draped my tangled, damp hair over my shoulder.
“But whatever happens between Leo and I will not be because of an almost twenty-year vendetta. If I’m provoked enough to kill him, it will be because he hurt you, and I will never allow you to be forced into a situation you don’t want to be in. ”
“It won’t come to that.” I had no idea what my father’s motivation was when it came to his plans for me and Christopher, but in my heart, I had to believe he would never make me marry against my will.
“I won’t dwell on the things I can’t control.” He kissed my forehead. “But from the beginning, I vowed to protect you. I have never been more determined to do that than I am today.”
I hoped it didn’t come down to the death.
Sebastian and I spent most of the day in the suite making plans to return to Greece. If it weren't for some strong thunderstorms and high winds moving through the flight path, we would have left this evening. Atticus couldn’t get the pilot to agree to take off until the morning.
I didn’t mind. Maybe I’d still get a chance to work things out with my mom or at least say goodbye in person. I wasn’t holding out hope, because if I did try to go home, my dad might not let me leave.
I laid my head in Sebastian’s lap and scrolled on my phone as he watched the stock channel. As he gently tangled strands of my hair around his fingers, I occasionally gazed up at him. How had he become Hades the Assassin?
“Why did you come to America when you were a teenager?” I asked.
“You’ve managed to go a whole hour without asking me a question.” He muted the television. “I’m impressed.”
“I want to know more about you.”
“There isn’t much to tell before I arrived in America.”
“Tell me what there is to tell.” I tossed my phone on the edge of the sofa. “I’ll take anything. You have my undivided attention.”
“I was an only child.”
“Like me.” Another connection we shared.
“My mother died of ovarian cancer when I was fifteen.”
“Oh.” I didn’t give much thought to who his parents were or if they were still alive. Both sets of my grandparents were still alive. My father’s parents lived in Italy and my mother’s were in Florida. They would probably be around the same age as Sebastian’s parents. “I’m sorry.”
“She was sick for a while, so when they couldn’t do anything else for her, she came to peace with dying. That helped her transition.”
“But what about you?” I sat up and curled into his lap, pushing the anxiety of him dealing with his mother’s death far enough down so I could understand who he was. What had shaped him into the man he became. “How did you cope?”
“It wasn’t about me.” He clasped our fingers together. “It was time for her to let go, and I had no choice but to let her go.”
“It must have been difficult.”
“It was a long time ago, but I missed her presence in my life.”
“What was her name?” I asked.
“Daphne.” When he stared at the muted TV, the muscles in his chest tightened.
“That’s a pretty name.”
“She was a lovely woman. Pleasant, beautiful, and loyal to a fault.”
“What about your father?”
“I do not miss his presence in my life.” He shrugged.
“My parents weren’t together when my mother died, but she gave him every benefit of every doubt.
He had addiction problems, which included gambling, alcohol, drugs, and women.
I don’t think my mother had the energy to fight her cancer because she was so busy trying to fight for her marriage. ”
Maybe I shouldn’t have brought this up.
“When my mother died, my father took me in, but he didn’t do much else.
Two years later, I couldn’t take the constant fighting between us, his drug and alcohol induced abuse, or the barrage of women and loan sharks knocking at our door, so I sought out a cousin in Philadelphia and came to stay with him. ”
“You were so young to be on your own in a new country.”
“A few months later, I found myself in New York City.” He ran his finger along my new bracelet before kissing my wrist. “I met your father just as he had gotten himself into some trouble, and I helped him out of it. From that day on we were inseparable until…”
“What kind of trouble?”
“Trouble angry young men who aren’t really old enough to be men get themselves into, especially when they don’t have any money but have too much time on their hands.”
“How did you survive?”
“I did what I had to do.” He gently kissed me. “That’s enough nostalgia for tonight.”
“Thank you for sharing what you did.” I twisted in his lap and draped my arms around his neck. “I just want to know everything I can about you.”
“We have plenty of time.” He switched to the weather channel. “Once these storms clear, we should be good to go.”
“It’s not even raining here.” I motioned toward the window. “It’s humid and gross but no rain.”