9. Cami
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Cami
The church was endless.
I walked down the aisle in my white dress, but it stretched on forever, the altar always just out of reach.
Rows of faces turned toward me, but they weren’t smiling anymore.
They were laughing. Every single one of them, mouths open, teeth bared, the sound filling the church until it echoed off the stained glass windows.
Logan stood at the altar. Waiting for me. Smiling that smile.
I reached him. Took his hands. The priest began to speak.
“I, Logan Caldwell, take you, Rosalie...”
No. No, not again. Please not again.
“Rosalie. Rosalie. Rosalie.”
He said it over and over. Her name falling from his lips, a prayer, a confession, the only word he’d ever known. And the laughing got louder, filling my ears, filling my skull, until I couldn’t hear anything else.
I turned to run but the aisle was gone. Just darkness. Just laughter. Just his voice saying her name again and again and again.
“Rosalie. Rosalie. Rosalie.”
I woke gasping.
The bedroom was dark. Silent. The silk sheets were tangled around my legs, damp with sweat, my heart hammering against my ribs.
Just a dream. Just a nightmare. Not real.
But it felt real. It still felt real, the laughter ringing in my ears, his voice echoing in my head. Rosalie. Rosalie. Rosalie.
I couldn’t breathe.
The walls were too close. The ceiling was too low. I couldn’t breathe, couldn’t think, couldn’t do anything except lie there in the dark and try to remember how lungs worked.
Water. I needed water.
I pushed myself out of bed. My legs were shaking but they held me up. The door opened silently and I slipped into the hallway, barefoot, wearing nothing but the oversized t-shirt I’d stolen from Sal’s drawer.
The compound was quiet at this hour. Still. The guards were at their posts but the hallways were empty, my footsteps the only sound as I made my way toward the kitchen.
The kitchen was not empty.
I stopped in the doorway, startled.
Sal sat at the table, papers scattered around him in organized chaos. His sleeves were rolled up to his elbows, exposing the strong lines of his forearms. A glass of whiskey sat half-finished at his elbow. And on his nose, perched low like he’d forgotten they were there...
Reading glasses.
It was that detail that undid me.
The dangerous mafia boss wore reading glasses. Wire-rimmed. Slightly crooked. Making him look almost... human.
I stood there longer than I should have, just looking at him.
The way the lamplight caught the silver threading through his dark hair.
The way his brow furrowed at whatever he was reading, the same way it had furrowed over the chessboard with Hendry yesterday, like the world was a problem he could solve if he just concentrated hard enough.
The forearms. God, the forearms. There was something almost unbearably soft about a man this dangerous bent over paperwork in his glasses at two in the morning, and I hated that I noticed it.
Hated that some traitorous part of me filed it away under things I wanted to keep.
He was beautiful. That was the problem. Not handsome, not hot, though he was both of those too. Beautiful, in the quiet way that sneaks up on you when no one’s performing.
He looked up. Those gray eyes found mine across the room.
“What are you doing?”
“I...” My voice came out rough. Wrecked. “Water. I needed water.”
His brow furrowed. The papers were forgotten. He was on his feet suddenly, crossing the kitchen toward me with quick, purposeful strides.
“What happened?” His voice had gone sharp. Urgent. His eyes were scanning me, checking for injuries, for damage, for whatever threat had driven me from my bed in the middle of the night. “Did someone... did something happen?”
“No.” I shook my head. “No, nothing happened. I just... I couldn’t sleep.”
He didn’t look convinced. But he stepped back, gave me space, watched as I moved to the cabinet and found a glass. My hands were still shaking. Water sloshed over the rim when I filled it.
I drank. Long, desperate gulps that did nothing to wash away the taste of the nightmare.
When I lowered the glass, Sal was still staring at me. Still watching with those gray eyes that saw too much.
“Nightmare.” It wasn’t a question.
I grimaced. “That obvious?”
“You’re shaking.” He moved closer. Not touching, but close enough that I could feel the warmth radiating off his body. Close enough that his scent wrapped around me, cedar and sandalwood and something darker underneath. “What was it?”
I didn’t want to answer. Didn’t want to admit that I was still having nightmares about a man who didn’t deserve to take up space in my head. Didn’t want to show this man, this dangerous, powerful man, just how broken I really was.
But the question lingered between us. And his eyes were soft in a way I hadn’t seen before, the hard edges smoothed away by something that looked almost like concern.
