Chapter 32
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
Drago
Song- Fade Into You- Mazzy Star
The sun sits low as we step out onto the street, the warmth of Monaco clinging to my skin. I put my sunglasses on as Lily walks beside me, ice cream already melting faster than she can keep up with, laughing softly when a drop lands on her wrist.
God. I can’t help myself, I catch her arm and bring her wrist up to my mouth, slowly licking it clean. I am obsessed with the way she looks at me.
The breeze lifts the hem of her dress, and I have to lock my jaw, remind myself that wanting her isn’t the same as taking her. That control is the thing that separates the man I am now from the one I used to be.
So without a word, we keep walking.
She nudges my arm with her shoulder. “You’re quiet.”
“I’m thinking,” I say.
“Dangerous.”
“For you, maybe,” I reply, and she grins like she knows exactly what that means.
We walk along the promenade, the sea stretching out beside us.
I keep myself half a step closer to the road, instinctively positioning my body between her and everything else.
I don’t tell her. I don’t need to. This is as natural as breathing.
This is what I have dedicated more than half of my life to. Keeping her safe.
She licks her spoon and hums. “This is really good.”
“Everything tastes better when you slow down,” I say.
She glances at me sideways. “Is that a life lesson or a threat?”
I stop walking.
She takes one more step before realizing I’m no longer beside her. When she turns back, I’m standing there, one hand stuffed into my pocket.
“Both,” I say quietly.
This right here is the life I want in my future. Calm. Slow. Where I can take a moment to breathe and not look behind me, waiting for someone to stick a blade through my back.
Her smile softens, something gentler sliding into place. She steps closer, not touching, just close enough that I can smell sugar and salt and her. God help me.
We keep walking.
People pass us. Laughter, languages blending together, life happening all around us. None of it sticks. All I register is the rhythm of her steps, the way her arm brushes mine now and then, accidental but not unwelcome.
“This,” she says after a moment, gesturing to the sea, the sun, the street, “feels… normal.”
The word lands heavier than she intends.
“I don’t get much of that,” she adds quietly.
I slow again, not stopping this time. “You deserve it. You deserve peace in your life.”
She looks up at me, searching. “Do you believe that about yourself?”
I do. That’s the terrifying part. It’s something I don’t deserve. Yet, that has always been my goal deep down, whether I admitted it to myself or not. A way out to a peaceful life.
Put me here, pulling strings for money laundering in my home office, by the sea, with a wife and kids. Maybe start up a chain of gyms for self-defense classes.
“Yes,” I say without hesitation.
She exhales like she’s been holding that question in for a long time. We reach a low stone wall overlooking the water, and she hops up onto it, swinging her legs. I stand between her knees without thinking, my body drawn there like it knows exactly where it belongs.
She holds out the cone with the last of her ice cream. And I eat it, slowly. Not breaking eye contact. It’s sweet, just like her. A creamy strawberry flavor that melts on my tongue. And now, the only kind of ice cream I’ll ever want to eat again.
She reaches out and wipes a smear from the corner of my mouth with her thumb. The touch is brief, yet sets me on fire.
“You’re terrible at this,” she says lightly.
“At ice cream?” I ask.
“At pretending you don’t feel things.”
My throat tightens. I don’t move her hand away. I don’t lean into it either. The restraint burns. “I feel plenty,” I say. “I just choose carefully what I do about it.”
How would I tell her that right now, I’m picturing us living here? That this is our future, eating ice cream as we walk along the beach. That I just want her hand in mine. No stress. No obligations. Only to her.
Her fingers curl into my shirt. Not pulling. Not pushing. Just holding on.
“Good,” she murmurs. “Because I want this to mean something.”
So do I.
“What do you see in your future, Drago? Still the mafia life? Like my dad?” she asks.
Her question hits home as I was just thinking about my future and what I want. But what am I allowed to actually have?
I chew on the inside of my mouth. As much as I love Lev, do I see myself being like him when I’m in my sixties? Alone? Running from place to place, hunting down the people that haunt this world?
No. I never asked for this life. I was saved, and my path was carved out for me. I’m grateful. But I’m also close to being done.
“No,” I tell her honestly.
“Once I have finished the job I’ve started, I’ll find my way out.”
Her mouth pops open. “Y-you can just leave?”
She doesn’t hide the sadness in her voice. I’m assuming, wondering why her father never left the life for her.
I lace my fingers through hers. “I’ve never aligned fully with any family. I’ve worked with many and made enemies in a lot of places. With the Quinns, I owe them for saving my life. After that debt is paid, I answer to your father only.”
She swallows, the weight of my confession most likely weighs heavy.
“And then what?”
I open my mouth and snap it shut. I’m not sure if after one real date, she’s ready for my answer. “I-I don’t know. I guess I’ll have to wait and see what the next chapter of my life brings.”
I step back before I forget myself completely and help her off the wall. I’m trying to prove to her that I deserve her time. But it takes all the restraint I have not to give in and show her what it would be like to be mine completely.
We walk again, hand in hand this time. And now, I feel like I’m walking beside a future I might actually fight to keep.