Chapter 31 #2
“Alright, if you insist on having this conversation now, let’s get it all out then.
I loved you, Alonzo, and you took my trust, shattered it, and then took my heart and stomped on it for good measure.
” He flinches, but he doesn’t look away.
“I will not just forgive that. I will not allow myself to be put in that situation again. I can acknowledge that part of the reason it hurt so much was that on some level some of it was true. I hid who I was, no am, and I still, in a small way, worked for the Russians. I was living a lie, while trying to be someone I couldn’t be.
I allowed myself to dream and want things I’ll never have. ”
“Why can’t you have it?” His voice is soft, almost gentle, and I try to harden myself to it.
“Because that isn’t what I get to have, Alonzo.
It’s just not. This?” I wave my hand carelessly toward the room around us.
“This is my life. This is what I have grown up to be. What I’ve trained to be.
That’s not just going to stop because I fell for you.
Even if I manage to kill a bunch of the people tying me to this life, it’s not going to disappear.
Someone will find out who and what I am, and they are going to either try to take me out, or they are going to want to force me to work for them.
And how do you think that’s going to translate to this life you want so badly with me?
Do you really think that you’re going to be okay with people coming after me all the time?
After your family? The Caruso’s? The children that will eventually all be around? ”
My words make him flinch. Yeah, he didn’t think that far ahead, did he?
“My life is never going to be an easy one, Alonzo. And I don’t know that I can stand to put myself on the line for you again. All to watch the resentment, the mistrust, start to spread again.”
“You really think that I’ll do that?”
“Won’t you?” I cock my head slightly. “You seriously want to tell me that Pietro and your father won’t always be mistrusting of me?
Maybe not outright, but deep down? When something terrible happens, or the Russians start to get too close or have intel that no one but someone pulling an inside job could give?
That them, and you, won’t secretly wonder if it’s me?
That I’m pulling some kind of job for someone? ”
“I know it won’t be you.” The confidence radiating from him is strong.
“Do you know why I know that, Rori? Because that isn’t you.
When you dig yourself into something, there is nothing that will pull you away.
Like you did for Sienna. The danger you put yourself in for her and the others.
Because you love them. When you love someone, you will move mountains to make sure they’re safe.
You wouldn’t risk them or their families.
Just like loving me means you’ll protect me and our family with everything you have. You’d never risk them, risk me.”
Why does he keep bringing up children? And why does the thought of them make me wish for things I can’t have? Is that his goal? Get under my skin until I give in?
“Alonzo, you and I—we are done. The chance is gone, and I don’t think that it would ever have come to anything more than good sex and a broken heart for me either way. I was never going to leave California to move to Sicily.”
“But you wanted to. You dreamed of it, wished for it. You can’t tell me that you didn’t, Rori.” He reaches for my hands again, holding them firm in his grip, his large thumbs brushing over the backs of my hands.
“Dreams are for children, Alonzo. I learned a long time ago.” I need him to understand. I need him to finally be disgusted enough with me to walk away. Maybe get the hell out of this mess completely.
“Do you know when I stopped dreaming, Alonzo? I was eight, and my father found my diary. The one that my mother snuck to me in secret when I was just five and told me to keep hidden. It was for me to write my dreams. It was the last thing she ever gave me. I managed to hide it from him, no matter how many times my father searched my room, he never found it. I’m not sure if my mother told him about it, or he just had a suspicion.
When he did eventually find it, he thought it was high time I learned that I belonged to him.
That I was going to be his weapon and nothing else.
He beat me until I could barely breathe, could barely stand.
Then, he had four of his buddies have their turns with me. ”
I let that sink in, and I see the fury blanket his expression. His grip on my hand tightens painfully, but I don’t pull away.
“He did that to his own daughter?” he hisses, the disgust in his eyes heavy.
“I wasn’t a daughter to him anymore. I was a tool, and one that wasn’t cooperating.
One that needed to be broken and put back together in the way he deemed best. The only reason that I didn’t kill myself was because of the other kids in that school.
A few of them needed me, needed me to be strong, so I buried it, and I worked hard.
I planned and waited, until the moment he married me off.
Then, the only thing I allowed myself to dream of was his death.
How I would do it. When. What I would do afterward.
It’s the only dream I’ve ever allowed myself. Until you.”
He rears back like I’ve slapped him. And maybe I have.
“Until you,” I repeat, forcing the words out again.
“I was stupid, thinking that what I wanted, what I could finally have, was within reach. That I could think of something else other than trying to hide the parts of myself I couldn’t show.
But that’s all we were, Alonzo. A dream.
And now, it’s time for us to wake up and keep moving.
That means you need to protect Mila for Ilya and Zakhar, and let me handle my own life and what needs to be done.
Then, we need to walk away. Maybe I’ll see you again if I visit Sienna.
Well, if she’ll forgive me. You’ll move on, find a nice girl to marry and have some rug rats with, and I’ll live my life the way I need to.
That’s our future, Alonzo, and it’s time we both accepted that. ”