Vengeful Mafia Prince (Vicious Heirs #2)

Chapter Sixteen—Giovanni

When I wake the next morning, I almost forget what I'm doing here.

And just how much trouble I'm in.

I turn to face her, where she's splayed on the bed beside me, her blonde hair a halo around her beautiful face. She's lit by the rays of the morning light outside, not the harsh kind in the city, but the soft, gentle light out here in the woods.

I know we're going to have to get up and face the world eventually. But right now, all I want is to stay here, lying next to her, and enjoy the peace and comfort she's bringing me right now.

Slowly, though, her eyes flicker open. At first, she smiles when she sees me watching her like that.

"Hey," she murmurs.

"Hey."

I lean over to kiss her, dropping a peck against her forehead. In this moment, I can almost convince myself that the two of us are just on some sweet, romantic getaway together, taking a break from the rest of the world just to blow off some steam before we go back.

But that's far from the truth, and we both know it. She gazes up at me for a moment, her teeth resting on her lower lip.

"How long do you think we have before someone finds us here?"

I sigh. Not exactly the question I want to consider right now, but she's right to ask.

"I don't know," I admit. "Valentina, she knows about this place, and she knows the code. If she really wants to find me, she'll come here. Today, probably."

"Then we'll need to get out of here."

"Is that what you want?"

She stares at me. There's indecision in her eyes, just like there is in my heart. Much as we both know that being here is all kinds of stupid, there's no way we're going to get up and walk away.

"I... I don't really know," she confesses, finally. "I need time to think. But we don't have time."

"What do you need time to think about?" I ask, shifting closer to her and draping an arm over her stomach. She leans against me for a moment. I wonder if she's forgetting where she's meant to be or what she's supposed to be doing.

"I need... I need time to think about what this means."

"And what are your options?"

"I don't know, Gio." She sighs sharply. "I have no idea. Because... because my father killed your parents. And I knew he might have been involved in some stuff he shouldn't have been, but murder? That's beyond anything I could have thought."

"So, come to me," I murmur, squeezing her closer. "Get away from him. Let me take care of you, let me show you how well I can..."

"But how could you ever really want me, knowing what happened to your parents?" She seems to blurt out the words before she can stop them, and they catch me entirely off guard. I don't know what she expects me to say.

"I told you last night, you really think I could fake all this between us?"

"No, I'm not saying you're faking it," she tells me with another sharp sigh. "I'm saying... I'm saying that you don't know how long you're going to be able to look at me as anything other than my father's daughter, the daughter of the man who took your parents' lives."

There they are, the words I don't want to hear, the reality of the situation, as brutal as it is. No matter how much we might try to push it aside, there's always going to be a part of her that is related to the man who took my family from me.

"I would never make you choose," I tell her. It's the truth, partly because I don't know if I could make a sensible choice, not when it came to her.

"I know you wouldn't," she replies. "That's the problem."

I don't know what the fuck to say to her. I wish I could convince her to just put aside all this bullshit for a little while longer, pretend like none of this really matters, just be together, as we are in this moment, totally and utterly at peace.

I'm never going to ask her to step away from her father. Not seriously. Coming out with it before had been the first time I had really considered it a possibility, but I know I couldn't let her go through with it. Because I know, all too well, what it feels like to lose someone who you thought was going to be there forever. Whether that's watching them die or just stepping away from family for good, it's the same result—you're left without the people who were supposed to be there for the rest of your life, and that's the kind of shit that leaves scars.

She turns away from me, staring out the window.

"You should take me home."

I sigh. "Elena, we don't have to do that—"

"I know we don't have to," she replies, voice hollow. "But I want to. I need to. I have a life to think about, I have college—"

"How can you be thinking about college at a time like this?"

Her head flashes back over to face me. "Because I don't know what's going to happen between my father and me after what went down last night," she shoots back. "And I might need to have something to fall back on." She slumps back on the bed, rubbing her hands over her face. "Fuck, I'm sorry," she sighs. "I..."

"It's okay."

I grab her hands and bring them to my chest, letting her feel the steady beat of my heart beneath my skin.

"I'll take you home, if that's what you want."

She bites her lip as she gazes up at me. "I think it is."

I pull her into my arms one last time, holding her close. I don't know what to say. I wish there was some way I could convince her to stay here with me, to stay in this place, to let me hold her a little longer. But she's made it clear where she stands, and I'm not going to go pushing her for more. When she's ready—if she's ready—she'll come back to me.

We get out of bed, and she dresses slowly, putting off the inevitable. I make my way through the cabin and am reminded of a few memories with my parents here. They always loved it in this place, always saw it as a second home.

And I can't help but wonder how they would feel if they knew that I had the daughter of the man who killed them in my bed.

The thought grips my chest, sickening. It's so fucked up for me to have brought her here. Valentina's right. What I'm getting myself into, it's beyond what I can handle, beyond what I can control. No matter how many times I might have told myself that I was in control here, I haven't been able to hold on to it for a second.

Because I'm falling for her. I'm falling for her harder and faster than I ever thought possible, harder than I've ever fallen for anyone in my life. But does she even really know me? She's right. I came to her under false pretenses, and I've been lying to her ever since.

And now...

Now, she's asking to leave. And I know better than to try and get her to remain.

She steps out of the door of the bedroom, and I look over my shoulder at her. All at once, the memories of my parents fade away, dropping into nothing, like they never could have mattered in the first place.

I nod to the car outside.

"We should get going. I can get you back to your dorm by midday."

She allows me to lead her outside, both of us walking slow. I'm waiting for her to change her mind. I'm waiting for her to grab my arm and tell me she doesn't want to go, how could she want to go, why would she want to leave if it meant that the two of us couldn't be together?

But the moment doesn't come.

We reach the car, I open the door, and she slips inside. I climb in next to her, and we soon pull away. I ache to reach over and grip her thigh as we drive.

"Are you going to be okay with your father?" I ask her cautiously. I don't like the thought of going back there, taking her to the man who was so violent the night before. One wrong move and my sister would have been dead, and I can't imagine he would have taken too kindly to his daughter walking out of there, either.

"We'll see. I can't imagine he'll hurt me."

"You know that if something happens, you can just call me, okay?"

She glances over at me, her eyebrows raised. "I thought you would be done with all of this by now."

I grimace. "I want to be," I admit. "But I'm not going to let anything happen to you. You hear me? There's just not a chance in hell."

A small smile creases her face. I can tell she believes me, even if it's probably the last thing she wants to hear right now, me offering to help her when I'm the reason she's in this mess in the first place.

When we get back to campus, it's a bright day, and students are passing from class to class, chattering to each other like nothing is wrong. I catch her staring at them, almost longingly, like she wishes things could be that simple for her, too.

I open her car door for her. I'm sure it's not a good idea for the two of us to be seen together, but I want to walk her to her door. She might trust her father, but that doesn't mean I have to. It wouldn't surprise me if he had spies staking out the campus, just waiting for her to appear with me so they can make their move.

At the door, she looks up at me, and I reach for her hand. She tenses when I touch her, but she doesn't pull back.

"Thank you for everything," she murmurs to me.

"Everything? Like last night?"

"Last night," she agrees. "And... everything else, too. I... I'm really grateful to you, Giovanni. You've allowed me to see things that I otherwise... that I otherwise might never have figured out."

And with that, she keys the code into the door and steps inside. I hear it lock behind her and stand there for a moment, trying to wrap my head around what she just said. Because the way she was phrasing it, the way she spoke...

It sounded a lot like she was saying goodbye.

And I'll be damned if I let the woman I love walk out of my life that easily.