“Who hurt you, Cami?”
The nickname. He’d never called me that before. Always Camellia, formal and deliberate. But Cami... that was different. That was intimate.
“Who do you think?” The bitterness crept into my voice despite my best efforts. “Logan. It’s always Logan.”
The words started spilling out. The nightmare. The church. The name. The way the laughter had filled my ears until I couldn’t hear anything else.
And then, somehow, I was telling him about the texts.
“Three months ago. I found messages on his phone. Explicit ones, from a number I didn’t recognize.
I confronted him and he told me it was a wrong number.
Someone spoofing his phone. He made me feel crazy for even asking.
” My laugh was hollow. Ugly. “And I believed him. I talked myself out of it because trusting him was easier than burning my life down.”
Sal didn’t say anything. Just listened.
“Some part of me knew.” The confession felt like pulling teeth.
“Deep down, some part of me always knew. But I didn’t want to see it.
I didn’t want to believe that the man I loved, the man I was going to marry, the man I’d built my entire life around.
.. I didn’t want to believe he was capable of that. ”
The tears came without warning. Not the violent sobs from the garden, but something quieter. More exhausted. Tears that slipped down my cheeks and dripped off my chin, unstoppable no matter how hard I tried to hold them back.
Sal pulled a handkerchief from his pocket. Actual cloth, white and pressed and probably more expensive than anything I’d ever owned. He held it out to me without a word.
I took it. Pressed it to my face. Waited for him to say something stupid like it will be okay or you’re better off without him or any of the meaningless platitudes people offered when they didn’t know what else to say.
He didn’t.
He just stayed. Standing there in the middle of his kitchen at two in the morning, watching me cry into his handkerchief, not saying a word.
When the tears finally slowed, I felt hollowed out. Empty. And embarrassed as hell.
“Sorry.” I tried to laugh but it came out a wet little hiccup instead. “I didn’t mean to have a breakdown in your kitchen.”
“Don’t apologize.”
“I’m making this weird.”
“You’re not.”
“I should go back to bed.”
“Probably.”
Neither of us moved.
The silence stretched between us, thick and warm and strangely comfortable. The kitchen felt smaller than it had before. Or maybe he was just closer. When had he gotten so close?
“Your turn.” I said it before I’d decided to.
Sal raised an eyebrow. “My turn?”
“I just told you my sad story. Seems only fair you share something back.” I was trying to break the tension. Trying to make a joke out of the raw vulnerability I’d just spilled all over his floor. “Who hurt you, Salvatore?”
The silence changed.
The ease between us vanished in an instant. Sal’s face, which had been almost soft, hardened into something I couldn’t read. His jaw tightened. His eyes went flat.
He moved closer. Not walking, exactly. More like prowling. Each step deliberate, controlled, dangerous in a way that made my breath catch.
“My father.”
The words were quiet. Careful. Like he was handling something fragile that might shatter if he held it too tightly.
“He killed my mother when I was twelve. Made me watch.”
Oh.
Oh God.
The word came out small. Inadequate. “Oh.”
What did you say to that? What could you possibly say to a man who’d just told you he watched his father murder his mother when he was a child?
Nothing. There was nothing to say.
But I could see it now. The pain behind the steel in his eyes. The darkness that lived underneath all that control. He wasn’t just dangerous because of what he did. He was dangerous because of what had been done to him.
I did something stupid.
Later, I’d blame it on the lightheaded feeling of crying too much. On the nightmare. On my definitely not in her right mind brain.
But right then, I wasn’t thinking about any of that. I was just looking at him, at this man who had shown me his scars, and I wanted to... I don’t know. Comfort him. Connect with him. Show him he wasn’t alone.
My hand found his.
His skin was warm. Rough with calluses. I squeezed gently, a reassurance I didn’t have words for.
He went very still.
For a long moment, neither of us moved. Just stood there in the quiet kitchen, my hand wrapped around his, neither of us willing to be the first to let go.
Then his eyes dropped to my mouth.
He pulled me toward him.
The movement was sudden. Unexpected. One second I was standing there holding his hand, the next I was pressed against his chest, his arm around my waist, his face inches from mine.
“I can make you forget.” His voice was a whisper. Low and rough and dark. “If you want.”
Oh God.
Oh God oh God oh God.
Heat flooded through me. Instant and overwhelming. My cheeks were on fire. My heart was pounding so hard I was sure he could feel it.
“What?” The word came out strangled.