I watched her fidget with the hem of her shirt. Was she nervous? I hadn’t been myself lately. I had lost the roughness in my words and touch. I wasn’t the same man as I was before.

“This is... well… a very domesticated version of you…” Bree laughed easily, her hair moving as small breaths came from her mouth. We hadn’t discussed anything pertaining to her being taken because I wanted this date to be just that—a date. A normal thing two people would do when they wanted to get to know more about one another.

Dating wasn’t really my thing. I never fucked and stayed. Hell, I never even comforted anyone until Bree. I didn’t know what compassion, love, or softness was. Death, rage, and fury were all I knew. She lit a spark in my cold heart-stirring flames not stirred since my mother had died.

“See, I can do shit without a gun.” I smirked, reaching for my glass of water. We were eating at a simple diner here in town. The place reminded me of one of those towns you would see in movies. Everyone had immaculate lawns, two and half kids, and a wraparound fence in the back yard. The crime rate was low, and everyone played a part in the community.

This wasn’t my kind of scene. Hell, being normal wasn’t my kind of fucking thing at all. It felt strange, but at the same time, it felt welcoming.

“Lies…” She hissed out, taking the straw of her drink in between her teeth. “I bet you have your gun right in your back. I bet you keep looking around the room to see who the first person will be to get shot if shit goes wrong, and I bet, more than anything, being this domesticated is fucking with your head.”

Did I really have it written all over my face or was she just starting to know me for who I was?

“Dear Bree,” I growled reaching across the table to grip her chin, “you know far more than anyone.” Had I known taking her from that shabby farmhouse months prior would cost me everything, would I have done it? Even for love? Probably not. Life had a fucked up way of twisting things, even when we didn’t want something to happen.

Letting the straw slip from her mouth, she bit her bottom lip, which in turn caused my cock to swell. She made me want to fuck her a hundred different ways.

“Your double bacon cheeseburger…” the waitress said, a slight annoyance to her tone as she slid Bree’s plate in front of her.

“And an omelet for you...” She all but shoved the plate in front of me. Anger simmered deep within me. What was this bitch’s problem, and why did she feel the need to all but shove my food at me?

“Excuse me, but is there a problem?” I growled pushing the plate forward. I caught Bree’s eyes as apprehension showed in them. She didn’t want a blowout, and neither did I, but no one gets away with treating my girl or me like shit.

“Problem….” Was she pondering if there was a problem or not? She had five fucking seconds to tell me if there was, and what it was?

“Yeah, you know like, an issue. There isn’t a damn reason to shove shit at me. There is most definitely no reason to take that tone with my woman, and if you care about your job in the least bit, you’ll take the high fucking road.”

“Zerro…” Bree said quietly…

“No. It’s not okay to be disrespectful.”

“Honey, you need to get your dog on a fucking leash.” The waitress, whose name I didn’t get, walked away.

“Bitch…” I was this close to reaching for my fucking gun and placing a bullet in her head. Guess Pleasant Fucking Villes crime rate would go up to one with me around.

“You need to relax, Zerro. This is the real world. There are no Mafia people here. That’s all kind of made for the movies, so while we both have to learn to adjust to shit, you can’t just go around ordering people around and pulling your gun out.” Bree all but scolded me as if I were a child.

“I didn’t pull my gun out,” I said slipping a piece of the omelet into my mouth. It didn’t taste like my cook’s cooking, but then again, not a lot of food did.

Arching an eyebrow, she watched me. “Really, so when I watched your hand slip into your back it wasn’t just to grab your wallet so you could leave a nice tip?” Was she mocking me?

“I will have you know, I can fucking get my gun out whenever I want.”

Snorting, she glared. “You act like I’m taking a piece of your manhood or something?” She was—my gun was the closest thing to my home I had left.

“It’s my gun and if I want to put a bullet in her head, I will.” I took another bite of my food, and then a drink of water, waiting for her to eat her own food.

Shaking her head, she turned her attention to something out the window. “And to think I actually thought maybe you were changing. Thinking maybe you had left behind the murderous person I had met months ago.”

Desperately, I wanted to tell her I had—I had let the person go I once was when I shot John, but the truth was I hadn’t. I had covered him up. I had pushed a part of me to the bottom… but there was no changing that part of me. It would always be there.

Leaning in, to the point where I was leaning onto the table, I said, “If you thought that part of me was gone, you’re naïve. I was born into this life, Bree. I will never allow that part of me to go away. It’s been ingrained into me since the start of life. If I had a choice, believe me when I say I would’ve made one.”

I could all but feel the sadness seep into both of us. There was an ocean forming between us. I thought I had actually saved her, brought her out of the dark, but maybe it was me who was still keeping her in the dark. Maybe I was what was hurting her the most.

“Everyone has a choice, Zerro. Everyone has a chance to change things for the better. Your past doesn’t define you and without a future path outlined, you’re free to do whatever you want.”

