Chapter 52 Kitty
FIFTY-TWO
KITTY
Playlist recommendation:
I’m No Angel - Dido
The silence that settled between us steamed with my fury.
But he let me wallow in it. Didn’t push me. He even rushed to fulfill my odd request.
By the time we made it across town to the cemetery, I didn’t know what to think.
This man had shown me every single bad side of himself.
What else was there left for me to see, and why hadn’t I dumped his ass yet?
Fuck.
I pinched the bridge of my nose as we pulled up in the parking lot.
Like I needed this to be the same cemetery where my da and Vinny were buried today of all days.
“Kitty?”
Arguments with Stan weren’t like arguments with anyone else.
He didn’t cajole, manipulate, or placate me. It was remarkably liberating. He accepted my fury. Embraced it, even. He didn’t make me feel like I’d lost my mind and never tried to gaslight me.
Instead, he allowed me to rage, and because of that freedom, it made it easier to overcome.
To adjust.
To pardon.
Not that I’d tell him that.
“Do you have any other secrets?” I paused and clarified: “From me. About us.”
When he pressed his forehead into the steering wheel, dread filled me.
“What is it? What the hell else have you done?!”
“Star had Dead To Me trailing you in Mexico because…”
“Because?!”
“Well, I told you about the flights… But you’d already checked in and were registered on a flight to Cancún.” My eyes widened as he reeled off his confession. “So, she got me on the same plane and made sure we were sitting together.
“Dead To— Fuck. Taube was tailing you because Star wanted to make sure you were okay. The Five Points have no affiliations with Mexican cartels, plus before you, I was a loose cannon—”
I gaped at him. “From where I’m sitting, you still are!”
He bowed his head. “Before that, I had Conor hack into Bellevue’s security system because that morning when I’d been discharged, I was pretty sure I’d dreamed you—”
“That’s why you call me your dream girl, isn’t it?” I blurted.
“No!” He whipped around to stare at me. “No. Okay, partly. But mostly because I never even dreamed I’d meet someone as perfect for me as you.”
“Right now, that isn’t a compliment, Custanzu,” I snarled, slapping his hand away when he tried to catch mine. I ignored his flinch. “I don’t believe you!”
He slung his arm over the steering wheel. “There’s probably a saying about guys like me.”
“If he looks too good to be true, then grab a knife because he’s committed felonies to sit next to you on a plane?! Oh my god, you were behind the upgrades! Holy shit, I should have… I want to…”
My hands curled into fists, but instead of hitting him, I let loose a frustrated scream.
“If you left me, I’d deserve it.”
“No shit,” I hissed.
Somehow, his morose tone aggravated me more than his past actions.
I hated the defeat in his voice.
But I also hated how he’d steered our relationship from the jump!
“I know you’re thinking ‘How many times does he have to show you his true colors for you to realize that you should get out?’ You’d be right to. But… I’ll never let you down, Kitty. Never—”
“You keep on telling me that then some BS like this will come out! Goddammit, Stan. You stalked me! Do you know if someone stalked Raisin or Neev, I’d have gone after their knees with a baseball bat?”
“Rightfully so. Do you want me to get you a bat?”
“This isn’t funny!”
“I never said that it was. I’m sure as fuck not laughing. You have to understand, Kitty, after the hospital, I didn’t even know if you were real—”
“Firstly, I want it known that I don’t have to understand anything that you do. Capisci?” He cringed. I sucked in air. Then, mulishly, demanded, “What do you mean? And what’s this crap about me being an angel?”
I saw the hope flutter in his eyes like a white flag. “I wasn’t certain if I’d dreamed you or not. That’s how it started. Me obsessing and then having to know if it had happened. If we’d actually met.
“I swear to fuck I thought you were an angel. I’m not being poetic. I felt sure you’d... God, I don’t even know. Did my addled mind think you were there to guide me toward the light? Or just to make me lead a better life?
“I still have no idea. But once I knew that you were real, I…” His shoulders dropped. “I took a shot at more, never recognizing that you were going to be it for me. I saw you and wanted you, but that’s nothing to how I feel now, duci.”
Sincerity bled through the words.
It made me want to claw at him.
“I hate that you make me feel like a chump.”
“What?!”
“You do these shit things and I forgive you. Like a chump. I’m not a chump, Stan. Do you goddamn hear me? You will stop with this bullshit because you’re making me look bad—to myself—and in this, I’m the only person who matters.
“I won’t be the type of woman who lets you get away with disrespecting me.
