After he finished his explanation, I gestured for him to lie back on the bed, and I began plucking pieces of glass, wood, and other unidentifiable fragments out of his side with the hemostats. Focused on my task at hand, I used the gauze to wipe away small rivulets of blood that trickled from some of the larger wounds.

“Does that hurt?” I asked softly.

“I’m okay, doll. Don’t worry about me. I’m just enjoying all the attention you’re giving me.”

He hadn’t yet given up on me, I had to give him credit for that. But I couldn’t respond to his full confession. I felt so much—too much—until I simply shut down and felt nothing. “Comfortably Numb” by Pink Floyd instantly made sense to me. That’s how I felt. Numb.

I considered the very real possibility that I was broken inside.

“Your mom said you’ve been in Abita Springs for the past three months. What took you so long to contact me?”

“Promise not to get mad at me?”

“No.”

His body shook with laughter, and I couldn’t help but smile. He didn’t look back at me, so my own laugh was my little secret. “Fuck, I’ve missed that sexy, sassy mouth of yours. Fair enough. Yes, I was there that whole time, and I’ve watched you every day. All hours of the day and night. I knew Lorenzo would make his move on the one person who means the world to me, the one he could use to hurt me the most.

“I know him very well, Jillian. He’s a coward in one sense, but he’s also ruthless and cunning. He’d never have the guts to face me like a man. He’d send his goons to do all his dirty work. But he wouldn’t hesitate to hurt you once he had you incapacitated. So, I watched and waited for him to make his move.

“The weeks leading up to yesterday were torture enough. We had tried to keep up pretenses that I was still in New York, hoping Lorenzo would grow a spine and step out of the shadows to approach you himself. When I guessed why you were going to see the doctor, I couldn’t stand back and wait any longer. But when I revealed my presence, I think it prompted his men to act.”

“So…they were waiting for you to show up at my house all this time? Watching me to see if I was meeting you out somewhere?”

“That’s the theory. He was waiting to see if he could still use you to get to me, then take us both out at the same time. That’s what I would do if I knew Lorenzo had a girlfriend and I wanted to take him out.”

“Damon, I don’t believe that for a minute.”

“Why not?” He had the nerve to sound offended.

“You’d move in on her and force his hand right away. You’d have no patience for that.”

I watched the smile cover his face. “You’re probably right, doll. Maybe you know me better than I know myself.”

“I wish that were true, Damon.”

“You know I mean what I say, Jillian. You know I’m not afraid to say what’s on my mind. My family means everything to me, and you’re a part of that family. I’m stubborn and inflexible, except when it comes to you. I’ll do anything and everything for you. I’m a hard-ass, no one fucks with me, and I’m always in charge. But you’re my queen, and I’ll bow at your feet. You know me like no one else does. You know me down to my soul, Jillian, because you’re the other half of it.”

He stole my breath with his words, and I didn’t have a rebuttal. I couldn’t argue with the points he made. I’d seen them with my own eyes. I’d been privy to a side of him few people outside of his family had experienced. Funny, protective, flirty, and teasing. He’d shielded me from harm and taken me to meet his family. I’d spent the night at his apartment and stayed in the hospital with him.

But could I live with being kept in the dark when my life was affected? Or my child’s life? Or my husband’s, if I stayed with Damon and eventually married him? Mama Lina explained to me how the family worked, the life she’d accepted with Vincenzo. Damon answered my questions with all the honesty I could expect. Even Benny confirmed what they’d both said without knowing how his words affected me. But those rules had never applied to me before meeting Damon. They had never been the guiding force in my life.

Until my mother’s death.

Until we were pawns in the life-and-death game between the Sanfratello and the Marchetti families.

I wasn’t sure I wanted that to become my life…my new norm.

Even if that meant I couldn’t be with Damon.

Even if that meant one day I would have to see him happy with someone else.

I didn’t take his warning seriously enough. I didn’t give it enough consideration. My only thought was I’d be with him, and that would be enough for me. My naïveté regarding the finer intricacies of how a mob family worked would cost me dearly in the end. One decision would take the love of my life and the father of my baby away from me. The other decision would strip away all the freedoms I’d taken for granted all my life. But I had to wonder if my decision had already been made when I accepted his warning, when I accepted him for who he was.

I wondered if I’d ever be able to walk away from him.

I ran my hands over his back, side, and leg, feeling for any shards of glass or splinters of wood still embedded in his skin. “I think I got them all. Can you believe it? Maybe this fiasco won’t require a night in the hospital, after all.”

“Doll, I had no intentions of spending the night in the hospital. I’m not spending one more night away from you. The last few months without you have been the worst kind of hell, and I’m in no hurry to do that again.”

I got up and discarded the used medical supplies but kept my eyes averted from his. When I didn’t reply, he rolled off the bed and walked into the bathroom. While he showered and washed away the remnants of the day, I curled up on the bed and tried to wipe it from my memory. In the short time since I’d first met Damon, my life had been in danger more frequently than all my other years combined.

