Page 37 of Ewan

Margot wouldn’t want me to be an emotional drifter, someone who avoids touching anyone’s life in a meaningful way.

But Margot couldn’t possibly imagine I’m not the man she fell in love with, and the crack her death put in my soul is still with me because it couldn’t be remedied.

I fill it with nonsense. With crime. With anguish. With moments when I go out there in the world and do anything in a man’s power to forget about who I am.

And who I was.

Elisa wanted me to do a lot of things, but none of them came to fruition. And her anger would be justified if I were to mess with her son’s teacher.

She knows how damaged I am. And she knows how hard we try to at least protect families like hers and keep them away from a life of crime.

My brothers and I have sworn off women after we lost family members in an ambush.

My parents and wife had been gunned down.

A life of crime had caught up with us, and while we swore revenge and got it, we couldn’t bring what we had lost back.

So much fornotliving a life of crime, which was my father’s dream for all of us.

His death signaled the end of an era, yet unfortunately, my parents’ death pushed us, me and my brothers, Callan, Alistair, and Duncan, back into the dungeons of death.

We’re not proud of what we do, and we still lead with a semblance of respectability in our lives––we have legal enterprises that come with lawyers and accountants and taxes that are timely paid––a smoke screen if you will.

Behind all that, we hide our thuggish ways.

So Elisa would be right to harass me into giving up on the idea of Scarlett or taking my time and figuring out if I could do more with this woman.

No fucking way.

I’m not doing that.

I’ll never go down the aisle with someone else.

I’ll never have a mafia wife.

I’ll never put anyone’s life at risk.

These people are not signing up for it.

Margot and Elisa hadn’t been part of this life in the beginning. Elisa was a teen when I met her older sister, andMargot knew better, but she did it anyway. I was honest with her and told her who I was.

I was also young. Too young. And I thought that if you were young and bold and daring, you could make things happen.

You could bend life to the shape you wanted.

Boy, was I wrong?

In hindsight, I don’t regret the life I had with her.

We had it good for as long as it had lasted, and that’s precisely why I don’t want that kind of pain in my life again.

I like the pain that I know.

The one fading in the background.

The one I wear with pride.

The one that has become a part of who I am.

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