Chapter Nine

Karina

The sharp chill of the wind blowing in from the water cuts through me as I stride across campus toward my last class of the day, my phone pressed to my ear. "How late this time?"

"I don't know, cara," Coda says, his voice an apologetic rumble that does nothing to soothe the disappointment coursing through me. "Something important came up. It may be a while before I'm finished handling it."

"Something important," I repeat. It's the same excuse he's been giving me for the last two weeks. I barely see him anymore. He's always gone, always doing…I don't know. He won't tell me. When I ask, he kisses me until I forget I have questions or fucks me until I forget anything but him exists.

He's up to something and doesn't want me to know what. The few times we've ventured beyond the walls of his condo, he's vigilant to the point of paranoia…checking every shadow, constantly looking over his shoulder.

It's driving me crazy. We both know whatever he's doing involves my father and that shipment of guns. But he adamantly refuses to broach the subject, skillfully evading my every attempt to learn more about what he's found out…and what he's doing about it.

He doesn't want me involved—he thinks this level of dark shouldn't ever touch me. I love him for wanting to protect me. But his world is my world now. His dark is my dark. And if my father is the reason he's out at all hours, I should know that.

There's nothing he could tell me about what he's doing that would change my mind about him. I'm his in every way. That won't change because of my father. I made my choice. It's him.

But I'd like to know, if for no other reason than because I want to know every piece of him. It's the only way he'll ever realize that he's worthy of me exactly as he is.

One day soon, I'm going to tie him to the bed and force him to tell me all of his secrets.

"Do you trust me, angioletta?" he asks, and that's just the thing. I do trust him—more than anything. Even with all the secrets, I don't doubt him at all. I just wish he didn't doubt himself.

"Of course I trust you," I whisper. "I just miss you."

"I miss you too, cara." He sighs, and I know he means it. This hasn't been any easier for him. "I'll be home as soon as possible."

"Okay," I say, though we both know as soon as possible may not be until the wee hours. With him, it's hard to tell.

"Ti amo."

"I love you," I whisper before ending the call. I slip the phone into my bag, groaning. Yes, I'm definitely tying him to the bed to torture his secrets from him soon. I think learning them might be the only way to get him to understand that I'm not going anywhere. I'm his, no matter what.

I keep my head down against the chill as I scurry toward class, ready to get it over with. Coming here used to be an escape. Now, it's just something keeping me from where I really want to be—at Coda's side. Education is important, and I'll finish my degree, but I have no idea what I want to do with it. I've never known.

"Karina," my father's familiar voice cuts through the cold. I'm practically on top of him before I see him standing in front of the doors, his jaw set in a way that tells me he isn't here to apologize.

Lovely.

I haven't heard from him since I ran out of his house three weeks ago. Not a single word. I know that he knows about the accident. The officer who responded probably called him before I was even loaded into the ambulance.

He didn't show up. He hasn't called.

That's how little he cares.

It stings even though it shouldn't.

It takes everything in me not to turn on my heel and walk away when he steps forward to meet me.

"What are you doing here?" I ask, my voice steady despite the emotions coursing through me. He looks different than he did three weeks ago. His nose is crooked, and there are fading bruises all around it. It's been broken since I saw him last. I'm not surprised. If I ask, he'll say it happened at work. In reality, he probably fell in a drunken stupor. It wouldn't be the first time. He doesn't always drink, but he always gets hammered when he does.

He steps closer, and I resist the instinctive urge to step back. This has always been my world, the one place in the city where I didn't feel like I was suffocating under the weight of his rule. I'll be damned if I let him encroach on it without a fight.

"I needed to see you," he says smoothly.

"You should have called. I have class." The words are ice cold, but I don't care. That's all he gets from me.

"Let's talk," he says it as if it's a suggestion, but we both know it's not. It's a command artfully spoken by someone who has spent his life manipulating situations to his advantage.

