Assassin's Heart (Assassin's Heart, #1)(73)

“You took my key,” I interrupted. “Is that what you used to get into our house? The key you stole from me in the guise of our game?”

He didn’t answer, but I could read the truth in his eyes, in the lines of his frown. I groaned. He had used me. I had loved him and he had destroyed me.

“How long had your Family known about us? From the beginning? Was it ever even a secret?”

“Of course it was! But they found out. A week or so before . . . before. It was do what they said, Lea, or die. Prove myself a Da Via once and for all. So I did what they told me.”

I stopped shaking. I would be a statue. I would not let him affect me anymore. “Were you there that night? Did you fight my father or brothers in the dark smoke?”

“No! I wasn’t there!”

I would never trust him again.

“I only learned about the full plan a few hours before,” he said. “And when that happened . . .” He scratched the top of his scalp, mussing his carefully groomed hair.

“I asked you not to go home, Lea.” He rested his head against the bars as he studied the ceiling. “I asked you to come with me, but you refused. I wanted to save you. To keep you safe.”

My blood turned to cold silver in my veins. “You could have told me,” I whispered. “I could have warned them, saved us all. . . .”

He shook his head. “I couldn’t betray my Family. It was a test for me. If I had told you the truth, they would’ve had my heart. Estella does not suffer traitors in the Da Via Family.”

“There were other options, Val,” I scoffed. “There could have been other plans. But you chose to save yourself instead of saving me and my Family. And now you come here and expect me to be happy to see you? I don’t ever want to see you again.”

“Don’t say that.” His voice emerged quiet and small.

“I wish you were dead and gone from my life.”

“It doesn’t have to be this way. I’ve come here to bail you out. To take you home with me.”

Back to Lovero, where lanterns lit the night and the sea air tasted of salt and brine.

But home was for family, and Ravenna was the place where my Family had died. It wasn’t only angry ghosts that haunted the night.

“Your Family doesn’t want to accept me,” I said.

“They thought you were Rafeo.”

Ah. They’d let me in not because I was somehow worth more than Rafeo, because my life had more value. No. They thought I’d be easier to control than Rafeo. They thought they could manipulate me with Val, like they had before with the key. They were wrong.

“Rafeo’s dead. He bled out in my arms, and I have you and your Family to blame for that. I’m not going with you, Val. Ever. I’m going to kill your Family, and if you value your own life, you’ll flee now while you can.”

He glared at me. “You watch! Yvain will hang you from a noose as if you’re nothing more than a common cutthroat! Is that what you want?”

I shrugged. “I couldn’t stand to look at you for the rest of my life and remember how warm Rafeo’s blood felt as it washed over my hands.”

And I realized it was true. Yes, Val was beautiful, and once upon a time I’d thought I loved him, but now anything I felt was just an echo of that old Lea, the one who had died with her Family in the fire. Val didn’t make me feel safe. Val didn’t make me feel warm. And he only ever helped himself.

He banged on the bars with his fists. The frustration rolled off him like a cloud of black flies. “Why did you even come here, Lea? You wouldn’t be in this mess if you’d stayed in Lovero!”

“And what was there for me?” I shouted. “Your Family, hunting me like a rat? The Addamos, trying for a piece of the prize? In Lovero, I felt like an orphan!”

He stared at me, his anger turning his hazel eyes black. Then his anger vanished.

“What?” I asked. “What are you looking at?”

He turned and banged on the cell door. “Lawman!”

“What is it?” I stood and grabbed his shoulder. Something had changed. Two seconds ago he was practically begging me to forgive him, to go with him to Lovero, and now he was in a rush to leave. “Val!”

Lefevre walked down the hall, keys in hand. Val faced me again, taking my hands in his own. A war of emotions played over his face.

“I can’t help you Lea, not unless you want me to. I wish you’d believe me when I say I love you and miss you and wish more than anything things hadn’t happened the way they did and you’d come home with me. But I can’t change the past, and I can’t ask for your forgiveness, because I’m not sure I forgive myself.”

Lefevre unlocked the cell, and Val slipped out. “Good-bye, Lea. I’ll come if you need me.”

He strode down the hall, his boots clicking sharply on the stone floor.

Lefevre faced me and grinned. “Lovers’ quarrel?”

“No.” I sat on the bed. There was no love left between us.

Once Val left, I mulled over everything he’d said. My Family was dead. His Family killed them. There was no reconciliation possible. There never could be.

Lefevre chuckled from outside my cell. I ignored him. But Val had been right. Two more lawmen soon arrived to help Lefevre escort me to wherever we were going.