SWNOVELS When He Desires: Chapter 43
I don’t fight Rowan as he walks me to his truck, but on the inside, I’m spiraling. An atomic bomb’s been dropped, decimating everything I thought I understood.
Rowan murdered those men in cold blood. At least some of what Uncle Lyle told me must be true, if not all of it.
What if it’s all true?
My knees buckle, but Rowan holds me tightly to his side.
When he opens the passenger door, I whirl around, my shock slowly turning into something darker, colder. “Who are you?”
His gaze shutters. “Get inside.”
I shake my head. “Rowan, who the fuck are you? You just killed those men. Why did you do that? Why didn’t you call the police?”
I’m screaming, my grip on reality coming undone. It feels like I’m disassociating, like I’m looking down at Rowan and me from above.
“Get. In. The. Car.” He wraps his hand around my elbow and nearly lifts me inside. “I’ll explain everything, but right now, we have to leave. We have to get out of here before the cops come. Someone must have already placed the call.”
Someone. Not him. As in, he’s running from the cops, not hoping they’ll arrive to help.
“What is wrong with you?” I whisper harshly.
He stares at me for a long moment and then slams the door shut.
We get on the road. He’s driving fast, but there’s nothing frantic about him. He’s cool and in control.
Someone who’s just killed a person for the first time wouldn’t behave like this.
He’s done this before.
Bile rises up my throat. “Start talking.”
“My name is Nero De Luca. I was the consigliere of one of the five New York mob families until I had to fake my own death.”
The words feel like sharp stabs right through my chest. I gasp for breath.
It’s…true.
Everything Uncle Lyle said was true.
“My boss’s name was Rafaele Messero. His wife was taken, and I was supposed to get her back, but I didn’t know Rafaele asked one of his allies, the Ferraros, to provide backup. When their guys arrived, I thought they were there to fight us, not help us, and I killed one of them. It was a clusterfuck. The Ferraros wanted me dead. Rafe felt that wasn’t fair, but he couldn’t risk starting a war with them, so he sent me away. Gave me a new identity. Told me to start over.”
He delivers all of this so calmly, as if he’s completely oblivious to the way he’s destroying me.
“You’re a criminal,” I whisper.
His jaw clenches. “I am.”
“You’ve been lying to me the whole time I’ve known you.”
“I’ve been lying to everyone.”
He hasn’t just been lying. He is a lie.
The Rowan I thought I knew—the Rowan I thought I loved—never existed.
He played me for a fool.
All the signs are so obvious now. That dark look he got in his eyes when he looked at Brett. The way he was never scared of Uncle Lyle. Why would he be when they’re both cut from the same cloth?
The fucking gun he brought home?
The cufflinks. NDL.
It was all right there. Staring me in the face.
I was so determined not to let Brett manipulate me that I turned a blind eye to all the signs, to the man who was doing most of the manipulating.
My heart trembles, cracks, and shatters. He betrayed me.
I clutch at my chest, because the pain feels entirely too real.
How did I make the same mistake again? What is wrong with me? How could I allow myself to get so taken in?
I blink against the stinging in my eyes. “And Sam…”
“Sam’s real name is—“ He swallows. “Was. His real name was Sandro. And he was sent away with me.”
Just when I think the pain can’t get any worse, it does. “Sam was part of it too?”
The fish tattoo. Their matching fucking tattoos. They fed me nonsense. Lies.
How was I so oblivious?
“He was one of our drivers. He was sent to keep an eye on me. Make sure I didn’t do anything stupid like try to go home or draw attention to myself by getting involved in things I shouldn’t.”
“Did you?”
“No. I didn’t.”
“But you did threaten Brett. He showed me photos of you pointing a gun at him. I told him they must have been doctored, but they were real, weren’t they?”
“They were real.”
Then a thought comes to me. Brett suggested something else too. Something that sounded crazy. Something that I was quick to dismiss…
“Rowan, did you start the fire in my house?” My voice is barely a whisper.
When he doesn’t answer, my gaze snaps to him.
His throat bobs with a swallow. “Yes.”
Time stops. The fury leaks out of me until there’s nothing left. I’m empty. Numb. Cold.
Slowly, I turn away from him, my unfocused eyes landing on the road. “Why would you do that?”
“I couldn’t let you leave. I wanted you.”
“Why?”
“Because!” he snaps. “Because I loved my old life, and it was taken from me with no warning. Rafe sent me away to save my life, but the moment I left New York, I became a dead man. I felt fucking dead, Blake.”
“You missed being a criminal?” There’s no inflection in my voice.
“I did. And then I saw you, and something about you eased the pain. And the more time I spent around you, the less it hurt. So I wanted you. I couldn’t let you leave.”
He wanted me, so he burned down my home?
He destroyed my chance at getting out of Darkwater Hollow?
He convinced me to live with him, date him, give myself to him?
What kind of psychopath does that?
If it weren’t for him, I wouldn’t be here now. I wouldn’t have been nearly raped by Uncle Lyle. I wouldn’t have seen all those men killed in cold blood right in front of me.
I need to get out of here. I need to get away from him.
At the next light, I grab the door handle and rattle it as hard as I can.
He reaches over, wraps his palm around my forearm, and rips me away from the handle. “Enough.”
“L-let me go. I don’t want to be with you anymore. I want to go home.”
“We can’t go back to Darkwater.”
“Let go of me!”
He does, but I still can’t breathe. I don’t want to be in this car. Don’t want to sit beside him and share air with him. “You’re a monster.”
“Slap whatever label you want on me,” he growls. “But I’m not letting you go home.”
“Why not?”
He takes a deep breath, and when he starts talking to me, his voice is low and soothing, like I’m a wild animal he’s trying to tame. “The Ferraros would find us.”
“Us? What do I have to do with any of this?”
“You’re mine. They know you’re mine. Your godfather most likely told them he was using you to get to me. They will kill me, and they will kill you, Blake.”
“I’m not yours. I don’t want anything to do with you.”
“It doesn’t matter what you want,” he says. “I’m trying to save your life.”
I stare out the window, watching the side of the road pass by in a blur. The world outside feels distant, like a dream. How did I get here? How did I become entangled in all of this?
My gut told me not to trust him the day he moved in.
But again, I didn’t listen. And now I’m going to have to pay for that mistake.