Page 45 of Nicoli

I fly out of my chair, knocking it over in the process, and slamming my fists on the table. “She will never know the truth, Maximo. Not about Marco. Not about the mausoleum. And sure as fuck not about what happened that night. Is that understood?”

“She’s my sister.”

“Is. That. Understood?” My hands are balled into fists, and I squeeze them tight, my knuckles burning white.

“What if she wakes up one morning and remembers everything?”

“She won’t.”

“How can you be so sure?”

“I just know.”

“She’ll never forgive us, Nicoli. If she puts it all together and finds out we kept this form her, she will never forgive us.”

“I’m doing everything I can to keep her from ever putting it together, and that includes me staying the fuck away from her so I don’t somehow trigger her memory. She’s been through enough shit to last her two lifetimes. The last thing she needs is more emotional damage. More fucking hurt.”

“You fucking hypocrite.” His chest rises as he breathes deeply through his nose, bunching up his lips like he tastes something vile. “You want to protect her from more pain, yet you go and break her fucking heart.”

“It’s different.”

“No, it’s not. There’s always a risk that the truth will come out, that she’ll wake up one morning and remember. At least if you’d stop being an asshole and admit you love her, she would have someone to help her deal with it should that ever happen. Now…now she has no one.”

“I will only hurt her, Maximo.”

“You already hurt her, you fucking asshole. You already hurt her.” Maximo’s words hang heavily in the air between us like a tightrope. His anger is palpable and justified; he knows what I did to Mira and how I hurt her. He’s the only one who knows about my setup with Paula. He kept nagging and pushing me for answers after Mira seemed to have flipped a switch overnight, going from being the sun and life in this house, to a closed-off, hardened version of herself. So, I finally spat out the truth. But my confession didn’t include the part where his sister was riding Paula’s mouth. I spared him that detail.

“You’re right,” I concede while clenching my jaw, looking him square in the eye, not shying away from the shame that sticks to my flesh. “I did hurt her, and I’ll never forgive myself for it. But I did what was necessary. I put my own shit aside for her, and that, I won’t regret,” I say, my voice hoarse with emotion that surprises even me. “And even if I did, the damage is done, and I can’t undo it. I can’t change the past. It is what it is, and I’m sure she’ll get over it soon enough.”

He scoffs. “If you think that, you don’t know my sister. You have no idea how much she loves you.”

“Lovedme.” I sit back down. “She hates me now.”

“There’s this stupid saying about a thin line between love and hate.”

“Spare me the romantic bullshit.”

Maximo straightens his shoulders, tapping his fingers on the headrest of his high-backed leather chair. “She’s hurting, and I should probably beat your fucking ass over it. But I know that when it comes to her, every decision you make is based on your instinct to protect her.” He lets go of the chair and steps back. “I respect that. And that’s the only reason I’ll keep this secret…at least until you say otherwise.”

“Which I never will. And why the fuck are we even talking about this? For years, you remained silent, yet today you’re all up in my ass about it.”

He sucks his bottom lip into his mouth, and I can practically smell his need to punch me in the face. “As I said,” he grits out, “some days, it’s hard to let her mourn the brother responsible for fucking up her life. Our lives.”

“Gentlemen.” Alexius appears in the doorway, and I know by the scowl on his face that he just heard everything. “I think we need to talk.”

ChapterSeventeen

MIRABELLA

It’s dark. Cold. My legs are restless. They want me to run, but I can’t run because I can’t see anything. Where do I run to? In which direction do I go when everything is pitch black around me?

Momma made me promise not to open my eyes, and I can’t break that promise. I won’t. Where is she? “Momma? Momma, where are you?” I turn my face to the left, then to the right. “Momma?”

“I’m here, Mirabella.” The sound of her voice drapes like a blanket over me, the cold instantly gone.

“Momma!” I scream with a desperate hitch, my arms flailing around in the dark as I search for her.

“You didn’t open your eyes, did you?”

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