“Maxon . . . I’m sorry you found out the way you—”
“No. No, fuck that. That guy? I’m not buying it for a second.”
“It doesn’t matter if you buy it, Maxon. You can deny that the sun rises, but it will still rise every morning. I’m sorry I let us get to this place, but it has to end.”
The air rushed from my lungs on a pained wheeze. I clenched my teeth tight and demanded, “Who, Libby?”
When she looked up at me, a mixture of anger and devastation raged in her eyes. “What do you want from me?”
I stood from the table and yelled, “I want you to tell me who took the fucking pictures.” I spread my arms wide when she didn’t respond. “That guy earlier? I know it’s not him. Took a while, but I finally realized he messed up.”
She watched me carefully, not giving anything away.
“He knew of me . . . but didn’t know what I looked like.” I gestured to the envelope on the floor. “One of those is of me.”
There was nothing.
Not a sound.
Not a flinch.
No reaction at all.
She was too still.
“Stop shutting me out and pushing me away, and tell me. Is it that family you were supposed to marry into? Was he one of them?”
I’d considered it a handful of times since finding the pictures.
I’d agonized over the thought of being near one of them and doing nothing.
A bitter laugh fell from her lips. “If he had been a Moretti, he would’ve killed you without a thought.”
I raked my hands through my hair.
My thoughts had been clearer before she’d come home.
I was sure she’d been scared. Sure the guy in the apartment had been lying—had possibly been part of that Moretti family.
Now . . .
“Libby, I . . . fuck, I’m missing something. I know I am. Things aren’t adding up. I’ve seen your fear lately. I saw his confusion when he saw—”
“I was afraid you would find the pictures. Find out about him,” she nearly yelled. “And did you ever think maybe he was messing with you?” She clenched her jaw tight and gestured to the hall leading to our bedroom.
Her bedroom.
“He knew you were asleep when I left. He’s known who you are. And you’re Maxon James. You’re famous. After what I’ve put him through, apparently he wanted to take a dig at you by pretending not to know you.”
“What you put him through . . .” I laughed, stunned. “Him?”
She rubbed at her forehead and sighed. “Both of you. But I . . . I was with him before you came back. I told him I was ending things with you for good, then I let things get out of hand. I got caught up in everything because for the first time, you said you would stay. And the next thing I knew, we were engaged—”
“Wait, what? Are you—are you kidding? That wasn’t you getting caught up. I—” My chest pitched with a pained huff. “Fuck, Libby. No.”
“I’m sorry. I’m so sorry for letting it go on this long. For doing this to you.” Tears filled her dark eyes and quickly slipped down her cheeks. “I love you, Maxon. God, I love you. But you leave. It’s what you do. And no matter what you say or promise, I can’t trust that you won’t leave me again.”
I stared at her as a pit of devastation formed in my stomach and slowly spread through my body.
I felt destroyed.
Raw.
“Libby . . .”
She reached for the ring I’d given her and slowly slid it off her finger, a sob wrenching from her chest when she held it out to me. “It had to end sometime.”
I stumbled back when my knees buckled and gripped at my hair, praying for this nightmare to end. “No. No, no. Libby, don’t.”
“Take it,” she begged as she stepped forward.
“I don’t want the fucking ring.”
“And I don’t want to continue living a lie,” she cried out. “Don’t make this harder than it is. It’s over, Maxon. This has to be goodbye.”
This wasn’t happening.
“I love you and want to marry you because you’re my home.”
This wasn’t fucking happening.
“You’re my calm.”
She was tearing herself from me. Exactly as I’d worried she’d do.
I turned for the door and had almost made it there when my steps slowed. I twisted to face her and looked at the girl I’d spent my life loving.
Sobbing. Broken.
“ . . . living a lie . . .”
Her pain . . . that wasn’t a lie.
I staggered over to her and pulled her close. I slowly trailed my fingers up her throat and over her jaw to cradle her cheek, and let every memory with her shred me piece by piece, then bent to kiss her.
Her lips parted easily, her tongue moving with mine in a slow dance we’d perfected over the years.
She tasted like rebellions and freedom and sorrow.
It was perfect.
It was pain.
It was the last piece of her I would ever claim.
I pulled away and searched her glassy eyes until the tears in my own made it too hard to see.
My mouth twitched into a sad smile as I traced my thumb over her lips. “Your lies have never tasted so true.”
I left the apartment listening to her sobs fade behind me.
And I broke.
Heart ripped from my chest.
Unable to catch a breath.
Struggling to move.
Libby
“SURPRISED TO SEE YOU ALONE.”
I tensed at the voice but didn’t react otherwise.
I wasn’t sure I could.
Not after what I’d been through the last two days.
I hadn’t slept.
I’d barely eaten.
The night Maxon left, I’d lain on the floor sobbing and clawing at the empty space in my chest until tears stopped falling.
Tonight, I had to pretend.
Pretend I hadn’t obliterated my heart.
Pretend I hadn’t ruined the best thing in my life.
Pretend I wasn’t seeing Maxon’s broken expression—his tears—on an uninterrupted loop.
