Against Everything Else

20. Achille's Heel

Authors Note!!!

If you guys haven't already checked, I accidentally uploaded an incomplete chapter! So if you haven't already, please read chapter 19 again before reading this one!

XOXO, 

Your Author

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Vincenzo's POV

She was officially mine.

Mine to care for. Mine to hold. Mine to love.

Mine.

I looked down at the small frame that was snuggled up beside me. Her arms were wrapped around my thighs, hugging them tightly while her head rested on my lap, as if they were the softest pillow in the world. We had landed a few hours ago and were on our way back to the Manor. She was so excited about the events from the previous night that she had barely rested on our flight back, instead, she chose to fill the time by asking me to repeat my speech, over and over and over again.

Exhaustion got the better of her, as she lay on me, her legs stretched out against the backseat of the car, the sounds of her soft snoring filling the silence.

I bent down and pressed my lips gently against her forehead as my hands ran through her soft hair. Almost immediately, as if she had felt my touch, I watched her pink lips twitch into a small smile before they fell back into a thin line again. I shook my head, but continued to run my hands down her hair until her little snores could be heard again.

''What are we going to do when Giovanni finds out?" Antonio was the first to break the silence, his eyes quickly reaching the rearview mirror to look at me before he continued to focus back on the road ahead.

"And what about the Russians?" Luca turned around from the passenger seat and glanced over at Avery, whose breathing had now steadied and slowed down. "What happens when they find out about her. They'll target her, to target us, Don."

"You think I don't know that?" I sighed, leaning back against the headrest as I closed my eyes. I knew what my world was like. I knew that her innocence in this world is what would have kept her safe, unknown and therefore unharmed. If she did not know of this world, if she was not exposed to it, to us, no one would try to hurt her.

But I had to fall for her.

I had to be greedy and bring her into this, knowing exactly what would happen if I continued to fall for her.

Love is the most powerful weapon to one, and the cruellest destruction to another.

My grandfather had always engraved this into me. He had taught me that love will always lead to bloodshed and the fall of century-old empires. Empires that were built by people who had nothing, people who had to endure the most hell like life on earth, before they could finally succeed. Love is the only thing in this world that can make the strongest man weak again.

Yet here I am, risking it all, just for a chance to be loved by her.

"I'll protect her from anything this world has to offer. No one would ever touch her." Antonio glanced over at me in the rearview mirror again and sighed.

"Don, I know you care about her." Luca started, "We all do. But bringing her into this... feels cruel."

"It feels like leading a lamb straight into a slaughterhouse," Antonio muttered.

I sighed and looked down at her. I know I should have let her go, let her leave this life.

But I am a selfish man. I could not bring myself, no matter how hard I tried and how many times the thought had crossed me, I could not bring myself to let her leave me.