What was she saying? I was growing angry from simple confusion. Her words were always littered with riddles. Some I understood and others, I didn’t.

“There is no path to choose from, Bree. No path to walk along. My path was chosen long before you came along.”

Tears formed behind her eyes, and I knew I had struck some kind of nerve. I was confused though and hurt. How could I change something where I never had a choice? How the fuck did we even get to this subject. We were supposed to be having a simple dinner? Just like normal people did.

“I didn’t me—”

“No, you did. The Mafia will always run in your blood and I get that. I seriously fucking do. You’ve lost so much and dealt with so much pain, I knew it wouldn’t be easy to get over. Just know, the person who raised me from birth died at your hands and I had to learn to deal with my anger elsewhere….”

“What the fuck are you talking about?” I barked drawing attention to us. I didn’t care though. I had no idea what she meant by that statement.

“You need to get over whatever is inside of you holding you back from moving on. I know you watched your mom die, but I watched you kill John. Looks like we aren’t far from one another, after all.”

Still reeling from her words, lost in my own mind, I didn’t even realize she had gotten up to leave. Where did she think she was going?

I gripped the table to the point of pain and pushed myself up, throwing a fifty down before I walked out in search of her.

As soon as I was out the door, I ran to her, grabbing her by the lapels of her coat. I turned her to face me. Her cheeks were streaked with fresh tears.

“You want to tell me what the fuck is going on because I’m confused here.” Frustrated with the whole situation, I started rubbing my palm against my head. I didn’t know how to talk about problems. I simply dealt with them in a different manner.

“There is nothing to talk about, Zerro. You are who you are, and I made a mistake thinking you had changed.”

“Changed? What the hell would make you think I had changed?” Had I really lost my touch? Had being out of the world I had grown up in pushed me to grow soft, and if so, was I hurting her more by dragging her down a confusing path.

“You…” She shoved against my chest with far more strength than I knew she had, “you’re just so dumb. You don’t even absorb anything…” Frustration laced her words, and I wasn’t sure if I should talk or not.

“I thought you changed for us. For some reason, I thought when all this was over, we would be able to be together. I thought maybe you would leave the Mafia.” She seemed surprised by her own confession, and my own heart started to beat out of control. I was shocked into silence.

“I—” What was I supposed to say to that? I couldn’t ever just walk away from the Mafia. This wasn’t a fucking career choice and the fact she made it seem like it made me angry.

“You think this is what I want? You think I want to be this person? You think I want to drag your feelings all over the place and kill people. Hell, I’m killing myself in the process, Bree…” I huffed the words out, every single word a lash meant to be against her skin. I wanted to hurt her, shake her to death. Make her realize I couldn’t choose between her and the Mafia.

“I thought—I mean—couldn’t we have—” Her words weren’t making sense.

“No, we couldn’t. There was no happy ever after for us, Bree. I planned on winning this war and where I went from there, I didn’t know.”

Her face grew red with every word I said, and I felt my chest cavity breaking in two. My heart was bleeding for her and for the future we may or may not have.

“I never asked for a happily ever after, Zerro.” She shoved against my chest getting in my face.

“I simply wanted to know what your intentions were. Why after everything had happened, you would want to stay doing this? This isn’t you.”

What she was saying was causing me to think. To think about things I couldn’t. This was the road I was meant to travel.

“It is me. This is me. The monster in the flesh before you. Right in sight.” I pushed her back until she was against a wall with nowhere to run. The man I used to be was right under the surface. The man who would have wiped the alley with her face. The man who would’ve fucked her and then threw her to his men. Was I still that man?

“This isn’t you.” She fought back. “This is the shell of a man who was used to existing simply because dealing with the pain of what happened had been too much. Think whatever you want, Alzerro King, but know you can’t hide who you really are. I’ve already had a taste of the man underneath, and I will do anything I can to never let him go.” Was she delirious? I had just told her the monster I was, and still, she stood before me as if she thought she could save me.

“There isn’t any saving me, Bree. There is no stopping whatever will happen from happening. I helped you through your loss because it was my fault It was my jo—”“

“Just shut up already.” She interrupted me stunning me into silence once more. I gritted my teeth so hard I was afraid my jaw would shatter.

“It’s my fault your mother’s dead. So why not hate me, too? Why not fucking ruin it all because you can’t move on.” She was seething, but the tears were there trailing down her cheek. I had caused this destruction. I knew I would break her, hurt her, and yet still, I tried. I tried to be so much more than what I was.

“I don’t know what to say…” I muttered astounded at her behavior and how the night’s events had played out.

“Nothing. Say nothing because when this is all over, I will be the one to walk away from you, not the other way around.” And then she was running, she was leaving me, and I felt the walls closing around who I was. Around everything that had happened between us.

The debt was settled, but our future was inevitable.

We were born to enemies none the less.