IF I EVER SEE Antonio Cavalli again, I swear to God, I'm going to break his nose.

I may have never punched anyone before, and I may not even know how to properly throw a punch, but I'm half-tempted to start training in MMA just to learn how to.

Of course, it's absolutely impossible to avoid him since he kidnapped me, and Katerina Steele, and now I'm trapped in his compound.

I feel so stupid. So idiotically blind, reckless, and completely unlike myself. This isn't a love story, is it? It never was. Because in love stories, the prince is supposed to save the princess from a tower. He doesn't imprison her in one next to another princess. He doesn't lock them both in a dungeon.

He's supposed to fight off the dragon. Not dredge all your demons to the surface and drag you into the darkness with him.

He's supposed to keep you safe, not plunge you and your eternal soul into mortal peril.

He's supposed to do a lot of things. And I was never supposed to be foolish enough to think that I could be powerful enough to change a man whether with my bare hands or my mere presence or anything else. Who did I think I was, God?

What an idiot you were, Christina.

I told myself I was just here to betray him. But now the thought of it, even after all that he's done to me, feels like betraying myself. And it is. To fight a man who is so embroiled in a life of crime and sin, I had to mirror his life. I had to lie and deceive and cheat just as he had likely defrauded and tricked so many people. How could you not fight fire with fire?

And what good came of it? Two damaged souls, and a shipment of drugs intercepted. But only one. Because there will be so many more after this. There will be so many more lives ruined whether by drugs or murder or theft or forgery. This is a tangled web and I willingly dove in with eyes wide open, not even trying to look away or escape the imminent danger.

One tear slides down my cheek. Then another. Then moments later, I'm breaking into full-blown sobs.

God, God I've made such a mistake. He is the biggest mistake I've ever made. God, I'm so sorry. Can you ever forgive me?

Of course, He can. Of course, He will. Yet I feel too broken to be forgiven, too dirty to ever be made pure again. Not just by Antonio's hands on my skin, or his kiss on my mouth, but by my own willing participation in them. In this relationship. In all of it.

He broke me, and I will never be whole again.

I knew what I was going into. Of course, I knew. The worst part isn't not knowing. It's that I knew and went in anyways. I never should have downloaded Tinder, or swiped right on Antonio, or done any of it.

God, my God, my Father, please, save me from my own sins. Save me from drowning in my own disaster that I've created. LORD, don't leave me here in my distress. Please, God, please...

I cry even harder. My nose stuffs up, my eyes swollen and painful, until no sound releases from my throat, until my body stops shaking. I curl up on the four-poster bed, my arms wrapped around my knees.

God, I'm so sorry I hurt You. Please forgive me and please help me to forgive others as You have forgiven my sins.

Wiping my eyes and grateful for the complete lack of mascara coating my lashes, I hear a knock on the door. Straightening, I call out, "Who is it?"

"It's Katerina. May I come in?"

I open the door. "Go ahead."

"Thanks." She glances at the tissues in my hands and my puffy eyes. "Are you okay? I heard crying."

"I'm not really okay," I say. "I was just praying."

"Oh." Katerina gestures toward the bed. "Can I sit?"

"Of course." I sit next to her on the foot of the bed, since the room holds no other furniture. "Please."

"Do you want to pray together?" she says. "I know we've just met, but... It never hurts."

I nod. "No, I mean, as far as I know, more prayer never hurt anyone."

"You'd be right about that." Her smile is sad, but not pitying as we bow our heads and pray. "Heavenly Father, I pray for Christina, Your daughter, that You would comfort her and give her your peace and love. For You say that when we sow with tears, we will reap with joy. I pray that You would fill us both with joy in time, that You would rescue us from those who seek to do harm, and that You would protect us, Father."

I clear my throat. "And I pray that justice would be done, Father, not by our hands to seek vengeance but by Yours. May you protect me and Katerina and her child, Lord, from danger and from evil. In Jesus's Name, I pray, Amen."

She wraps an arm around my shoulder and we sit in silence, meditating on the great sorrow and great joy we hold, all at once.

I DON'T KNOW HOW to make things right and I'm not sure that I ever will.

I sit in silence, staring at the lasagna as my aunt bustles around the kitchen, busying herself with cleaning. She tsks as I pick up the fork but don't bring any food to my mouth. "You're brooding."

"No, I'm not." I cut off a slice of lasagna and plop it onto my plate.

"What did you do to that poor girl?" she says, and I don't even know which one she's talking about, because what have I not done, really? What crimes have I not committed, what pains have I not inflicted?

"Everything," I say, taking a forkful of noodles, sauce, meat, and gooey cheese. "And nothing."

She sighs. "You know what, Tony? That, right there, is brooding. If you can't do anything about the situation, then there's no use in sitting on your butt and whining about it."

I finish the lasagna in a few bites, chewing slowly. "You're too wise, Zia Maria. As wise as you are beautiful."

My aunt rolls her eyes at the flattery. "My dear nephew, you must remember this, from your wise aunt, then. There is no sin too big for God to forgive."

"I hope you're right." I stand from the table, putting my plate in the sink.

"I always am." She smiles, but I scarcely feel the warmth of it.

