Sempre: Redemption (Forever Series #2)(153)

“Just had some shit to take care of, tesoro.”

“Looks like you’ve been playing football.”

“I feel like I’ve been playing football,” he muttered, rubbing his jaw. “Either that or I had my ass kicked.”

“Is that where you go at night when you disappear? A secret underground fight club?”

“Can’t say, tesoro. You know the rules,” he replied, laughing it off. “Anyway, the painting looks good.”

“Yeah, I figured out what it was missing,” she said, sticking her paintbrush into a container of water before pointing out the two shadowy figures clinging to the branches. “Us.”

Carmine smiled, wrapping his arms around her from behind. Leaning down, he kissed the nape of her neck. “Well, it’s perfect now. I know sometimes it’s hard seeing what’s right in front of you. I’ve personally f**ked up a few times missing what should’ve been obvious.”

“Like?”

“Like what you said earlier, about needing someone around who understands you,” he replied. “Because you’re right—it is important. When I left you back in Durante, I thought I was leaving for that reason. I thought I was coming here to be with people like me, who live the same life I do, but I was wrong. These people don’t understand me. They can’t. They might know what I’ve been through, but they have no clue how it feels. How it feels to lose your mother to this shit and to be robbed of a childhood. How it feels to have to pay for everyone else’s mistakes. They don’t get it, but you . . . you do. You’re the only one who ever has. I thought we’d be okay apart, but I was sorely mistaken. I don’t need much, Haven, but I do need you.”

“I need you, too, you know,” she said. “You make me feel safe.”

He smiled, kissing the top of her head. Twenty minutes earlier he had practically stared down death, tackling a man who probably wouldn’t have hesitated to kill him, and yet she still felt safe with him. Despite everything, she trusted him. She believed in him. She loved him.

And he loved her . . . more than anything in the world. She had given herself to him again, every barrier between them broken down. All of those unanswered questions, all of the worry, every single bit of it had been resolved the moment they came back together.

“Haven,” he said. “If I could have anything, I know what I’d ask for now.”

She pulled back from their hug to look at him with genuine curiosity. “What?”

Carmine took a step back, reaching around his neck to pull off the gold chain. He unfastened it, removing the small ring, and eyed it in his palm momentarily before dropping to his knee. “If I could have anything in the world, it would be for you to marry me.”

And just like that, all of the air was sucked from the room. She stared at Carmine with shock and his heart pounded furiously as he waited for her to say something . . . any-f**king-thing.

After a moment, tears formed in the corners of her eyes and one slid down her cheek. He brushed it away quickly as she smiled, the sight putting Carmine at ease. That smile was the only answer he needed.

“You wouldn’t ask for your freedom back instead?” she asked quietly.

He shook his head. “It wouldn’t be shit without you.”

46

This is completely unnecessary,” Haven grumbled, gazing out the darkly tinted side window. Buildings whipped by at a steady pace as they drove through the streets of Chicago, the scenery a blur in the darkness.

“Mr. DeMarco disagrees, ma’am,” a voice said politely from the front seat.

“Calling me ma’am is unnecessary, too,” she said, glancing at the driver. She noticed he was watching her in the rearview mirror, nervousness written on his face. It was obvious he was new, not wanting to mess up his first chance to prove himself.

“Sorry, ma’am,” he responded, his voice low as he averted his gaze.

She smiled softly as she looked back out of the window, the irony of the situation not at all lost on her. It astonished her how much had changed, their lives altered in ways they never would have imagined at the beginning. Haven often thought about everything that happened to lead them where they were, curious how things might have turned out had the circumstances been different. She knew it was senseless, because it was impossible to change anything, but she couldn’t help but wonder.

No matter how many times she thought it through, it always went back to a single event that had been the start of it all—the murder of her grandparents.

Grandparents—she doubted she would ever get used to saying it. She never considered a family outside of her mother. Carmine offered to explain what he knew, promising he would be more open with her in the future, but it was actually Corrado who told Haven the whole truth. He relayed stories he had heard about the type of people they had been, a strong family full of pride. Corrado said they had been overjoyed to have a daughter. It was startling to hear about her mother’s beginnings and to learn how much she had been wanted . . . how much she had been loved.

“Ma’am?” Haven glanced back over at the driver and saw he was watching her again. “There was an accident on Highway 41 that blocked northbound traffic. I had to take a detour, but it’ll only be a few minutes longer.”

She glanced at her watch, faintly making out the time in the darkness—a quarter past ten in the evening. “Okay.”