Our beginnings have been one long rocky road in an incredibly short time span, and I don’t expect smooth sailing from here on out, but if you pull any stunts like these again, if there’s something I deserve to know and you keep it from me, if you create another godawful drug, then that’s it.
We’re done. I am walking away.” I laid it on the line and repeated the word that rammed home my message. “Capisci?”
Admiration gleamed in his eyes. “I understand, liunissa. This is why you’re perfect for me, Kitty. I want you to demand everything from me that I have because that’s precisely what you deserve.”
“Yes, I do.” His elation had me huffing. “I love you.” The elation exploded into a tangible joy that had my fingers curling in on themselves. I would not reach for him. “Not that you deserve to hear that today.”
“I’m an addict, Kitty. I made promises before that I didn’t keep.
That I knew I couldn’t keep. My family might say that every word I speak has the potential to be a lie.
But when I tell you that I promise I’ll earn your love every day, that I’ll never let you regret loving me…
I will do everything within my power to stay true to those promises.
More than the vows we’ll take in the future.
I mean this. I will be the man you deserve, duci. ”
I heard the gravel in his voice and read the sincerity in his expression.
But as much as his intentions affected me, I still snapped, “See that you are. Do you know why I told you? For the first time, here, at a cemetery where my brother and father are also buried?”
His mouth worked at my admission but he settled on: “Why?”
“Because this is a lesson you’d better remember. I love you but love, as you already know, requires nurturing. In this place, where we both have people we lost, you better remember that before it fades to dust.”
“I won’t allow that to happen. I swear.”
“Good.”
His Adam’s apple bobbed. “I love you, my angel.”
“I’m no angel, Stan.”
“You are. To me.”
Though I accepted that with a sigh, I stated, “I want to go to Evangeline’s grave.”
“Why?”
“Because I do.” I shot him a pointed look. “Are you going to take me, or do I have to spend the next couple hours walking among the gravestones?”
He pulled a face, but ten minutes later, we meandered through the graves.
And it was weird.
Not because of our end destination but because for the first time in the history of us, we stood alone.
Not a single part of us entangled.
I hated it.
And I hated that he kept doing shit that made me shove space between us.
Goddamn asshole.
Much like the O’Donnellys had done for Da, Stan had covered the bill for Evangeline’s grave. And if not him, the Valentinis. This place definitely went above and beyond a housekeeper’s salary.
When we made it to Evangeline’s graveside, to this woman whose life had been so short, who’d acted the muse for Stan and triggered the creation of such hideous compounds that would have global repercussions… it was almost anticlimactic.
I didn’t even know what I expected.
What I found was a simple, gleaming white headstone with engraved gold letters—so pure.
So clean and elegant but so undeniably innocent.
Everything Stan wasn’t. Everything I wasn’t.
“What are you thinking?” he asked, sounding awkward for once.
You can’t exorcise a ghost if you can’t see it.
“What was she like?”
“Kitty, you don’t have to—”
“What. Was. She. Like?”
Eventually, he rasped, “Generous with her time. Her mom expected a lot from her school wise, considering she wanted her to get married at eighteen, but she helped me learn Russian. She’s the reason I can speak Albanian.
” He rubbed his temple. “She made great blinis, loved peanut butter because she couldn’t eat it without breaking out in hives, and wanted to report on the world’s atrocities.
And if not that, then sue the rich men in power who let them happen.
“She was such a sweetheart. Infinitely kind. How couldn’t I want to protect her? I-I think that’s where it started. Rory never lets us protect her, didn’t need that from us, but Evangeline had too soft a soul for this world.
“In my head, the best way to protect her was to marry her and it all got twisted. Especially once we seized power and Accursio died in the takeover.” He released a shaky breath.
“If I think about it, it’s strange that I thought I loved her like that.
She was a kid and I’m no goddamn pervert.
I’d string up any guy who thought… You know what I mean.
“It wasn’t sexual. I swear, Kitty. I’m nothing like that fucker you and Raisin dealt with.”
I believed him.
But I also believed the other stuff he’d said.
A part of me thought I’d have disliked this sweet and soft flower whose petals were so fragile that he had to protect them.
Which was uncharitable.
But in the privacy of my own mind, I could be a bitch.
Evangeline and I would have had nothing in common. Nothing apart from him. Not when she’d lived up to her name and I definitely lived up to mine. Yet, he’d imagined himself in love with her…
I didn’t think he could have picked two more entirely different women if he’d tried.