Page 86 of Perfect Vengeance

Her body trembled. She clenched her hands into tight fists. “You killed him.”

“Dammit, Gina!” He bolted from the chair to grip her forearms. “I’m sorry. You have no idea how sorry I am.”

She attempted to extricate herself from his grip, but he wouldn’t let her.

Her eyes went wild and stormy, like the Atlantic in a hurricane. “How long have you known? How long?”

When she tried jerking away from him again, he let her go. “Two minutes.”

“How could you do that to him?” Her trembling intensified, and her knuckles went white. “Why did you force him to wear that wire? Why, Jack? He wasn’t a hardened criminal. He had a wife and a daughter he loved. Me.” She jabbed a finger at her chest, then advanced on him. “Because of you, I have no father. If my father were still alive, my mother wouldn’t have taken up with a man who beat her to death.”

Jack knew her mother was dead but hadn’t known how she’d died. Now he felt even worse. He dragged a hand down his face. “If I could change the past, I would. But I can’t.” The look of fury on her face ripped into his heart like nothing else could.

“No. You can’t.” She stood less than six inches from him, but it felt like a mile, and she was slipping further from his life with every passing second.

“Gina, please.” He didn’t know what to say or do to make her believe him, to help her understand that this was the world he lived and worked in, and it had been her father’s world too.

She took a step back. “You and Franco took everything from me. Everyone I held dear and loved.”

“I wasn’t the one who pulled the trigger.” The words sounded stupid, even to him. He had nothing else left in his arsenal.

“How can you say that?” Tears streamed down her pale cheeks, each one gutting him as surely as a knife strike. “You put him in front of the gun. You put him in front of that bullet. Just like I did to Kinsey. That will always be my fault.”

Jack exhaled a short breath. He’d been hoping they’d gotten past that trail of guilt. It would suck hearing it, but she had to hear the truth. “Your father was working off criminal charges. He got caught up in the system, and⁠—”

“The system?” Her eyes widened. “The system?” She lunged for him, pounding at his chest with her fists, and he let her. “You bastard,” she cried, and kept pounding until her hits lessened in strength and she crumpled to the floor, covering her face with her hands while she cried.

Jack gritted his teeth. She was in pain, and he was the cause. There was nothing he wanted more than to pick her up off the floor, cradle her against him, and find a way to make her love him the way he loved her. That wasn’t possible now. Or ever.

Just when he’d convinced himself otherwise, doubt crowded in. Maybe he had killed her father. As surely as Franco had pulled the trigger.

“Get out,” she said quietly, then with more volume until she was shouting at the top of her lungs. “Get out, get out, get out!” she screamed.

He couldn’t believe it had come to this. Numbly, he shoved his feet into his shoes, then collected the rest of his clothes and his weapon. Gina remained on the floor, staring glassy-eyed at her fists. This wasn’t the right time to tell her, but he might not get another chance. “There’s one more thing you should know.” She lifted her red, watery gaze to his. “I love you. I love you so much…” It hurts. More than that. He loved her so much it was killing him.

Her eyes widened a fraction, flaring with acknowledgment. Little by little, the light in them died. “Get out,” she said in a voice completely devoid of emotion.

His heart thudded dully in his chest. He resisted the urge to shake some sense into her, to convince her they could get past this. The vacant look in her eyes told him otherwise. He was a man of action, and he was utterly powerless to fix the mess he’d created. Fate really was a bitch.

He turned and walked out of the bedroom, rubbing the center of his chest with his palm. The grandfather clock ticked away in the foyer, reminding him of all the time he and Gina had shared and all the time they never would. He stepped outside the apartment and into the hallway, closing the door behind him and feeling as if he were leaving his entire world behind. Five minutes ago, he’d stupidly, naively imagined having a life with the woman he loved. Now, he had nothing.

Anger balled in his gut at how many lives the Falzones had destroyed over the decades. He punched the elevator button so hard the plastic cover cracked. When the elevator arrived, he walked in and leaned against the wall.

Without knowing it, the Falzones had extracted the ultimate vendetta against him. They’d taken away what he loved and cherished most.

Gina.

Chapter Twenty-Two

Gina’s head pounded and her heart ached with so much grief she could barely draw a breath. The front door clicked shut as Jack walked out, taking what was left of that stupid, beating muscle in her chest with him.

I love you. Words that should have made her heart flutter madly with joy. Instead, they killed everything inside her.

Her stomach lurched violently, and she covered her mouth with her hand and raced into the bathroom. Falling to her knees, she flipped up the toilet seat lid and heaved the few sips of water she’d downed only minutes ago.

Jack had been the nameless, faceless man she’d hated all this time. She still couldn’t believe it. Neither did her stomach, which racked with violent dry heaves. She crumpled to her side on the floor, wrapping her arms tightly around her body. Tears flowed like twin rivers from her eyes.

Why, of all people, did it have to be him? The man she’d fallen inescapably in love with.