Twisted Fate (Dark Heart Duet #2) - Ella James Page 0,60

fucked. You were going to Columbia. I wasn’t about to wreck that! The second that I thought about it—really thought—I knew I never could.”

“How would you have wrecked it?” I can’t read her face as she grips the sheet she’s got pulled over her chest.

“You ever heard what happened to your granddad’s wife?”

Her eyes go so wide, I feel a kick of regret mentioning it. But I decide to press where it hurts. Touching her again here in this cabin would be a mistake I don’t know how I’d come back from. All that about “better to have loved and lost”—those bastards don’t know shit.

“Yeah, you thought about that yet?” I ask. “Lamberto is your blood, cara. You know what happened to his wife? The one he claimed in public?”

Her brows notch just slightly. I step over to the bed, standing before her, still unclothed from what we just did. “Your dad’s mother was the mistress. Lamberto’s wife, she got gunned down. It was a retribution killing. She was at a beauty parlor.”

I can’t be sure, but I think her cheeks lose some of their color.

“The way I did it was the right way. I didn’t get to follow my dreams, but you got to be D.A. Now I get to see you in my dreams and in my nightmares.” I’m going for funny. Just some sort of fucked-up humor moment, something true but softer. But I don’t make my mark. A single tear drips down her cheek.

20

Elise

If I live to be one hundred, I will never forget those words, in his quiet voice. “Now I get to see you in my dreams and in my nightmares.” I’ll be seeing the way his cheek tucked up in the world’s saddest smile. For me. Nor will I forget his blue eyes when he said that crazy stuff about the train. How he looked…proud that he’d shattered my heart.

All the…killings. That spiked my pulse at first, but God, he really is the same. No one who takes spiders outside “to feed frogs” is murdering unnecessary people.

I laugh as a tear drips down my cheek. Unnecessary people. I am losing my mind.

I watch him walk back over to his weekend bag, pull out another pair of boxer-briefs.

“You know what I think about spiders? And really all indoor bugs?” I ask, looking at him in the mirror as he runs a hand back through his hair again. “I feel like—okay, I know this is crazy. Sort of crazy. But I can’t help wondering if like…everything is this system, right? I mean, we know it is. Just look at the bacteria in a human body. We are carrying these tiny, microscopic things around within us—in our stomachs, on our skin. And then the system widens to the population level, and species level, and the ecosystem level. Then you get to the planet level, the galaxy level. Like, we’re the planet’s skin bacteria, and we don’t even know it. Anyway. If it’s all connected—if maybe we’re all just one big system—then it bothers me to kill the spiders. I was killing them through college and law school. But then—” I shake my head. “Now I take them outside. When I get them. Which in my place now, I never do, because they spray stuff.”

My eyes grab his as he turns back to me, and his lips twitch in this smirky little smile. It used to be the smile that told me he thought I was cute or funny. Charming. It’s the smile that says I like you. Just because.

“So you’re not killing any spiders,” he says, gripping the dresser’s ledge and leaning back against it.

“No,” I whisper.

He steps closer. There’s a notch between his brows as he crouches by the bed’s low mattress, reaching toward my face without touching it.

“I think you got a dimple, rosa.”

I can feel my cheeks warm as I cover the left one with my hand. “No I didn’t.” I did.

“Yeah, I think you did. I’m pretty sure. Let me see.”

“Dimples were your thing.”

He grins, showing it off. “Man indention.”

There’s a moment here; I’ve noticed there almost always is. Luca grins with his dimple. I’m smiling at him, feeling the smile down to my soul. And I have this moment where it’s all a clear path. As I look into his blue eyes, drinking in his Luca-ness—right here beside me, so close I feel dizzy—I feel something shift deep in my soul, where coal is shoved into the heart fire to keep