My Dark Ever After (My Dark Mafia Romance, #2)

by Giana Darling

To every person who sees life in shades of gray instead of just black and white.

Killing a man for trying to hurt me was not romantic.

How could they respect me—love me—if they didn’t trust me with the truth?

Despite everything, I could not make that oath.

Without a single second of hesitation, I dropped the gun to the floor with a dull, concussive thud, and I crawled across the distance between us to throw myself into Raffa’s arms.

“You are not as opposed to violence as you wish to be, I think,” he noted.

“You fought back against those men. Oh, you think I did not notice the scratches and teeth marks?

“You had me watched?” I asked, more breath than voice.

“Better a damaged relationship than mourning his second daughter, no?”

“I would rather have you alive and hating me than dead. So hate me if you will, Guinevere, but you are going back to Italy with me, and there is nothing you can do about it.”

forward to press a button and say, “Tony, change of plans. Take us to 1211 Burns Avenue.” “How do you know my address?”

He tried to help me through the snow because I’d lost my shoes in the chase at the 35Beaumont, but I’d literally rather have walked through ice than accept his hand right now.

Still, he walked close behind me, and I caught the way he had his hand raised just in case I slipped.

“Fine,” he said flippantly. “Hate me in Tuscany.”

Even if I wanted to bring Guinevere back—bring her home—how could I do so knowing I would be putting her life in danger again?

For her, I would burn down all of Firenze.

And then, there she was. La cerbiatta mia.

Pressed to the opposite door of the car, bracing a gun on her knees, eyes squinted as they stared through her own blood down the barrel at me. Ready to end whoever might come for her.

If I had not loved her before, I would have loved her forevermore after witnessing the tableau sh...

My innocent Guinevere covered in blood and trembling, but facing off fearlessly ag...

It rocked me further to see the way relief broke through her fierce expression like sunlight through a storm cloud, completely transforming her entire countenance as she dropped the gun and threw herself into my arms. Like I was her hero.

Clearly, I was not the only one who had missed the American girl.

I swallowed the urge to tell her this was my dream.

Instead, she spent the entire three-hour repast smiling and engaging with everyone who was not me.

Guinevere had been hit with something the moment we met, but that something was my car.

Surely an actual lightning strike would not hurt so much as the pain of Guinevere’s rejection.

All of it amplified by having this woman, my wish on a shooting star, here in my house after a long, wonderful dinner with my family, who seemed to like her almost as much as I did.

I understood suddenly what it must have been like for Dante’s fallen angels to have known heaven and to have been cast from its light forever.

And if I fell in love with them, how hard would it be to keep my distance from the mafioso who had unfairly stolen my heart?

If she lived through this, I would not spend a moment more battling guilt and the inane idea that being away from her was ever a good idea.

Insane, overpossessive—I no longer gave a fuck.

No harm would ever come to Guinevere Stone again.

This did not mean I was willing to forgive Leo, not when he had been rude to her since the beginning. Perhaps if it had been Carmine, Renzo, or Ludo who had put Guinevere in that position, I would have forgiven one of them more easily.

Anyone else think he’s the Venetian???

If I did not love Guinevere myself for the woman she is, I would love her for his sake alone.”

“Sometimes you should worry more about being a good friend than a good soldier,” Martina snapped.

“Okay,” I said simply. “You can try, and I want you to succeed. But you have to know, Leo, that if it came down to it, I would end your life before I ever let you endanger hers again.”

“I was dirty,” she whispered, tipping her head back and closing her eyes so that the hot water splashed across her face. “I’m trying to get clean.”

Loving Guinevere was my absolution.

Any lottery she entered, she would win.

I was, quite clearly, born to love her.

“There is a difference between killing for pleasure and killing to protect yourself and others,” I told her.

“I would kill for you again until the streets of Florence ran red with the blood of your enemies.

“I judged you for being a murderer,” she said softly. “Only to become one myself. It’s a horrible kind of karma, I guess.”

For a man like that to cherish me? It felt nothing short of holy,

“You are drooling,” Carlotta informed me, jostling me from my study of Guinevere with a shoulder bumping into mine. “Close your mouth, Raffuccio.”

“I see why you catch flies when you look at her,” Stacci murmured from my other side,

“It is good to know you have not outgrown your dramatics,” Stacci huffed, sharing an eye roll with Carlotta.

The biggest heart is the most ruthless of all because it knows no bounds when it has to protect those in need.”

I was willing to bury my morals alive in a deep grave for just one more kiss.

I was sure most people thought Leo was handsome and charming, but I was still wary around him.