Free Femme Fatale Loved (Pericolo #3) by Kirsty-Anne Still Page A

to me. It will not change anything.”
    “Promise?” I ask, inwardly panicking he’ll loathe me.
    “I promise,” he whispers back. “We walked through hell; I’ve seen what you’ve done before. This is just a formality.”
    “I never wanted to do any of it. No matter how much I hated you and my father, I never wanted to hurt others because I was hurting. It was never my aim. I just wanted to forget, and turning myself off to what I was doing worked. I just used them as an excuse to become a cold-hearted version of myself. One that didn’t get hurt.”
    I ramble on, trying to justify my actions in Italy, but whatever happens, I know I could’ve said no and run. I could’ve gotten out with a bounty on my head and been able to live under an alias, but knowing I would be needed home at some point kept me there. It wasn’t the idea of a reunion with my father that did it, but getting back to Enzo, Carlo, and Bruno kept me enduring every atrocity under that Italian sun.
    “Alberto made sure I wasn’t saved anything. He made me stand by his side through everything. Apparently, it was an order of my father’s. That was when I first decided if I ever made him home, I’d give him hell. I knew he only sent me to Italy to straighten me out, but I wasn’t going to give him the satisfaction of breaking like that. I guess in a way, it did break me, but I wasn’t going to go back and wait for his every beck and call. So I watched and waited.” I close my eyes, summoning strength. “I watched families burn, and children see their parents slaughtered. I saw all manner of killings, and I never tried to stop them. I stood by my uncle as if I supported him.”
    As I take a moment to recalibrate, Zane moves us across the room and to the couches. He sits up, and if anything, him doing this makes me want to talk to him. I want him to know every dark cloud that smothers my happiness.
    My life has chipped pieces of me away, mercilessly and tirelessly working to create a husk of my former self. I’ve tasted lust, blood, death – sometimes all at once – but freedom is still something that my tortured soul cannot comprehend.
    I don’t know when I’ll be free of my past; part of me knows I never will, but I can live each day in this form of domestication, loving every easy breath of air I take if I give my all to be upfront with Zane.
    Today is that day.
    I will give my all to make sure I do this right.
    "I met this one man, his name was Stefano. He was so kind to me, and I knew he was one of us, that he was caught up in the wrong life. He did it for family, did it to keep a roof over their head and make sure they never went without, but he tripped up once. He made one wrong move, and it cost him everything.” I roll my eyes, looking up as tears lace around my lashes, threatening with their freefall, all the while the lump in my throat grew more suffocating by the moment. "I was forced to castrate him in front of so many people. I hesitated, but my uncle grabbed my hand with the blade in it and guided me to do the job. Stefano screamed and screamed for us to stop, but even with all my might trying to refuse, my uncle finished the job."
    I allow every tear to fall of their own accord. I let them trickle, dance, pour down my face. I allow my admittance to my sins show in my emotions. If I’m going to talk it out, I’m going to cry it out too. I’m going to wash away the demons I keep locked in.
    "That night, a few of Alberto’s henchmen ambushed my room and pinned me down onto the bed." I watch as anger ignites in Zane's eye, but that part of my life isn't something he had any hope of saving me from. "They threatened me with what would happen if I continued to defy them, but I refused to give up entirely. They told me they had my uncle’s permission to beat me into submission, and if need be, they had every right to try every method they could. When I didn’t cave, they decided to show me. They promised it wouldn’t have