My mom slid into the Brooks Street booth opposite me, her brows slightly raised. “You always look so provocative.”
I looked down at my full cup of coffee that had cooled long ago. “I have work soon.”
“How nice to work at a place that requires you to dress that way.” When I didn’t respond, she asked, “Shouldn’t you be surrounded by a group of irresponsible men? Or at least one?”
I rolled my eyes in an attempt to relieve the stinging of fresh tears and let them settle on the mug again.
“It’s one thing to act and behave the way you do. It’s another to surround yourself with people like those boys in a childish attempt at rebellion.”
I bit back my frustration and sat in stunned silence before twisting to slide out of the booth. “Always a pleasure seeing you, Mom.”
“You’ve had your rebellion,” she said before I could leave. “It led to destruction in case you forgot.”
I slanted a glare at her. “You know . . . if you took half a second to learn anything about Maxon, you would know that he’s good for me. He’s the kind of guy moms would want their ‘rebellious’ daughters with. He calms me. He’s always made me stop and consider what I was about to do.”
If she heard the hitch in my voice, she ignored it.
Her expression screamed she doubted every word.
I sank back into the seat. “And in case you forgot . . . he and his friends are rock stars. Of course they’re a little wild for your taste, Mom. Hell, I said no to an arranged marriage and you thought I ended the world with my brazenness.”
“You certainly tried.”
I bit down on my tongue to stop my automatic response.
She spoke with such conviction and sadness, as if it pained her that I didn’t understand the impact of my actions, because she knew one day I w
ould.
It was the first time I’d seen some emotion from her rather than her frustration.
“Why do you hate me?”
Her face softened. “I couldn’t if I tried, Elizabeth.”
A shudder rolled through me at the sound of my name, but I pushed the panicked feeling that accompanied it away.
“It’s frustrating as a mother to watch your children blatantly make the wrong choices and then throw them in your face.”
“Wrong choice for who?” A weak laugh caught in my throat. “Not me. Not Dare—who was boss at the time, so it was ultimately his decision.” I lifted my hands to stop her when she opened her mouth and conceded. “I get it . . . Dad made this deal to keep peace. But part of it was selling me to a family that our ancestors rebelled from—fought and fled from. For crying out loud, our symbol is a representation of when we got away from them. Neither of you could’ve expected that marriage to go well.”
She gave me a patronizing look. “That was so long ago.”
“Well, apparently you think they won’t let it go that I refused to marry one of them. So why would they let it go that we tried to kill off their entire bloodline only a couple generations ago?”
“You’re being dramatic again. Things change, deals are made to keep peace. And you took the most important deal of all and spat on it.”
“Because you tried to sell me like a piece of property,” I cried out. “And your biggest worry throughout it all was the greater good of the family . . . the ceasefire. Not my life. Not my well-being.”
Her mouth formed a tight line indicating she wouldn’t object.
I shook my head and looked across Brooks Street Café as my mind bounced from subject to subject.
Maxon.
Dare and Lily.
Deals made in blood.
Maxon.
White envelopes with a too-formal name.
Polaroid pictures that invaded and destroyed every piece of my life. My home. My relationship. My sense of security.
Maxon, Maxon, Maxon . . .
“I just wanted to live my own life,” I whispered after some time had passed. “That choice should’ve been given to me—not taken away.” I looked at her again and forced a smile even though my chest was aching from the guilt that flooded me. “When Gia was murdered, I was sure Dare would never love anyone again.”
Mom’s eyes slid shut on a shaky exhale and didn’t open until I started speaking again.
“When he found Lily . . .” My head shook subtly. “I couldn’t believe he was so captivated with her, let alone falling in love with her. But I was happy. God, I was so happy for him. But if I would’ve known who she was from the beginning, I would’ve been against their relationship. One hundred percent.”
She knew where I was going with this. I could see it in the way the pain from Gia’s memory faded and her mouth and eyes tightened.
I leaned over the table to hold her glare. “I want you to look me in the eye and tell me if you’d known Lily was the Holloway Princess before we all fell in love with her, you would’ve fought Dare on their relationship the way you fight my relationship with Maxon.”
Her eyes drifted. “Different circumstances—”
“Look me in the eye and tell me.”
“You can’t compare the two, Elizab—”
“Look me in the eye, Mom!”
She slammed her hand on the table and leaned close. “What do you want me to say? Those are two completely different situations. A boss and a princess from rival gangs? It’s unheard of. Her father murdered your father. He murdered Gia. Of course I would’ve been against it—but I also would’ve learned shortly after how trapped that girl was in that prison. Your relationship with Maxon is not only preventing you from your duties and keeping you from your family, it’s putting you both in unfathomable danger.” She lifted a hand to silence my next words. “Not to mention, your brother was and will remain Boss until his death. You are simply a member. I am simply his mother. I cannot tell him what to do any more than you can.”
“You can,” I said when she sat back in the booth. “You just choose not to.”
“Have some respect for our family for once.”
