Chapter 47

Layla

I found solace out on the rear balcony, in a quiet corner of the night. Free of Marco’s smile and Aldo’s steadfast presence, I felt suddenly shaky, my chest too tight. The champagne in my fingers did little to calm me.

The cool air caressed my skin, a welcome reprieve from the suffocating tension inside. I pulled deep breaths through my nose, forcing my racing thoughts to steady.

Marco’s presence wasn’t the problem—it was how easily I’d remembered him as Marco the doctor, not Marco the kidnapper or Marco the deranged gunman.

That was what unsettled me. How easily he’d made me laugh. How easily, I feared, he could make me trust him again. When in all these months, I still hadn’t come to trust Aldo.

I knew, in my head and in my heart, that Marco was a bad man. Certainly, he’d more than proved as much. More than proved his unworthiness.

But he made it so easy to forget. He was just so damned likable. Like a serial killer, I reminded myself, which he almost certainly was.

And then, there was Aldo …

Unlike with Marco, I struggled to remember the past versions of Aldo. They’d resurface when I least expected them, when I was least prepared to ward them off. For an instant, he’d be Vasco again.

For a glimpse, a heartbeat.

And then, he’d be the cold, masked Mafia king once more. A man it was too easy not to trust, to fear. To dislike.

The man who’d once been my entire world now hovered at the edges, so much more and so much less than I wanted him to be. He was hard and cold—and yet, he was the father Eli had always needed.

“Beautiful night, isn’t it?”

I turned to find Marco standing a few feet behind me, limned in moonlight. A champagne glass dangled from his fingers, and his ever-present smile glowed white in the night. Beautiful, even I had to admit.

“What makes you think I’d want to talk to you?” I asked, my voice cold. I crossed my arms, leaned against the balcony. Trying to belay the sudden thundering of my heart with casual posture. With cold, cutting words.

In half a moment, I could hop that balcony and run, my training told me. Or turn and prepare to fight.

I liked knowing I wasn’t powerless. I liked knowing I could hold my own. “Shouldn’t you be inside, entertaining your guests?”

He chuckled. “I’m more interested in entertaining you.”

I rolled my eyes, kept my arms crossed. My heart still raced. “Save it, Marco. Whatever game you’re playing, I’m not interested.”

His expression softened, again almost believably. “It’s not a game, Layla. I meant what I said—I care for you. And I want to protect you. You and Eli.”

“Protect me?” I scoffed. My heart beat so fast it made me lightheaded. “The last time you protected me, I ended up with a bullet in my shoulder.”

Marco flinched—a surprisingly authentic reaction of guilt and regret. “I am truly sorry for what happened that day.”

“Are you?” I cocked my head. My heart picked a new rhythm to tattoo against my ribs—one of self-righteous indignation. “Because it seems like you’ve lost nothing and gained everything in the last few months.”

“Maybe.” To my surprise, Marco slipped past me to lean over the balcony, stare out into the night. “But sometimes, getting what you want will make you realize that you don’t actually have any of the important things.”

That made something inside me ache.

He was right.

And yet, how strange was it, to think that someone so inhuman—a madman, a killer, a man so blinded by ambition he’d hurt the people he claimed to love—could feel such relatable, human emotion.

I knew what it was to be driven by ambition.

I knew what it was to work hard, every day, trying to fill the emptiness in your chest. Only to wonder if you’d be hollow forever.

I knew what it was to get the things you wanted, to grow and achieve and prosper, and still lie away in bed at night. That emptiness gnawing away at your hollow insides.

I knew what it was to be alone.

“Sometimes,” Marco murmured, like he’d read my mind. “You win and win and win, and at the end of the day, you realize you haven’t won anything at all.”

The words hung in the night between us. A shared truth. Did he know how close they struck to my own heart, or was he merely baring his soul out of personal need?

I didn’t know how to respond, so I slipped away, leaving him alone in the night.

I returned to the ballroom—a shocking contrast of light and sound and noise after the quiet dark of the balcony. But it was too loud, too much, after that shared quiet.

“Are you all right?” Aldo slipped up beside me, his face somber and dark in the shadows of all that light. “You look …”

“Tired,” I supplied. “When do I get to leave?”

The left side of his mouth curved in half a smile. “Whenever you’d like. No one’s making you stay here.”

“And yet, I feel like I shouldn’t.” I sighed, let my shoulders tip back against the wall. “I’m not meant for this world, Aldo. You know that, right?”

“I know you think that—”

“I know I don’t want to be part of this world,” I interjected, because that, truly, was what mattered, in the end. Wasn’t it?

I hoped, anyway. Fate and destiny, I’d learned, were cruel masters that drove time forward with a heavy hand.

“Maybe …” Aldo’s voice trailed off, and when his hand lifted to rub at the back of his neck, I realized he was hesitating to ask me something. “Would you like to take a walk with me? Around the grounds?”

The way his shoulders slumped with uncertainty, that hand still ruffling the short hairs on the back of his neck … he looked so soft, so human. A rare glimpse of the true Vasco under all the pretense.

Maybe that’s why I said, “Yeah, okay.”

“Really?” Aldo’s head snapped up, his eyes round with surprise. I almost smiled.

“Yeah. Let’s go.”

He led me back through the ballroom to a side door that led directly out onto a flagstone pathway. Neither of us spoke as we wended our way through the manicured grounds.

Overhead, the moon set the gardens aglow, turning white roses to garish shades of black and silver, crafting shadows that danced on even the faintest breezes. In the distance, an owl’s cry rent the night in two.

It was eerie and beautiful all at once.

Aldo’s knuckles brushed against my arm, lifting goosebumps along my skin. He was so warm, so safe and solid beside me. For the barest fraction of an instant, I let myself remember what it was to love him—before that love was tangled in betrayal and bloodshed.

But that love—that life—wasn’t real. And I wasn’t sure it ever could be.

Marco’s words from earlier in the night returned to me: Sometimes, you win and win and win and realize you haven’t won anything at all.

Did Aldo feel that way, too? Did he, too, work hard every day, ordering his pawns around, managing his family business, ensuring everything was in line, everything in order, everyone else accounted for and cared for and happy—only to realize his own life was a void? His own happiness far, far from reach?