Page 179 of Vicious Games

“How the fuck am I supposed to calm down when you’re choosing to stay behind? Choosing to leave me?!”

“I’m not leaving you, Lucky. I just… I want to be here. I want to understand my roots, my traditions. I want to know more about my mother. I want to know…everything. And that takes time. Can’t you understand that?”

“What I understand is that you nearly had a breakdown when you found out my family runs the Outfit. But now that you’re Bratva royalty? Now it’s all honky-fucking-dory?!”

“That’s not fair, Lucky!”

“Fair? Fair? Nothing about this is fair! How can you even think about staying here?!” I shout.

“They’re my family!”

“And you’re fucking mine!”

When tears brim in her eyes, I rush to her, cupping her face in my hands.

“You’remy family, Frankie,” I whisper. “I just fucking found you. How the fuck do you want me to feel when you’re choosing people you just met over me?”

She buries her head in my chest and wraps her arms around me.

“I’m sorry,” she murmurs.

“Don’t be sorry, Frankie. Just… don’t stay here. I can’t protect you if you do.”

“They won’t hurt me. They love me. Do you understand what that means? All this time, I had people out there who actually loved me. Who were looking for me. Who cared enough never to give up that search.” She then pulls back enough to meet my eyes. “You’ve always had family, Lucky. People who cared, supported you. This…this is mine. Don’t ask me to abandon them. Not when I’ve wished for them my whole life.”

“If you stay…” I force the words through the burn in my throat. “You’ll be abandoning Darius, too. Not just me.”

She shakes her head quickly.

“I already talked to Uncle Misha about him. He says he can bring Darius here, too.”

“How? By kidnapping him? Is that really what you want? To traumatize him like that?”

“No, of course not. I’ll find a way to do it right. Maybe… maybe I could even adopt him.”

“Adopt him? Frankie, you’re eighteen. How the fuck do you think that’s going to work?”

“I’ve taken care of him—and myself—this far. And now that I have my uncles and aunt, it’ll be easier.”

“None of this is easy. Every word out of your mouth is tearing me apart.”

She lifts her face again, locking eyes with me, unflinching.

“Can’t you just be happy for me? If you love me like you say you do… you’d want this for me.”

Fuck.

She’s right.

Am I the asshole here? Am I the one keeping her from what she was meant to find?

Her truth? Her family? Her fucking bloodline?

“What about culinary school? Are you just going to give that up too?” I ask, trying to find any reason to change her mind.

She shrugs, eyes wet but steady.

“I don’t know. Maybe. All I know is that right now, I need to be here. It feels like this is where I was always meant to be.”

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