“Respect me for once,” I nearly shouted. “You care so deeply for everyone in this family, blood or not. Why can’t you extend that care to me? You’ve only ever viewed me as a pawn you couldn’t control.”
“That is not true, Elizabeth.”
I just lifted my brows in response.
In denial.
“You have to know that’s not true,” she said.
“I don’t have to know anything you haven’t shown me.”
I dropped my stare, ignoring the hurt covering her face, and slowly turned the mug between my hands.
I’d shown Maxon how much I loved him . . . until I couldn’t.
Until his life was at risk.
The woman in front of me had always been the loving, caring mother figure to every Borello member . . . except me.
“Maxon and I broke up,” I whispered suddenly and looked up to see the excitement lying below her surprise. I spread my hands across the table exaggeratedly. “Which would be why I’m alone—especially considering my roommate would rather stay with you.”
She ignored the Einstein comment. “For how long this time?”
“For as long as is necessary.”
Not forever.
It can’t be forever.
“While I’m sorry for the hurt I know you’re hiding . . . I won’t pretend I’m not glad. This is what’s best. He would’ve been a casualty one day, and you know it.”
“It can’t be what’s best when it feels like I’m missing my heart.” Tears welled in my eyes and tightened my throat. “I want to be with him. I need to be with him. I’ve never doubted who I’m supposed to live my life with, but his life is at stake.”
Her eyes rolled and she delicately gestured toward the front door of the café. “If you’re so worried, Elizabeth, then go to Chicago. Offer yourself to the Morettis. Apologize. You won’t have to live your life worrying and looking over your shoulder, wondering when they’ll come.”
My head was shaking so quickly I wasn’t sure if it was intentional, or if my entire body was trembling. “Mom . . . they’re already here.”
Her eyebrows slowly lifted, her expression full of concern.
“Do you think I would’ve destroyed Maxon’s heart if they weren’t? Do you think I would’ve destroyed mine?” A pained laugh caught in my throat. “His life is at stake. They’re watching me. They’re threatening him. They’re here.”
She roughly sank back into the booth. “Oh God.”
For once, I didn’t hold anything back.
There was no reason to now.
Our worst nightmares had become reality.
I leaned close, lowered my voice, and told her everything.
About the pictures and cameras—where I’d found them and when, and what they contained.
About the night I thought I’d woken to Maxon coming home—only for him to arrive the next morning.
How when I went to pay the locksmith, I found my purse emptied of everything it usually contained except my license and credit cards, and the Polaroid of a note saying, “Give you one guess how to get it all back.”
The more I spoke, the paler my mom’s face became.
When I got to the night of the third camera’s delivery and breaking up with Maxon, she was staring vacantly and had a shaking hand resting over her mouth.
“Why didn’t you say something to me before this?” she asked nearly a minute after I finished explaining.
I shrugged helplessly. “I kept doubting everything. I thought it was someone playing a prank or trying to scare me—one of our friends or a fan of Maxon’s. About a week ago, I thought it might be them . . . but by the time I’d eliminated everyone else, I didn’t know what else to do. Conor’s been trying to pull fingerprints off what I’ve found, but there’s been nothing.”
“That’s why he was at the house with you?” Realization lit her face. “Others know?”
“Just Conor. I thought he would be the only one able to keep it to himself.” When her brow furrowed, I said, “I was worried if anyone found out, they’d tell Dare. If Dare knew, he’d make us bunker down at your house until the threat was gone—the way he always has. This all happened in the last two weeks. I wasn’t even sure who was behind it until a few days ago.” I rubbed my temples and groaned. “Maybe I shouldn’t be sure. Maybe I just want it to be them.”
“Nothing else makes sense.”
I laughed faintly. I’d said the same thing to Conor.
I cast her a look and warily asked, “Should I have told Dare?”
She considered for a few moments before giving me a helpless look. “It’s like you said. If you had, he would’ve had every member protecting you. If the family’s protecting you, they’re seen as threats to the Moretti family. Unaware of the situation, they aren’t.” She leveled me with a hard look. “That doesn’t mean they don’t deserve to be warned of the danger in town. Find a way to warn the other members without tipping them off to the danger.”
“Right. Easiest thing in the world.”
I let the member part slide.
Mom would never let the mafia part of our family die.
She didn’t know how. This life was all she knew.
She’d been born to a prominent mafia family, then married into the Borellos over thirty years ago. Was given to them. All for an alliance and traded secrets.
Just as I had been given to the Moretti family.
My dad fell hard and fast for his new bride. His heart softened and ruthless ways shifted. Mom had fallen in love with the notorious, young Boss long before I was born.
They’d been lucky, and I was sure my mom anticipated the same for me. Knew she expected me to give my life to the mafia as she had hers.
But I’d always wanted my life to be my own.
I glanced at my phone and started sliding out of the booth. “I have to get to work.”
“If Moretti are here and watching you, you need to let them know you’re not going to fight them.”
I stood and froze, my lips curled in a sneer. “And what . . . hand myself over? Fuck that. I’m not you, Mom. I still have a life I want. I fought them then, I plan on fighting them now.”