Page 90 of Forgotten Vows

Even then, we don't move. We just sit there in the dim light of the bedroom, watching our son sleep, and I can feel the weight of everything that's happened pressing down on us. Finally, Lachlan stands, and I follow him out of the room, leaving the door cracked open so we can hear if Matteo wakes. We walk down the hallway in silence, and when we reach our bedroom, I stop in the doorway, my hand on the frame, my legs suddenly too weak to hold me up.

"Adriana." Lachlan's voice is careful, and when I look at him, I can see the exhaustion in his face too, the lines around his eyes. His shoulders are slumped like he's carrying the weight of the world.

"I can't do this anymore," I whisper. "I can't raise him in this world, Lachlan. I can't watch him become?—"

I stop, my throat closing up, and Lachlan takes a step toward me, his hand reaching for mine.

"I know," he says quietly. There's no defensiveness in his voice, no argument. Just acceptance, now. "I saw it too."

"Saw what?"

"The look in his eyes when he held that gun." Lachlan's voice is rough, and when I look up at him, I can see the pain there. "I saw myself, Adriana. I saw the boy I used to be, before all of this. I saw what I could have been, and what I became instead. And I realized that if I don't stop this, he's going to become exactly what I am."

I have to lean against the doorframe to keep from collapsing. "I love you," I whisper. "I've always loved you, Lachlan. Even when I was terrified of you, I still loved you. But I love him more. I have to love him more. And if you make me choose?—"

"You'll choose him. I know. And you should. He deserves that. He deserves a mother who will protect him, even from me."

"I don't want to protect him from you." Tears roll off of my lashes and down my cheeks. "I want us to be a family. I want us to have the life we were supposed to have ten years ago. But I can't—I can't do it like this. I can't watch him grow up surrounded by violence and death and men who solve their problems with guns. I can't watch him become another casualty of this world."

"Then we won't." Lachlan takes another step toward me, and then his hands are on my face, his thumbs brushing away my tears. "We won't, Adriana. I promise you. This ends now."

"How? How does it end, Lachlan? You're the head of the Irish mob. You can't just walk away. There will always be another threat, another war, another?—"

"I'm stepping back."

I stare at him, uncomprehending. "What?"

"I'm done, Adriana. I'm done with the violence, with the bloodshed, with all of it. I thought about it on the drive here, and I thought about it while we were helping Matteo clean up. Declan can take over the operations. He's more than capable. I'll advise, I'll handle the legitimate businesses, but I'm out. No more putting myself—puttingus—in the line of fire."

I stare at him. "You mean it," I whisper, and it's not a question.

"I mean it." He leans his forehead against mine. "I saw what I almost did to him tonight, Adriana. I saw what this life almost turned him into. And I can't—I won't let that happen. I won't let him become what I am. I won't let this world consume him the way it consumed me."

"What about you?" I reach up, my hands covering his. "What about what this world has done to you? Can you really just walk away from it?"

"I don't know," he admits quietly. "I don't know if I can ever really be free of it. But I can try. For you. For him. For the life we were supposed to have."

I feel my heart crack open, and I pull him closer, my arms wrapping around his neck, my face buried in his shoulder. He holds me tight, his hands on my back, and we stand there in the doorway, clinging to each other like we're the only solid things in a world that's falling apart.

"I need to clean up," I whisper eventually, pulling back. "I need to—I can't think right now. I just need a minute."

"Take all the time you need," Lachlan says, and he presses a kiss to my forehead. "I'll be here."

I walk into the bathroom and close the door behind me, leaning against it for a moment as I try to catch my breath. My reflection in the mirror is a disaster, my hair tangled and dirty, my clothes filthy from the safe house. I look like I've been through a war.

I suppose I have.

I turn on the shower, letting the water heat up, and I strip off my clothes, dropping them in a heap on the floor. The steam fills the bathroom, and I step under the spray, trying to wash away the memory of tonight, the fear and the violence and the terrible moment when I thought I was going to lose everything.

But the water can't wash away the images burned into my mind. Matteo with that gun. The look in his eyes. The way his hands shook as he aimed it at Gio.

The way Lachlan shot first, saving our son from becoming a killer.

I press my hands against the tile wall, my head bowed, and I let myself cry.

And then I hear the door open.

"Adriana." Lachlan's voice is soft. "Can I come in?"