Bound by Vengeance (Born in Blood Mafia Chronicles, #5)

by Cora Reilly

I’d felt like a monkey in a suit, and I knew I looked that way too. Something, a monster, they wanted to keep in a cage until they needed to unleash it. I knew Falcone only invited me, so people had something to talk about. Even after all these years, they still regarded me as the monster to fear.

Not that I had any intention of ever giving her back. She was my most valuable possession to this date.

He looked like he’d risen from hell; a man wrapped in darkness, death and blood. A monster.

I was her punishment, a fate worse than death, a way to deliver the ultimate punishment to her father who had displeased them so greatly.

Hope— it made people foolish, made them believe in something beyond reality. I’d got out of the habit of hoping a long time ago.

I wasn’t worthy. Not worth it. Not worth it. Not worth it.

“You can try,” he rumbled. “But I will find you no matter where you go. I will follow you to the end of the world.”

Emotions, I’d never quite understood them. Most people had too many, and showed them even more willingly.

‘How could you lose yourself if you never had the chance to find yourself?’.

Betrayal came in so many shapes and forms. Sometimes it was a purposeful act, and sometimes it was something you let happen.

Cara, she, too, was like the night sky. As beautiful, there was no doubt about it.

“I’m a monster, you got that right. Have always been, will always be. I’m good at being a monster. Few people ever find something they’re good at, something they were meant to be,”

“I told you, what he’s done to me made me who I am. I would not be here without him. I would not be here with you without him. He gave me you and that’s more than I ever hoped for.”

I was so tired of feeling alone all the time, of being alone with my thoughts and fears and worries.

“Just because someone isn’t alone doesn’t mean they aren’t lonely,” I said quietly.

I was like a moth drawn to her light. The only light that had ever penetrated the darkness that was me and my life.

“Nobody will laugh at you when I’m at your side,” he said in a low voice. His expression was deadly, a threat but not to me. I paused. “Why do you even care?” “You’re mine, and I won’t let anyone talk shit about something that belongs to me.”

I was a monster. Would always be. But I could appreciate something precious, something as valuable as Cara, and I would never destroy it. I wasn’t good, there was nothing gray about me. I was all black but I was trying to be good to her. Never as good as she deserved but as good as I was capable of. It wasn’t enough, I realized it every day. I would never be enough.

“But I’m not as valuable as that piece around your wrist.” “You are worth more than anything I’ve ever owned or will ever own.”

I wished I could be like that, but deep down I still cared what people said. It hurt to see them judging and pitying me. I closed my eyes against their scrutiny and soon lost all sense of time.

“Yes, she is. She’s worth more than you and I. She’ll be worth losing everything for.”

“Now I’m fucking scared to lose all that, to lose you. I never knew I needed you but now I can’t imagine being without you. I…I love you, Cara.”

“I want New York to be a new beginning for me and you, if you want that too. And I want to be known as Ryan in this new life.” “And I want a new beginning with you, Ryan,” I said. He wrapped his arms around me and held me tightly. “I don’t deserve you,” he murmured against my hair. “But I will.”