26. Casey
By early March, my life is feeling lighter in ways I don’t notice immediately. I laugh easier, I smile constantly. I stop walking around like I’m waiting for someone to pull the rug out from under me. My confidence in myself is returning, and that feels good.
I sleep through the night more often than not because Adriano’s body is usually wrapped around mine by morning, warm and solid and steady enough to quiet parts of me I didn’t even realize had been anxious for years.
Letty has started automatically reaching for my hand whenever the three of us walk somewhere together, and the way Adriano looks at me when that happens makes me feel like I belong here.
He doesn’t even try to show any restraint around me; his hand is always reaching for me, keeping me close.
It’s like, since that first night, he’s stopped trying to hide that gentler, loving part of himself from me.
I should probably find it terrifying how fast we’ve settled into this, how fast I’ve let this family claim me when I promised myself I was done with men. Instead, I find myself wondering when exactly he became the first person I want to tell things to.
It’s dangerous. Being this happy always is. It’s like our brains forget to look for the threat. Maybe that’s why I don’t notice the black SUV parked across the street when I first leave the brownstone that afternoon.
I only wanted to grab a few things for dinner. I’m making braciole, and I need pine nuts and more pecorino for the filling. Elena gave me the recipe after she made it for us a few weeks ago.
Adriano is still at work. He works long hours but he’s always home to have dinner with Letty and put her to bed, even if it means he has to work on the couch in the evenings. I admire that about him so much. He puts his daughter before everything and it only makes me fall for him more.
Letty’s at dance class with Elena. Elena apparently is trying to persuade Rossi to take ballroom classes with her.
I think there might be a wedding on the cards soon, but they keep denying it.
Something about the way Rossi’s face pinks up when I mention it, though, makes me feel like I’m going to be buying a hat soon.
I snuggle deeper into my coat; the city feels softer today somehow. Manhattan is wrapped in pale sunlight instead of snow for once, and for the first time in weeks, my body feels fully mine again.
No pain, no exhaustion dragging behind me, just lightness.
I’m halfway back from the market, one paper bag balanced against my hip while I fish for my phone inside my coat pocket, when someone steps directly into my path.
My entire body jolts instinctively as I drop my bag to the ground.
I go to yell at the rude person blocking my way but freeze before the words leave my lips.
Jasper.
For one disorienting second, my brain refuses to catch up properly with what I’m seeing. Because he doesn’t look like himself anymore. The last time I saw him, he still looked polished, controlled. Expensive coat, perfect hair. That carefully crafted, charming businessman image he wore like armor.
Now?
Now he looks exhausted and disheveled. Unshaven. Eyes bloodshot and frantic in a way that sends an immediate warning straight down my spine.
“Jasper,” I say slowly.
My grip tightens automatically around the grocery bag. I need to pick up my handbag, but I don’t want to take my eyes off him to bend down. He’s giving me a vibe that puts all my senses on alert and has the hairs on the back of my neck lifting.
His gaze moves over me sharply.
Taking me in.
The new coat Adriano bought me last month.
The scarf I stole from Adriano’s closet because it smells like him.
The fact I probably look happy.
Something ugly twists across his face instantly. “There you are.”
Every instinct in my body tenses. As a woman, you have an innate gut feeling when a man is a danger to you. We don’t always listen, but right now my gut is screaming.
“What are you doing here?”
He laughs once.
The sound doesn’t even remotely resemble humor.
“What am I doing here?” he repeats, stepping closer. “That’s your question?”
People move around us along the sidewalk. Manhattan continues on, completely oblivious, while my pulse begins thudding harder beneath my ribs.
“Jasper,” I say carefully, “you need to leave.”
“Do I?” His voice rises suddenly, sharp enough that a couple passing nearby glance over. “You think I don’t know what’s happening?”
Cold unease slides down my spine. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Bullshit.”
The word cracks out of him hard enough that I flinch before I can stop myself.
His eyes catch the movement instantly.
For a second, something almost regretful flickers there.
