Tangled In Strings

Chapter Nine

Something in his eyes makes me believe he can cut straight through my words to find their true meaning. He steps up to me, observing me silently. I force myself to keep his gaze, biting hard on my mouth. Somehow that keeps me together.

A low hum of resistance buzzes in my throat when he reaches up to clasp my face. Even with my cheek turned from him, I sense his eyes. His thumbs lightly trace my face.

"You have family, Scarlett."

His words break me. I weaken to him, tilting my face back to find his eyes. They are filled with things I expected to see and things I didn't. There's pity, loving compassion, well-hidden anger, the effects of realizations. But what guts me to see is the water brimming along his eyelids, accompanying his pleading gaze.

He presses his head to mine. "And I will love you unconditionally. Always."

"Stop. Please."

He pulls back, staring down at me. "It kills me to see you like this."

I lift my gaze to the sky, breathing out deeply. Despite the force of my blow, the air deflates shakily as I struggle with myself. "It would be selfish of me... to move in with you. To put you through this before I've gotten a handle on it."

"No, it wouldn't. It wouldn't."

I begin to loosen myself from his grip, and he exhales.

"You're scared. I understand that."

"Do you?" I wipe my face hastily. "I don't think you can understand it. You're telling me that you're my family. That you will love me unconditionally like a family member would... do know how what it's like to hear someone say that, after the life I've witnessed? The people I've encountered? How fucking scared that would make me at the thought of losing it?"

"You're not going to."

God, it feels like we've had his argument fifty times before. It always comes back to haunt us.

"Sometime this is going to get old. That's an inevitability."

"No, because in time, we'll be able to talk through this. At some point, you won't run from me."

"And you know this how?"

His gaze is searing. "Because you'll have a damn ring on your finger."

I flinch. Literally flinch at his words.

The slim lines of water rimming his eyelids glisten in the moonlight.

"I will marry you, Scarlett, right now if I have to, to prove that point to you." He shakes his head. "I'm not going anywhere."

I gawk at him, feeling the blood draining from my face. "I don't want marriage. I don't want children, Giovanni. I don't. I won't lie, if I could bring myself to imagine those things again, there's no one I'd want but you. But honestly, I've done the wife thing. What did that get me? I was shackled to Dixon. I almost didn't get away."

"I am not Dixon."

"I'm not saying you are. You know you aren't him, Giovanni. Come on!"

"I'm... sorry to interrupt–"

I look around Giovanni as he pivots, finding his aunt walking up to us. I notice him tense as I do. He holds up his hand.

"Zia, this is between Scarlett and me."

"Your friends want to say goodbye."

"We're in the middle of something, and it's private," he states firmly, clearly angry and frustrated and upset. I look down with shame.