You killed my cousin?” I hear her shriek.

So much for honesty being rewarded.

She’s got a suitcase loaded in front of her bed. She’s dressed and ready to go. And now she’s going to split hairs over me saving her father’s life?

“He was going to kill your Dad, so–”

“Stop!” She shouts, holding a hand up to me. “Just stop!”

“Look, Bella,” I say, “I just went there to talk. To your father. He wasn’t gonna start a feud, but Stefano, he didn’t like what your father had to say, so he–”

“It could have been you,” she says, pacing back and forth. She’s hyperventilating, or maybe just having a panic attack.

“What could have?” I asked.

“The one getting shot!” she shouts. “What if it had been Stefano hanging outside the window? Taking aim at you?”

“It wasn’t,” I say. “It didn’t happen like that.”

“Jesus, Luca,” she says, shaking her head. “But it really makes me question your decision making, and it makes me worry that your promises mean nothing. Nothing at all.”

“I came here to get you,” I say. “For us to go. To get out of here. I got all the dominoes or chess pieces–whatever you wanna call them–they’re all lined up to undo my empire, to make it implode. We drive away into the sunrise, and it’s all smooth sailing from there.”

“The sunrise is east, Luca,” she says. “Unless we’re driving to Maine, we wouldn’t be driving into it.”

I frown. This is one of those women things. Where they start losing one fight, so they seamlessly transition into another thing entirely. I know it’s not a good idea to let her pull that tactic off.

“Focus, Bella,” I say. “If I hadn’t been there, what do you think would have happened?”

There. That’s a clear, logical argument. One she won’t be able to argue against.

“So…” she says. “You left my father to clean up with the mess?”

Ah, shit, here she goes, diverting the argument again.

“He sent me away!” I shout. “Told me he that his guys had everything under control. Hell, Bella, I told him we were getting away. He patted me on the back, wished us bon voyage, told us to invite him to wherever we end up for the baby being born. You wanted me to stay there and scrub the carpet?”

She shudders. That was probably not a good mental image to give her, on second thought.

“You could have called the police,” she says. “When…”

“When I saw Stefano getting out of the car?” I ask. “You kidding me? He had the gun on your dad’s back a minute or two later. They’d never have been there in time. I don’t get why you’re being like this? Shit, I didn’t want to kill Stefano, I really didn’t. But I saw it happening, and I had to choose! Don’t you get that? Stefano was off the rails, and I should have stopped him back in the basement. I was regretting letting him get away, and now here he was getting ready to kill my future father-in-law.”

Shit. I was going to propose tonight. Now is probably not the best time. I’ll have to wait until we get to California. Assuming Bella even wants to go to California. I just figured it was about as far away as we could get.

“The problem for me, Luca,” she says. “Is that we were hours away from putting this life behind us. When was our official new start in your mind? Was it after we put the suitcases into the car? After we started driving? When we crossed into New Jersey? When, exactly?”

“Why does it matter?” Now I’m shouting.

“Because!” she says, throwing up her hands. Tears are streaming down her face. “In my mind, we’d already started. The moment you told me to start packing my suitcase, it was over. We had put it all behind us. Then you come back here telling me you killed someone. That you are just as deep in it all as ever. It makes me doubt–seriously, seriously doubt–that you can ever actually put it behind you. I’m afraid that you’ll kill someone again next month, or maybe just beat them bloody, and then you’ll feed me some line about how you had to, or how it was somehow right or justified.

“I’m taking us to California,” I say. “It won’t be like that. We’ll be out of this life for good.”

“Starting now?” she asks. “Let me know when we officially are out,” she says, kicking her suitcase over. “So I know when you are supposed to be the man I thought you could become, and not the one who is standing here right now.”

If I were the man who she thinks is standing here right now, I’d walk the fuck out and not stand for this. I’d wait for her to call me back and apologize for being totally irrational. For her to thank me for saving her father’s life.

But no, I’ve gotta prove to her that I am a changed man. That I’m not the guy who walks out. Not the guy who only texts her once because I’m the fucking kingpin.

“I’m sorry,” I say, and I grab her suitcase and prop it back up. “I should have told you I was going there. I thought it would be important to you later on, to have your family still in our life. Maybe I was wrong, and maybe that’s the last thing you wanted. With Stefano trying to do what he was doing, maybe you were right to cut ties. I tried to do something that I thought was for us, and for our future family. But I wasn’t brave enough to tell you. To talk to you about it.”

I see her finally starting to slacken, to actually look at me. To listen. Good, Luca, good. Keep going then.

“So…” I say. “So I did it behind your back. I thought I could be the big man and fix everything for you, instead of with you. Then it all kind of blew up in my face. You know I fucking love you, right? Hell, have I said that to you yet? That I love you? Because I do, and I’m saying it now not just to get myself out of trouble with you, but because I mean it, and it hurts not to say it to you.”

I wrap my arms around her and pull her against me.

“He would have killed him,” she says. “And Daddy was going to do the right thing, for once.”

“I know, Princess,” I say, stroking her hair. “I wish it didn’t have to play out like it did, I really do. We can go see Tony if you want, tomorrow morning, if–”

“No,” she says. “We’ll leave first thing in the morning. I’ll see him later, but not now. I need to get away as soon as we can.”

“Then now,” I say. “Let’s go right now. Before the sun starts to rise.”

She wraps her hands around my waist and whispers, “No, Luca. Right now I just want you to hold me. I love you too, Luca.”