"About?" I ask, wishing I knew how to decode the secrets swirling in his steely eyes. Secrets that might hold the key to understanding what Coda has been up to recently.

"About your future." The unspoken subtext hangs heavy between us. He doesn't want to talk about my future. He wants to talk about how he can regain control of it. With him, it's always about control.

"Thanks, but no thanks," I retort, desperate to protect the fragile peace I've carved out for myself away from the poison of his ambition. For the first time I can remember, I'm happy. It's not an act. I don't have to pretend. Even with everything going on, I'm genuinely happy. He doesn't get to wriggle back in and snatch even a fraction of that away.

"You know I only want what's best for you," he says, his tone so earnest I almost believe him. Almost. But I've lived under his thumb. His insults still ring in my ears.

To him, I'm a whore. A slut. In his eyes, I'm no better than the woman he's spent half of my life hating simply because she left him.

"You can take your 'best' and go to hell," I snap, feeling the cracks in my resolve. I need to get away, to breathe, to be anywhere but here before I soften to his lies.

I spin on my heel, the wind sending my hair whipping around my face. Leaves crunch underfoot as I stride away, no longer caring about class. I just want to leave.

"Karina," he growls. "We're not done."

I spin to face him, anger boiling over. He doesn't even call to check on me, but suddenly, I'm supposed to drop everything because he wants to talk?

"You made your feelings about me abundantly clear three weeks ago when you called me a whore, and then again when you didn't even bother to make sure I survived the accident," I growl. "If you have something else to say, too bad. I'm done listening."

For a moment, I think I see a flash of regret in his eyes. Or maybe that's just what I want to see. Maybe, even now, I want him to love me the way a father should. But whatever it was vanishes as quickly as it appeared, killing that hope. He never loved me. He never will.

His jaw tics. "Coda Passero," he says.

My heart clenches with a mix of fear and defiance. He knows who Coda is. How?

"Leave him out of this," I warn, my voice steady despite the tremors threatening to unravel me. "Your issues are with me, not him."

"He doesn't need your protection, Karina. He's with Rafe Valentino's family, one of his main men. He's mafia."

He means to shock me with the truth, to shake the trust I have in Coda, but he fails. Did I know? No. It's one of the things Coda has been so afraid to tell me. But I'm not surprised. I know who and what Coda is. Maybe I didn't have a title to attach to him until just now, but he's never lied to me about the kind of man he is. He's lived in fear of this truth breaking us.

"Your point?" I snap, not wavering now that I know. Of course I don't falter. At least he's honest about who and what he is. My father hides his crimes behind a badge.

My dad's expression hardens. It's clear he expected his revelation to sway me, to break the bond that ties me to Coda. He's not happy that it didn't work.

"Do you really think a man like that would fall for a girl like you if I weren't the Superintendent of Police?" He eyes me, a strange mix of brutal honesty and pity in his gaze. "You're smarter than that, kid. He's using you to get to me."

"Not everything is about you."

"You don't know what you're dealing with."

"Maybe not, but I'd rather deal with him than you," I retort, telling him the truth. "At least he's honest about who and what he is. You wear your badge like a shield, pretending it makes you one of the good ones. You aren't. I'm not sure you ever were. He may be mafia, but we both know your rap sheet is just as long. You've just hidden your crimes behind the authority that badge gives you. He didn't have that same privilege."

He flinches, the first real reaction he's given me since he appeared.

I brush my hair away from my face, scrutinizing his expression, wondering how he got here. And realizing I don't really care to find out. He made his bed. He can lie in it.

"You should go," I say, turning away. And then, because I can't resist, I add, "Before Coda finds you here. He really doesn't like you."

"Ask him about his parents," he calls softly as I walk away. "If you don't believe that he's using you like a pawn, ask him how our families are connected."

My steps falter before I force myself to keep walking. What does my father know about Coda's parents? Why does he want me to ask about them?

Anxiety churns through me, and even though I try like hell not to let him shake my faith in Coda, the first seeds of doubt sprout anyway.

