Page 91 of Sinful Bargains

So I stood there. Still as a fucking statue.

Waiting.Waiting for him to make his move. Waiting for themoment, he decided to end this. Because Joey Romano didn’t just let betrayals slide.

His eyes were ice cold. His jaw clenched tightly. His gaze never left mine as he stepped forward. “Why’d you do it?” he asked.

I couldn’t find words. My throat felt tight. All I could do was back up and create more space between us.

“And to think, I never thought you’d betray me.” His eyes were hard as stone, cold as ice. I felt a sickening twist in my stomach, gnawing at my gut. “I trusted you,” he whispered, his gaze glued to me before his eyes fell to the floor. He shook his head, chuckling in disbelief. He lifted his head, cornering me with his eyes. “I treated you like my own flesh and blood, Antonio. I gave you my last name. And you tried to kill me. For what?”

It was suffocating. The weight of it. The guilt of the trigger I pulled—the betrayal that had shattered everything. Standing in front of him, a man I had once seen as a father. And I had shattered everything we’d built with a pull of the trigger. “You were everything I never had, Antonio.” Joey’s voice broke the silence again. “You were my chance to make things right. I wanted to give you everything I never had. I can’t make sense of this. How could you do something like this?”

“I’m sorry,” was all I could manage to say. But it wasn’t enough. I knew that. I wasn’t sorry enough. Not for everything. Not for the damage I’d done. I didn’t know how to make it right. How to take back the mess I’d made. Because there was no undoing what I’d already done. I had pulled that trigger and intended for it to end Joey.

I collapsed onto the sofa, burying my face in my hands.

“Why’d you do it?” Joey asked again.

When I finally looked up at him, I didn’t see anger. I saw hurt—deep, raw hurt. And somehow, that made it all so much worse.

“I wanted to know if you were in the mafia,” I admitted. “I started asking around town, even Mr. Russo. Vincent caught wind of it. One day, he stopped me on my route and said he needed a favor. But it wasn’t a normal kind of favor—there was something underneath it, some unspoken threat. He told me I couldn’t tell anyone. So I didn’t.

“I met him in the park that afternoon, and that’s when he told me what he wanted. He wanted me to spy on you and report back everything I observed. At first, I didn’t see anything. Nothing that proved anything. And that pissed him off. One day, he put a gun to my face and threatened me. I guess he thought I was holding out on him and protecting you. So I started watching you more closely.”

“That’s when I followed you to the warehouse. That’s when I saw you kill him. I thought he was dead. I thought Ma had killed him.”

Joey let out a deep sigh, collapsing onto the couch beside me. He buried his face in his hands, mirroring me.

“It’s not that I care about him,” I continued, my voice breaking. “I don’t. You’re the only father I’ve ever really known. And that makes this so much worse. I don’t even know what I was thinking. I don’t know if I was thinking at all.

“But I started putting two and two together—the only way you could’ve killed him was if Ma helped you. If she put the gun in your hands and told you to pull the trigger.”

“Antonio—” Joey tried to interrupt, but it was like someone had opened a floodgate. I couldn’t stop. Months of secrets, of guilt, of doubt spilled out of me all at once.

“I thought you corrupted her. That maybe you were the bad guy, the monster everyone says you are. She was never the kind of person to do something like this. Self-defense? Sure. She did what she had to do to save my life, and I justified it. I let it go. But this? This was premeditated. This was something else. And I blamed you.

“I convinced myself that the only way to end this madness—this never-ending war between you, Vincent, and the mafia running this whole damn town—was to take you out. And to convince Ma to run away again.”

My voice trailed off into silence, the weight of my confession settling between us like a storm neither of us knew how to weather.

“Jesus, kid.” Joey finally exhaled, running a hand through his slicked-back hair. He looked over at me, but I couldn’t bring myself to meet his eyes. All I could do was stare straight ahead. It felt good to finally say it out loud, like shedding ten pounds—but instead of weight, it was guilt. My face was hot and wet, and I hadn’t even realized how much I’d been crying until the silence stretched between us.

“Look at me, Antonio.”

I forced myself to turn to him. We were sitting almost side by side on the couch, close but miles apart in the ways that mattered. His eyes were watery, too. My lip quivered as I scanned his face—full of sadness, not anger.

“Your mother never asked me to do anything,” he said. “It was me. I made that choice. And I’m sorry you had to see it.”

He reached for me, gripping my shoulders before pulling me into his arms. I let him. I wanted to.

“I love your mother. And I love you too, Antonio.” His voice cracked as he held me, and I clenched my eyes shut, gripping the back of his shirt like I was afraid he’d disappear.

When I finally sat up, I wiped my face, watching Joey do the same.

“Your mother is not some pawn in my game,” he continued. “I’ve done bad things. Things I can’t take back. But I never wanted you to see that part of me. Not because I was hiding it. But because I love you too much to put that weight on you. Because you’re my son, and I want more for you. I want to bethere—front row—for everything you do in life. And I never wanted this world to touch you.”

He reached out again, this time placing a firm hand on the back of my neck, grounding me. “We’re going to get through this.”

JOEY

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