TWENTY-FIVE

through to the front of the police station where Arturo was waiting. The moment he saw me he pushed away from the front desk but I took a step back.

"What's wrong?" he asked.

I glanced to Pedro who was watching us intently. I didn't want to do this here. Not in front of everyone. "I...nothing. Let's get in the car."

I made an effort to walk ahead of Arturo so he couldn't put his hand on the small of my back. I couldn't risk being thrown off track by his touch. I had to remind myself that I was seething with anger. I climbed into the back of the SUV silently while Arturo got in at the other side and Marco started the engine. "Glad to have you back, fiore," he said.

I said nothing.

I could sense that Arturo was studying me as we drove along, gauging what was wrong. I stared out of the window and stayed silent. If he were to shoot me now, and leave me in a ditch just like Antonio did with Rachel, like Giovanni did with Lacey, nobody would know. Nobody would care.

I'd been living in blissful oblivion for the past month. But now I knew I couldn't un-know, and I couldn't live like that. I wouldn't.

When we arrived at Arturo's house, I somehow expected it to have changed. Maybe the glass walls should have seemed a little less inviting, the surrounding pines more menacing after my absence. It was secluded and isolated, just like me. The perfect place for illegal activities. The perfect place for murder. But the house hadn't changed, not at all. It looked the same; just as grand and beautiful as the first time I set eyes on it.

Maybe it was me who had changed.

Marco switched up the SUV for his own sports car and drove off down the dirt track while we trudged inside. I still couldn't bring myself to speak. Not until we got inside, where we were truly, at last, alone.

Arturo approached me with open arms as if to draw me into them. "I'm so glad you are home, mio amore."

It wasn't that he called me his love that worried me. I loved Arturo, and I always would. I knew that. It was the fact that he called this place - this house - my home. I stepped back as he reached me and ducked out of his arms. "Florence?" His brow furrowed with confusion. "What is the matter?" he demanded and I crossed my arms. "Well?"

"I—Van Der Bilt," I choked out. I could feel that familiar ache in the back of my throat: a build up of emotion. I wouldn't cry in front of Arturo. I couldn't. "He was the lawyer you sent," I whispered.

A flash of anger crossed Arturo's stormy eyes as he moved to cup my face and demanded, "did he do something?

"N—no." Once again I moved out of his reach. "No, he-"

"Florence," Arturo interrupted, "did he do something-"

"No!"

"Then what?" he snapped exasperatedly. "You are home free, aren't you? You've no prison sentence, no criminal record..."

"It's not about that," I said, shaking my head. When he continued to stare at me, completely oblivious, my anger only grew. "Do you really not get it?"

"It would appear not," he said coolly.

"Exactly!" I exclaimed. "You can't even see what's so fucked up about this whole thing." As I said this I marched over to the stairs, taking them two at a time. Arturo's footsteps followed closely behind me.

"About what whole thing?" he asked as I stormed into our bedroom. He leaned against the doorframe while I threw open the doors of the walk-in closet, his demeanour annoyingly calm. I ignored him and grabbed a duffel bag, stuffing whatever clothes my hands came into contact with inside.

"I just—I have—to get—out—" I was forcing as many tops as I could, cramming them in.

"What are you doing?" Arturo asked as I pushed past him out of the doorway and crossed the room to the bathroom. Again, he followed, lingering as I shoved toiletries into the bag. "Florence," his hand brushed my shoulder while I forced the zip, "this is madness."

I shrugged him off. "You're right," I said, "it is. I can't believe-"

This time when his hand gripped my shoulder it was firm. He span me around and held me in place with his other hand on my hip. I scowled back at him, angry at myself for being unable to shove him off. Not that I didn't want to shove him off; I physically couldn't.

"Tell me what you're going crazy about," he demanded quietly, brushing hair out of my eyes. "Why are you packing a bag?"

"I'm leaving," I said, glaring back at him. "Let me go."