Making my way toward Christina's room and hoping she doesn't rip my head off, I ponder the decisions that have led me to this place. Did I bring her here on purpose? Because I wanted her to know the truth, not to hide my worst crimes from her in the hopes that she could somehow provide absolution? If so, it's been a drastic failure and a doomed effort from the starter.

There is no sin too big for God to forgive. I remember Saul - no, Saint Paul - and how he persecuted Christians. Then, there was David, who committed adultery and killed the woman's husband. God forgave them.

Yet I am so much worse, I start to think, and stop myself. Jesus Christ came into this world to save sinners, of which I am the chief. Saint Paul's words. Surely, I cannot count myself worse?

Before I know it, I'm standing outside Christina's door, readying myself to knock. "May I come in?"

"Why bother to ask? You certainly weren't so polite when you kidnapped me," I hear Christina's muffled voice say before she flings open the door, revealing only Katerina sitting on the foot of her bed. It seems they've become friends. "Thanks for praying with me, Katerina. I think... we need to talk, alone."

"That would be best," I say stiffly. Whatever trust or intimacy we might have built up in the last months since we've known each other is gone now, demolished by both of our actions. We killed our own relationship, dousing it in gasoline before it ever had a chance to escape the flames.

Katerina leaves quietly, shutting the door behind her.

Christina looks at me like she would kill me if she thought herself capable of it. The fire in her eyes makes me sure that she could if she wanted to. After all, the purest hearts may be able to commit the darkest sins; it's only that they choose not to do so.

"What did you come here for?" she asks. "To tell me about another promise you broke or another lie you told me?"

The words spill out of me before I can control myself. She has that effect on me. "I came here to make you a promise and to tell you the truth, Christina. I know you betrayed me, and I know you were the one who fed information to the feds about the shipment of drugs. I know you were talking to Priscilla Martell."

"Then why am I alive?" she asks, pulling her shoulders back and tilting her head up to meet my gaze with her own, but tears spring up in her eyes.

The sight of her on the verge of crying breaks something in me, punches a hole in a wall that I had previously thought was solid brick. She thinks I would kill her.

And sadly, the truth is, if she were Mafia, I would. If she were one of the men that I had trusted my life to, I would never have brought her here. I would have taken her to my father or brought her out back and put a bullet between her eyes.

Instead, I brought her here to keep her safe.

I don't know where to go from here. To show her my mercy? Mercy in sparing her life? Or to threaten her with the possibility that I could, at any moment, snap her neck?

"Why am I still alive, Antonio?" Her voice is no longer calm. It's a breaking wave, a roll of thunder. "If you just brought me here to threaten me into telling you about who I told... who my informants are..."

"I presume you are the informant and that you were in the hallway listening to my father's conversations," I say flatly. "And I think I know damn well that you were talking to Lucas Black, your ex-boyfriend. There is nothing that I don't know."

"If you know so much, then tell me why I'm here," Christina says, breaking out into real sobs now. "Tell me why I'm not dead yet. Tell me why I decided to stay here, with you, to my own detriment. And now, to my own demise and execution, it seems."

"I don't know!" I snap. "I've been trying to figure that out this whole time, and I don't know. Because maybe you were FBI this whole time, and you fed me a pretty line about God, and you've twisted my head into a dozen incomprehensible shapes that I will never get straight. Because I kissed you, and you kissed me back, and you got into my car when you could have left, and you told me you trusted me when you had no reason to. Because I feel things for you that I've never felt for anyone before, and you are this beautiful, shining light in this dark world, and I would do terrible things just to keep from losing you."

"Those terrible things," Christina says and pauses to draw in a deep breath. "Antonio, those terrible things are what is going to make me leave you. They're what's making you lose me. Kidnapping a pregnant woman? Holing me up here in a medieval torture chamber? Antonio, you've lost me already. I may be here right now, but I will never be here, with you. You're breaking me apart, Antonio Cavalli, and I don't know how to stop it. I'm not a light in the darkness for you, and I can't be one. This world that you've dragged me into, I was stupid to think that it wouldn't taint me."

"Come on, Christina," I say, and my voice cracks. "You're not stupid."

"Is that all you have to say to me?" she says, pointing her finger in my face. She shoves at my chest, hard. I am unmoved, physically, but inside, I am a mess of emotions: hurt and indignation and so much confusion. "You're not stupid? I'm done, Antonio. I'm done. Get me out of here. Please."

"Christina, please..." I reach for her, trying to hold her hands that she just used to keep me away from her. "We both know there will be consequences."

She shakes her head. "Whatever the consequences are, they'll be better than living in limbo for the rest of my life. I would rather know whether I land in heaven or hell than be stuck wondering for eternity."

"Fine." My shoulders sag. There's not a thing I can do or say to convince her. I don't want a half-dead shell of a girl in my life. It's either all of her or nothing. "Get your things. I'll drive you home and this will be the last time we ever see each other."

"You told me you had a promise to make me," she says, and her lip trembles. She bites down as though regretting the show of weakness. "What was it?"

"That I promise this is the last time," I lie.

Christina shakes her head, not believing me, but not caring enough to ask me again. We walk out of the fortress in silence.

But when we make it to the driveway, my father's Lamborghini pulls up.