That was when the full realization of my predicament hit me.

With or without Damon, the danger would never go away while the Sanfratellos were still out there. The standing threats against my baby and me were real, with or without Damon in the picture. Only, without him, I didn’t stand a chance of surviving. The drastically increased show of aggression we’d just survived was all the proof I needed. Lorenzo was determined to have me—dead or alive.

A strong, warm arm slid over my waist, quickly followed by a strong, warm body pressed against my back. “I love seeing you in my bed.”

His sultry voice calmed my frayed nerves, and his commanding presence made me feel protected, but I wasn’t ready to resume our relationship. My body was more than willing, responding to his every word and touch. But my mind refused to relax its constant guard over my heart. My arms drew tighter to my body, closing myself off to him and creating a symbolic protective barrier.

He slid his hand along my arm until he reached my fingers, then interlaced them with a light squeeze. “I know you’re still having a difficult time with everything you’ve been hit with, doll. I also know it’s not easy for you to trust me again. I’ll have to work extra hard to earn that trust back. But I won’t ever give up on you, Jillian. I’ll never stop trying to earn your love again.”

The vise around my heart gripped tighter. “What if I decide I can’t live with the family rules? What if I decide I want out?”

I expected to hear a reiteration of the warning he originally gave me. At first, I didn’t understand a lifetime member meant a shorter lifespan if I changed my mind, but that was the reply I waited to hear.

Instead, he took a moment to consider his words. Then he stunned me. “Once we’ve neutralized the threat, I’ll let you go.”

“Just like that?”

“If that’s what you really want, Jillian. If that’s what it takes to make you happy. It would kill me to do it, but I would for you.”

“What would that mean for you? What would the family do if you let me go? What would your father do to you?”

“Don’t worry about me, doll. You just concentrate on yourself and what you want. While you’re making up your mind, I’ll work on persuading you to stay with me.”

Just my luck, when I relaxed in his arms, ready for sleep to take me away from reality, every muscle in my body began shaking involuntarily. The nervous energy I’d held at bay by focusing on Damon returned with a vengeance, flowing through me like wild rapids out of control. His arms and legs cocooned me in his protective hold. His mouth hovered over my ear, his lips grazed across the shell of my lobe, and he whispered loving, soothing reassurances until my teeth stopped chattering.

“That’s my girl. Always so strong, so independent, so feisty. I love everything about you, Jillian. Even when you finally have to face the fact that you’re not invincible. But, believe me, doll, you are very brave. You can relax now, I got you.”

“How do you deal with it all, Damon? How do you stay so cool and collected when what’s around you is scary crazy?”

“It’s all I’ve ever known, doll. After watching my dad and my uncle handle business for as long as I can remember, nothing really surprises me anymore. The first time someone sprayed a hail of bullets at us scared the fuck out of me. But Dad and I had a long talk that night, and he stressed how I had to be strong enough to think clearly in the moment, so I could protect our loved ones. Like he protects Mama.

“I couldn’t stand the thought of letting something bad happen to someone we love, of having the fault of that fall on my shoulders. That lit a fire inside me that burns to this day. What I do protects those I love, and I’m good at my job. I don’t know another way to be, doll.”

“If we’re together, will you keep secrets from me? Will you keep me in the dark on where you are and what you’re doing?”

“That’s a hard question to answer, Jillian.”

“It’s really not, Damon. If I’m your wife, the mother of your child, and you have to go out on family business, will you keep it a secret from me? Will I be sitting at home with our baby, wondering if you’re going to make it back alive? Dreading when the phone rings because I won’t know if you’re calling to say you’re okay, or if some stranger is calling to tell me you’re dead. If we’re together, who comes first in your life, Damon?”

He sensed my question led to a deal breaker, I felt it in the way the muscles in his whole body stiffened. He didn’t want to lie to me, but he didn’t want to tell me the truth either.

“When we’re married, I’ll tell you where I’m going and what I’m doing. You will always come first with me, Jillian. Always. But—this is one warning I won’t change for you so listen closely and understand my meaning—when we get married, there’s no leaving. There’s no such thing as divorce. There’s no trial separation. We’re a team. For life. Until death. That is nonnegotiable.”

“When we’re married. Not before? Not while we’re working through this little problem you created in our relationship?”

“There’s no leaving anytime. We’re meant to be together.”

“That’s not what I meant, and you know it. You said when we’re married, you’ll tell me where you’re going. You chose your words very carefully, Damon.”

“I did say when we’re married, because we will be—very soon. To answer your question, I meant exactly what I said. Marital communications have special privileges.”

“Ah, I see. Marital privilege—I can’t be compelled to testify against you. How romantic.”

“It is, actually. That little clause ensures I get to come home to you every night and perform my husbandly duties. So, if you want to know all my secrets, you know what you have to do to get me to talk. Until then, I’ll be glad to use my tongue for your pleasure in other ways.”