Chasing Stars - A Midnight Mafia Novel

Chapter Twenty

I couldn't stay.

I mean, how could I have? He asked for space and time.

Maybe it was the right thing to do after all the inexcusable things we had both done. Maybe it was cruel of me to leave after Alessio had opened up to me and told me about his mother. Maybe it was cruel of him to drop this bomb on me and then leave me alone to continue to stew over his actions the night before and also the new information he had dropped on me.

He thought I wanted it, and physically, I did, but I had said no. But he thought I was just being difficult because I was annoyed, playing hard to get maybe? And then he hurt don't stop, don't stop, as I came when I had meant don't, stop, don't, stop as I tried not to.

I understood. Really, I did. Maybe it was because there was still the ugly rainclouds over my head pouring thoughts of Nash and my almost betrayal onto me all day and night. I was guilty too, and unlike Alessio I couldn't be open and honest about it. Maybe it was because I felt bad for Alessio, as Pietro had said this was all he'd ever known, and now to hear what his mother had gone through? Maybe that was why I wanted to forgive him, maybe it was just because I loved him. Maybe even though he said he wouldn't have stopped I still didn't believe him.

I went to Stacey's and had been staying there for a few days since. I had had a lot of time to think about it. Could I leave Alessio? Because of what he had done, the things he had said?

Did I believe his story? That he hadn't cheated? That he didn't know I didn't want to?

Yes.

Did that excuse everything? His tantrum, his wanting to hurt me, his violating me in a way that I was not prepared for?

No.

I heard him. He wasn't safe. He couldn't protect me from the people or himself even. I heard him. I saw him for who he was, the messed up, cruel, cold individual he was. He was angry, and mean, and sinister and I know for a fact that he enjoyed hurting the people who crossed him, he did so without a second thought. Could I be with him? This person? The cruel person? The harsh person who had pushed me? Had done something unthinkable. Did I want to be with him?

Yes.

Absolutely.

I knew I loved the sarcastic, OCD, sometimes socially inept idiot who told me to shit in my hand and slap myself with it, the man who took my to my highest point, literally, on the bridge, the man that trusted me enough to risk his entire business by not moving it when I had come down. I loved Alessio because as cold, cruel, and sadistic as he was, he was still the man who had chosen not to shoot me from the very start, the man who put me as a scape goat onto his phone, the man who held me every night and who loved me so much that it nearly kept us apart permanently.

He was my rarity. I wouldn't go as far as to say he was a rose in a field of daises because frankly, that's far too feminine for Alessio, even if it was just a metaphor. But just as he claimed I was his something special, he was mine. Together we drove each other to the brink of insanity, but somehow, we managed to hold onto each other, just barely, enough to keep from falling.

Would it work out? Hell, I didn't know. I didn't know if I'd make it to the end of the week if I stayed with him. But I knew I loved him, I knew he loved me, and I knew I wanted to be with him. Despite everything.

I knew love wasn't always enough to make a relationship work. I meant that when I said it. Just because we loved one another did not ensure we had a future together but I knew that I was willing to try. I loved him.

And yet...here I was on Stacey's couch for the third night in a row. Alessio hadn't texted. He hadn't called. I had even checked my email. Nothing. I was a wreck.