"I didn't ask what you were packing a bag for, I asked why."

"Let go of me-"

"Florence-"

"Let me fucking go!" This time my voice broke when I said it and I could feel moisture welling behind my eyes. Arturo's hands dropped immediately and he stepped back, looking bewildered.

"I don't understand," he said as I picked up the bag. "Why do you want to go?"

"My whole life," I gulped, "my whole life revolves around you. Everything, it's all about you."

"You're not making any sense."

"Do you know how many friends I have, Arturo?" I snapped. Tears leaked onto my cracked lips and I could taste the salt on my tongue. Arturo just watched me quietly, so I continued, "none, that's how many! I have no one!"

"I thought you and Marco were friends," he said obliviously. "My men, they like you, and Amber, you have her-"

"Yeah, because you really let me see her all the time!" I scoffed.

"You never asked..." Arturo said with a slight frown, as if he couldn't possibly comprehend why I might not have asked him.

"As if you'd have let me."

"Florence, of course I-"

"And even if you had, she's connected to you." With the straps of the duffel bag around my shoulder I folded my arms and gritted my teeth as if that might stop my tears. "I have no family, no support system, everything revolves around you," I said miserably. My job had been everything to me; to have its validity ripped away hurt more than I'd realised. Especially when it meant that the person I loved most in the world had deceived me.

Arturo reached an arm out as if to touch me but dropped it back down when I flinched. "You have a job," he said, bewildered. "We talked about this—you said you wanted a job, so you got one. You never told me you felt like this."

"And you never told me that the only reason I got that job was because of you!" I accused. "Everything is controlled by you, Arturo, my job, my money, my car, my life—"

"And everything I do is to keep you safe."

"You're so full of horse shit, Arturo, you really are."

At last there was a glint of anger in his eyes. "You've no idea how much time and energy I have spent on you," he snapped. "Keeping your stupid ass safe when you insist on running into problems, making sure you never get to see the other side of my life. Jesus, Florence, any other woman might have been a just a little fucking grateful, the amount of times you could have died-"

"Grateful?" I scoffed. "Grateful for what, exactly? For your up-and-down moods when I worked for you? For the way you put a fucking gun in my mouth and almost pulled the trigger? For almost being captured by some sleaze bag? Being arrested and held for days, only to find out my whole job is a lie?" Throughout my rant I'd taken steps closer to Arturo, and now I was so close that I could jab my finger hard into his chest. He looked down at it as though it was nothing. "You lied to me," I hissed quietly, unable to raise my voice any louder for fear of it breaking. "My whole life revolves around you, and you lied."

The longer Arturo stared down at me the deeper the silence between us got. I dropped my hand and took a step back, suddenly feeling the power behind his eyes. He clenched his jaw and said, "I was trying to protect you-"

"Just stop already!" I interrupted. "You weren't saving me, you were saving yourself because you didn't just trust me enough to work for a law firm that didn't belong to you!"

"You're right," Arturo shrugged coolly, his calm demeanour returning. "I didn't trust you. Can you blame me, after I found out you were just some Genovese girl who had managed to deceive me so completely? Who had managed to make me fall in love—" he said the word resentfully, "—only to find out that it was all a lie?"

"I'm not a Genovese," I growled angrily, "not anymore."

"Not now," Arturo shrugged, "but you were then."

"You forgave me," I snapped.

"Forgiveness and trust are not the same."

I could feel myself getting sidetracked and it angered me even more. A fresh wave of frustration washed over me, pushing me to turn away from Arturo and bundle the bag out of the door. I got to the top of the stairs before Arturo's voice sounded from behind me. "Where are you going?"

"It doesn't matter that you don't trust me," I said, taking the stairs two at a time, "it matters that you lied."

Arturo followed me into the kitchen where I picked my car keys up off the island and then, for a moment, our eyes locked. "Where will you go, Florence?" he asked, voice filled with fake concern. The only reason he probably cared was in case I got him into some sort of trouble. "You have nowhere to go," he said.

