Page 208 of Valentino

Another eye roll in the rearview mirror.

“Are you going to kidnap me?” I scoff as I look out the window. “Is that what you’re going to do?”

“Don’t tempt me,” he mutters under his breath.

“Or maybe you’ll just get Romeo to murder me.”

His eyes meet mine in the rearview mirror. “What the fuck is that supposed to mean?”

“Oh…he didn’t tell you?” I fire back. “Last time I saw Romeo he threatened to kill me. Such nice friends you have, Valentino…. Why am I not surprised?”

“What?” He screws his face up. “He did not.”

“Ask him.” I glare out the window. “He said that if I told the police the wrong thing that he was going to kill me.”

Amusement flashes across his face before he quickly recovers it. “Romeo is a loyal friend.”

“Or just a murdering criminal.”

“Emotions were high that night.”

They were.

Suddenly I’m back there…feeling the betrayal all over again as if it’s only just happening now.

I find myself fighting tears.

Do. Not. Cry.

I stare out the window, and I don’t know if he can sense how close I am to losing it, but he keeps quiet.

“I had intel,” he says softly as he turns a corner.

“What are you talking about?” I frown.

“I had a bug in the commissioner’s car; I overheard a conversation that I wasn’t supposed to.”

“No idea who or what you are talking about, Valentino.”

“They said you were still with Carlo.”

My eyes meet his in the rearview mirror. “So you believed it? Just like that?”

“You hid the phone, Anna. There’s no denying it; you hid the phone.”

“I told you why,” I fire back. “I didn’t want you to get arrested, I stupidly thought I was protecting you. You didn’t even ask me; you just cut me out of your life. It was you who betrayed me that night, Valentino, not the other way around.”

He gives a subtle shake of his head.

I snap my eyes back out the window and damn it, if only I could have my time again. There are no words, none that can justify what I did. It was single-handedly the biggest regret of my life.

We drive in silence for a long time, his eyes keep flicking up to me in the rearview mirror as if waiting for me to say something.

I don’t.

What’s the point, it doesn’t matter anyway.

The farther we drive in silence, the bigger the lump in my throat gets and the closer we get to home, the more my heart breaks. Because I realize that it’s impossible for anything to change.