Then disappears again beneath anger. “You think this is a coincidence?” he demands. “Everything I built suddenly collapsing overnight? Investors disappearing. Contracts gone. Federal investigations.”
My stomach drops.
No.
No.
“Jasper.” I raise my hands palms out as if I’m trying to calm a wounded animal.
“He’s destroying me.”
And suddenly every strange phone call Adriano took outside the room, every cold shift in his expression before it softened again when he looked at me, every vague answer—all of it rearranges itself in my head.
My chest tightens painfully. He told me he would leave it alone. He wouldn’t lie to me; he wouldn’t. Adriano knows that it’s the one thing I won’t forgive.
“You’re being paranoid,” I say, but the words sound weak even to me.
Jasper stares at me for one long, awful second, then laughs again. “You really don’t know. Your new fuck boy is ruining my life and, once again, you have no idea. I almost feel sorry for you. Poor little Casey. A big, bad man lying to you again.”
I’ve never seen this cruel side of Jasper before. Absent, yes. Oblivious, absolutely. But this is a cruel, nasty side I’m seeing for the first time.
Fear curls tighter now.
Not fear of Adriano.
Never that. He’d never hurt me. At least not physically.
But fear of what this conversation is becoming.
“You need help,” I say quietly.
His expression changes instantly. Cold fury only makes him look more menacing. “You picked that criminal over me.”
The accusation hits so hard it almost physically shoves air from my lungs. “You cheated on me,” I say incredulously. “You had a baby with someone else.”
“And you humiliated me for it.”
I stare at him incredulously.
Because somewhere in his mind, he really believes this.
Like I’m the villain in the story he built for himself, and he’s the victim. How dumb was I not to see him for who he was for so long?
“You ruined your own life,” I hiss, my own anger barely contained now.
He moves fast, his hand closing around my wrist, hard.
Pain shoots sharply up my arm, his fingers pinching so hard I know I’ll carry bruises on my skin.
“Don’t,” he says through clenched teeth. “Don’t talk to me like I’m the problem here when your fucking mafia boyfriend is tearing my life apart.”
Adriano would lose his mind if he saw this. “Let go of me.” I shake my arm trying to free myself, but he just holds me tighter. My heart is hammering in my chest now. People continue to walk past; nobody wants to get involved in other people’s drama.
Jasper steps closer, seemingly having no sense of self-preservation.
Too close. The stale smell of whiskey and sleeplessness rolls off him hard enough now that nausea twists in my stomach.
“You know what the worst part is?” he says quietly. “I loved you.”
Emotion flickers unexpectedly through me then—grief.
For the years I wasted trying to earn the love of someone who only ever loved himself. I doubt he loves this new woman either, but God, I hope he has enough love for his baby.
“You didn’t,” I say quietly. “You loved that I stayed. You loved that I was convenient.”
His grip tightens painfully.
Anger flashes across his face so fast I barely register the movement before he shoves me backward.
Not hard enough to throw me to the ground, but enough that I stumble and twist my ankle. The grocery bag slips from my arm instantly, pine nuts spilling across the sidewalk while pain jolts sharply through my shoulder as I stumble against the brick wall beside the deli.
A few pedestrians stop now.
Jasper seems to realize it, too.
His chest rises heavily once, twice.
Then his eyes meet mine again, and something dark settles there. “You tell him to stop, or this is gonna get ugly.”
My pulse pounds hard enough now that I can hear it. “Jasper—”
“Tell him,” he snaps. “Because if he takes everything from me, I swear to God I’ll take everything he holds dear, including you.”
Then he turns and walks away. Leaving me standing there shaking beside scattered groceries while Manhattan continues moving around me like nothing happened.
For several seconds, I can’t breathe properly.
From fear, from hurt, but mostly from the doubt invading me and making my chest feel tight.
Because suddenly all I can think about is Adriano standing in the kitchen two nights ago with his hands on my waist promising me he’d never lie to me.
And now—
Now I fear he already has.