"I guess you'll find out, won't you?" I laughed then, a cold, humourless laugh, holding the car keys up in front of me. "After all, you've been following me this whole time, haven't you?" Arturo just stared at me. "Haven't you?"

"I was keeping you-"

"Safe?" I laughed again. "It's funny, really, isn't it, how you kept that quiet too? I mean, god knows what the hell else you've been hiding from me these past few months. Any confessions to make, Arturo?" He opened his mouth but I ploughed on before he could speak, "Maybe like a tracker in my phone, hmm? Was that as well as the one in my car, or is there just one?"

"Cazzo!" he cursed, "you're acting crazy!"

(Fuck)

"Tell me the truth, Arturo," I demanded, "for once, just tell me the damn truth."

He slammed his fist down onto the island and I jumped at the sudden noise. "Of course I keep an eye on where you are!" he exploded suddenly. "Since the first day I met you you've been on my mind, Florence, and I told myself I wouldn't do this-"

"Then why did you?" I snapped, expecting him to talk about lying to me, but instead he continued,

"-I swore I wouldn't let myself get close to you. Do you have any idea how much danger you are in, right this second, just from being with me?" I shook my head and swallowed, hard. "Working for me, sure, that means that the blows could fall in your direction. But being with me, being physically intimate with me, emotionally? I might as well have painted a big red fucking target right on your head. The danger I've put you in..." he stopped then, and seemed to hold back from saying something. "If anything happened to you—if you got hurt—I would never forgive myself."

I shook my head and whispered, "I have been hurt, Arturo. Except you're the one who hurt me."

"I'd do it again," he said and my hands curled into fists. "To keep you safe, I would."

"You'd lie to me? Deceive me?"

"And if I'd asked your permission, you'd have let me?"

"No," I said. "I wouldn't have."

"Then yes, I'd do it again. To keep you safe, I'd do anything."

"You're not keeping me safe!" I exclaimed furiously. "You didn't even manage to protect me from having to shoot someone, you didn't stop me from getting arrested, and you barely got me out!"

Arturo tried to step closer to me around the island but I moved away. "I try to have one of my men keeping tabs on you, just to check you're safe. I will have the balls of the guy who didn't notice you weren't where you should have been, but-"

"And there's the problem." Arturo stared at me, bewildered. "You try to control everything and everyone around you, including me. I am totally isolated and completely dependent on you, you couldn't even let me get a job of my own because you're so incapable of trusting anyone. I mean, I get it, Arturo, being around you is dangerous—but you can't even trust me?"

"Florence-"

"Stop." He clamped his jaw shut suddenly and shot me a look like he wanted to kill me. "You know what the worst part of it all was?" My eyes were starting to water again so I knew I needed to leave soon. "The worst part wasn't that you didn't trust me, it was that you lied to me. I asked you on the way back from Lucas' how you knew where I was, and you just evaded the question. You said you put two and two together, but you didn't, did you?"

The way Arturo was looking at me, silently pleading, I knew the answer was no. A fresh bout of tears flooded my cheeks but I bit my lip and persisted.

"Tell me that my job was a coincidence," I begged suddenly. I so badly wanted for the words coming out of my own mouth to be the truth, I was desperate. "Tell me you didn't ask Van Der Bilt to hire me?"

"I-"

"Yes or no."

"No," he sighed defeatedly.

My lip quivered. "No what?"

"No, I can't tell you that," Arturo said, "because it's true."

I reached a hand up to cover my mouth as a sob threatened to erupt from my chest. I swallowed back more tears and just managed to whisper, "and you didn't just put two and two together?"

He shook his head, "no."

It felt like my legs were going to crumple beneath me. With a sharp breath I turned and ran out of the door, slamming it closed, duffel bag forgotten on the island.

I didn't even have that.