Page 96 of Damaged Beast
“You love her, don’t you?” He shakes his glass at me. “Don’t do your usual Prime bullshit and make some joke. Tell me straight.”
“I love her. I think I’ve loved her a long time.”
“No kidding. Fuck.” He leans his head back with a groan. “I owe Kira a new car.”
“The hell?”
“We made a bet a couple years back. She said you’d eventually figure out how you felt about Deanna. I said it’d never happen. Guess I should’ve been more optimistic about your emotional range.”
“Jesus Christ, you two are gambling on my love life?”
“Yeah, and I lost. What a bad day. I have to tell my wife she beat me, and I have to drag my dumbass Capo from a jam.”
I sink back into my seat. “Yeah, alright. I deserve that.”
“You do.” My friend Stellan fades. My Don Stellan takes his place. He sits straighter. “You went against what I asked. What happens to traitors in the Famiglia?”
“They die.”
“Should I put a bullet in your head right now, Prime?”
“I wish you wouldn’t.”
“Why not?”
“It’d hurt Deanna.”
That seems to satisfy him. He rests his elbows on the desk. “Alright. Listen to me. There will be consequences. I won’t forget how you kept all this from me for so long. But you’re my friend, Prime, and you’ve done a lot for me over the years. And besides—“ His expression turns dark and gleeful. “You dumped the perfect opportunity in my lap.”
“How’s that?”
“Augustus Fontana’s been a pain in my ass for years. His outfit’s small and weak, but he’s still got influence in the city. Now you’re telling me his entire operation’s teetering on the edge? I’ll gladly shove that mother fucker into the pits of hell. And you—“ He points at me, making his fingers into a gun. “You are going to be the one who pulls the damn trigger as he tumbles down.”
“Fucking happily.”
“Good man.” Stellan bangs his palm on his desk. “But you have to swear something to me first.”
“Anything, Don Corsetti.”
“We do this the right way. No more suicidal revenge schemes. No more going off on your own. You trust me and I trust you.”
I hunch. It goes against everything I believe about myself. If I let Stellan past my armor, will he end up dead too? Just like Shawn?
But Shawn was a kid and Alfonso said it himself: that wasn’t my fault.
I’ve held onto that one death for so long. I let it define me. I’ve been viewing myself through that night, but I have to let him go. Shawn’s not a ghost. He’s not anything anymore. I have to stop letting him haunt me.
“We do it the right way,” I agree.
We shake on that and I think I feel a glimmer of something new. Like maybe I’m not damning the people I love and my loyalty isn’t a poison. And if that’s true, Deanna’s not going to burn for me, she’s not going to bleed, and I can get her through to the other side—and I can be there with her.
CHAPTER 35
DEANNA
Prime parks across from my parents’ house and leans over to kiss my cheek. “When am I going to get to meet them, by the way?”
I pat his knee. “Eventually. I don’t want to rush it.”
