No no no no no no no.
“Because you're still married to me, and I will never let you go.”
I take a step away from him. Then another. The kitchen is small—three steps and I'm at the edge of the living room, four and I'm at the back of the couch, and that's where I stop because my legs won't take me further.
I wish I could convince myself he's joking.
But all I can see in his eyes is how dead serious he is.
“You're insane.”
All I can do is laugh.
“You're absolutely insane—”
And cry.
“Just absolutely insane...”
And so am I. Insane, I mean. Because I suddenly can't stop laughing and crying. My knees give and I catch myself on the back of the couch, fingers digging into the upholstery, and I'm laughing and crying and laughing and crying until I can no longer breathe.
Until everything goes black.
Chapter Six
SHE'S SMALL IN THEbed.
That's the first thing my brain offers me when the nurses leave us alone, and it's a stupid thing for a man to think about a woman he has known for half her life.
The hospital they brought her to is on the seventeenth floor of a building I own a piece of without anyone knowing I own a piece of it. The room has also been swept twice, and Rollo's at the door with two of his men in the corridor. The hospital staff have been told not to ask questions, and so they don't.
In these pocket worlds I own, I'm king, and my word is law.
I sit in the chair beside the bed and look at her hand on the blanket. I want to take it in mine, but I don't. Not after what happened. Not after seeing how me storming into her life caused her to faint on my feet, for all the wrong reasons.
My gaze moves to her face, and my jaw tightens at the dried tear tracks on her cheeks. Almost two fucking decades, I've waited for this moment. Planned for it. But I just...I'm not good at doing normal things. Especially normal things that are good. And so I ended up making her cry, and for all the wrong reasons again.
Is this the part where I should accept that she can never be mine again?
That thought was the only thing that kept me going all these years.
Mia. Mine.
She doesn't know this of course, but every damn year I've been celebrating our anniversary even though our marriage didn't even last a day. Once a damn year, I give myself the luxury of closing my eyes for a few days and remember her.
Her hair under my hands. Her lips. The way she'd put her hand on my chest like she belonged there. I remember everything about her—but I also know better than to carry any keepsake of her.
No photographs, no anything that can be traced back to Juniper Lake. That's just Crime 101 when you're racing against time, and you want to get to your enemies before they get to you. You don't ever keep anything that can be used as ammunition against you.
Juniper, moglie mia. My wife.
That's the last thing I always think of before falling asleep.
A soft knock at the door, followed by Rollo's quiet voice, alerting me.Doctor incoming.
I rise to my feet, my mask sliding back into place as I hear another knock. I turn just as the doctor comes in.
“Mr. Sestini?”