The confrontation with my father leaves a bitter taste in my mouth and a heaviness in my chest. It presses down on me, making it hard to breathe.

I don't even remember the drive back to Coda's. All I see is the look on my father's face. All I hear are his words ringing in my ears.

Do you really think a man like that would fall for a girl like you if I weren't the Superintendent of Police?

Until now, I never questioned it. I never had a reason. But suspicion whispers now, choking me. Why would he choose me? If what my father said is true, Coda is in the mafia. He could have anyone. He can have anything his heart desires.

Why me?

I huddle on the couch as the moon chases the sun from the sky, asking myself the same question. Hating my father for making me ask it. I swore nothing would shake my faith in Coda, that I'd love him no matter what…and suddenly, I'm no longer sure that can be true. I hate my father for making me face that painful realization.

Eventually, the doorknob rattles.

I glance up as Coda steps into the room, his eyes immediately finding mine in the dark. He's so damn beautiful, like a perfectly crafted sculpture, every angle and line of his face formed with breathtaking precision.

"Karina, what's wrong?" he asks as if sensing my turmoil.

"You're in the mafia."

He flinches when I say the word, as if just the sound of it on my lips is too much for him. Wariness filters through his expression, his usual confidence replaced with something far more vulnerable.

"Karina, I—"

"Please," I interrupt, pleading with him not to try to do what he's done since the beginning and steer me away from this conversation. "Just tell me the truth, Coda."

Tense silence stretches between us. I can feel the oppressive weight of secrets crowding close, threatening everything we've built.

"It's complicated, cara," he sighs.

"I deserve to know. Talk to me. Please." My voice breaks, my armor in pieces around me. If I had any to begin with. When it comes to him, I don't think I do.

"I'm not trying to lie to or forestall you, angioletta. I mean, the way you view the mafia is…simple. It's far more complicated than that. But if you're asking if I'm affiliated, the answer is yes." His confession cuts through the silence like a knife. "Deeply."

My heart races, but my loyalty to him doesn't falter—not over this. The Coda I know—the man I love—is more than the sum of his affiliations. Whether he's mafia or something else, he's still Coda.

"Okay," I whisper, my voice steady.

"Cristo," he breathes, staring at me as if I'm the most beautiful thing he's ever seen. "I'll never deserve you, cara."

He reaches for me, but I throw up a hand, halting him. There's more I need to ask, other secrets that might just destroy everything. And I can't have his hands on my body while I ask them.

"Karina—"

"My father came to see me today."

It's like watching a storm cloud gather over him, darkening his eyes and his aura. His jaw clenches, cold rage simmering in the depths of his eyes. "Your father should have heeded my warning," he growls.

He warned my father to stay away from me?

Of course he did.

"Why did he want me to ask you about your parents, Coda?"

"Your father…" he trails off with a curse. "Karina, do you understand what you're asking?"

"No!" I cry, frustrated. "I don't understand. That's the problem, Coda. I'm only just realizing that you and my father have all the pieces to this twisted puzzle and are playing some game that I can't comprehend. I'm caught in the middle, and I don't even know what I'm standing in. The mafia, I can handle. But this? I didn't sign up to be a pawn."

"I never meant for you to feel that way," he says softly, his expression pained.

"Well, I do."

His gaze meets mine again, and I see a glimmer of regret in his eyes. "Your father is more connected to my world than you realize. Twenty-five years ago, our parents were friends. Your father was a beat cop. Mine worked in the evidence room. They were skimming small amounts of drugs until things went south."

Even then, my father was corrupt. The realization hits me like a punch to the gut.

"What happened?"

Coda takes a deep breath, as if steeling himself against painful memories. "From what I've been able to work out, your father got involved with the wrong people. Dangerous people. Mine decided enough was enough and told him that it was over. He had a wife and kid to protect and wanted out. Your father didn't trust that he'd just walk away, so he ensured he wouldn't ever be able to betray him."

