Page 109 of Righteous Enforcer
"That's not his fucking call to make."
"Adriano—"
"No." I step closer, cupping her face in my hands, forcing her to look at me. "Whatever this is, whatever you're hiding, I'm done playing this game. Tell me the truth. All of it."
For a moment, I think she might finally break, might finally trust me. There's a war happening behind her eyes, fear battling with the need to come clean.
"You don't understand what's at stake," she says.
"Then help me understand." My thumb traces her cheekbone and I realize I’m touching her when my plan had been to keep my distance. "Eva, as angry as I've been, I know you. Whatever choices you made, I believe you made them for a reason."
Her eyes widen slightly.
"I might not like those choices. I might have made different ones. But if I knew why, I could at least make sense of everything that's happened between us.”
She remains quiet.
“Are you afraid of Alessandro? I won’t let him hurt you, not physically, anyway. And I certainly won’t let him hand you over to Ivan. But Eva, you're making this so much harder than it needs to be."
She shakes her head. "You say that now?—"
“Why the fuck are we here? You said you wanted to talk.”
She sucks in a ragged breath. “I do, but it will change everything.”
“You don’t know that.” Still, her words make me step back. What could she say that would change everything? "Every choice you've made from disappearing, letting me think you were dead, taking my daughter from me, to running again, has made it harder for me to protect you. You're making poor choices?—"
Eva jerks away from me, her eyes suddenly ablaze with a fury. "Poor choices? You think I've had anything but poor choices since the moment my father got involved with the Dantes?"
Her outburst is unexpected. She’s normally controlled no matter her feelings.
"I didn't choose this life, Adriano! I didn't grow up in it like you did. I didn't learn its rules from birth." She turns away like she can’t stand to look at me. "I wanted to go to college. I had plans, dreams. A normal life."
College? I had no idea she’d wanted to study.
She lets out a derisive laugh. "The Mafia talks about family, but not in a good way. My father's involvement with your family took away all my choices. Every single one."
I open my mouth to argue, but she cuts me off.
"Do you know what it's like to wake up one day and discover your life isn't yours anymore? That your future has been decided for you?" She pauses, letting out a breath. "The only good thing about it was you."
My heart squeezes in my chest.
"And then your father threatened me." She turns to look at me, as if she wants me to see what my father did to her. "He didn't just give me an ultimatum, Adriano. He showed me photos of what would happen if I stayed. Pictures of what happens when you betray the great Lorenzo Dante."
I feel sick, imagining my father doing this to her when she was barely more than a girl. Pregnant with my child.
"Faking my death wasn't just about getting away from your father. It was the only way I could get completely free. The only way to protect our daughter was by keeping her out of this life." Her eyes meet mine, pleading for understanding. "I didn't want Mirabella raised in this world. I didn't want her to grow up thinking that violence and fear are normal. That women are nothing but pawns or toys for men’s enjoyment?—”
“I never treated you like?—”
“That death could come for her or her family at any moment." Her eyes bore into me. “Have you thought about that, Adriano? Will you marry Mirabella off to the highest bidder?”
Her words pelt at me like buckshot.
"You think I made poor choices?" she continues. "Show me where I had any good ones to make."
She’s not wrong, and yet, it pains me that she lumps me in with all that.