My heart pounds violently against my ribcage, each beat reverberating through my body. A mixture of fear and anxiety consumes me, twisting my insides into a knot of dread. Even before he says it, I know.

"Your father murdered my parents, cara. I was hiding in the closet when he shot them in cold blood. I saw him do it."

My throat constricts as bile rises up, threatening to choke me. His next words hit with the force of a tidal wave, shattering any sense of safety or trust I had left.

"I've spent twenty-five years waiting to pay him back for what he did to them."

"And now you have," I whisper numbly. My father was right; I am nothing but a pawn in his twisted game of power and manipulation. Coda was using me like a weapon aimed at my father. And like a foolish lamb, I followed him blindly to the slaughter.

"Did you ever care at all, Coda?" The question is out before I can stop it, the hurt bubbling up like acid.

His gaze whips to mine—the predator snapping its attention onto prey again. I almost believe the horrified look in his eyes. Almost.

"Cara," he chokes out, dropping to his knees before me. "Every word I've ever spoken to you has been true. My heart belongs to you." He says it to manipulate, to keep me complacent, but all he does is make me realize the truth: his heart was never mine to begin with. He doesn't have one.

He wanted to destroy my dad. But he chose to destroy me instead. I was collateral damage, an acceptable loss. That's how he viewed me. An acceptable casualty in his fucking war with my father.

"Right." I swipe at my cheeks, dashing away tears I didn't even know had fallen. "You honestly expect me to believe you weren't using me to get to him?"

His jaw clenches. The muscles in his throat work as if he's swallowing the truth. "I wasn't using you, Karina. I swear it on everything I am. But can I say that your connection didn't play a role in the beginning? No, I can't. When I met you at the party, I was there to kill him."

"What changed your mind, Coda?"

"You," he whispers.

The raw honesty in his voice cuts deeper than any lie, confirming the dark suspicion my father planted. Every doubt and fear that I tried to push away erupts into a full-fledged betrayal, crushing me with its weight. One of the best nights of my life was a lie, orchestrated by a man who saw an opportunity to take something from my father and grabbed it—grabbed me.

"I was wrong, Coda," I whisper, my words choked with pain. "You're nothing like the man I thought you were. That man was redeemable. You aren't. At least my father only pretended to love me in public. You let me believe the lie in private, too."

"Karina, please." He reaches out as if to bridge the chasm that's opened between us, but I step away. If I feel his skin on mine, I'll crack. "Don't let this be what tears us apart. I love you. That's the purest truth I know."

"Don't you dare try to make this right," I spit at him, my voice trembling with emotion. "I loved you with everything I had, but it was just a game to you. I was a game to you, just something for you to take from my father." Despite my anger and pain, his words still hold some power over me—the purest truth I know is that I still love him. But in this moment, it feels like a curse instead of a blessing.

"Is love supposed to taste like betrayal, Coda? Is it supposed to feel like a curse?" I ask. "If that's what you needed me to feel to know that you finally got revenge, congratulations. You win. You broke me."

"No, cara. No," he whispers. "I never wanted to beak you. I wanted to shield you from all of this."

"Shield me or control me?" I counter, my throat burning. I need to get out of here. He doesn't get to see me cry. Not any longer.

"Karina," he breathes, my name a prayer and a plea. "Please."

But there's nothing left to plead for. The man on his knees before me—the one who claimed to be my sanctuary—was the architect of my anguish all along. I always wondered where our story ended, and now I know. Not with a bang, but with the silent shattering of my heart.

I was wrong. We weren't unbreakable. We were always headed for destruction. I was just too stupid to see it.

I turn away, pieces of myself breaking off and splintering in a mosaic of pain and grief.

It hurts. God, it hurts.

I stumble out of his condo with my hands pressed to my stomach as if to hold myself together. But it's too late for that. I'm already in pieces, broken beyond repair. And this time, there's nothing and no one left to help pick up the pieces.

He's taken everything. Exactly like he planned all along.