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“If you’re hurting, if you’re about to break, break me instead. I can handle it.”
“Kate-Bait, I will break you. And I won’t put you back together.” “I’m already broken,” I murmured,
“My blood is your blood. I bleed, you bleed.”
Maybe this was where our end began.
I pulled her down into the black hole. It swallowed us up and ate us whole. Our light was gone.
“Never let them see you cower or back down, Katalina. You are better than everyone.”
He wanted nothing to do with the world, or maybe the world wanted nothing to do with him.
“You’ll live. Because if you don’t, you’ll die.”
Cleopatra wasn’t as pretty as she is on your necklace. It was her intelligence that allowed her to rule. She knew over a dozen languages and communicated effectively in all of them. When your dad is gone, remember that.
“We need the money, Daddy.” “I need my daughter to know she’s better than anyone. Remember what I’m telling you, Katalina. You don’t fit in because you were made to stand out.”
“I always taught you to do what you wanted, that I trusted you to make the right decision. Don’t make me say you didn’t.”
We’re doing fine as long as you’re here, Daddy.”
This is life-and-death. I choose life for you. Every. Single. Time.”
Cleo lived for power. Or maybe love. She died because she lost them both.
“You’re a fucking monster,” he cried with his hands in the air. “Tell me something I don’t know.”
It wasn’t my job to save her, at least not this time.
“My truth is in his death,”
“I want in, Mario.” He nodded. “It’s a blood oath. Family first, honey. You don’t get out. You bleed, we bleed. You die, we die.”
Women fight to survive. If we don’t, we die,”
I did what I had to do.
She was Cleopatra in sheep’s clothing.
She didn’t need protecting, and it made me want to protect her even more. Or strangle her, depending on the day.
“Worry about saving yourself, Rome. I’ve never needed a knight to come rescue me. I ride in on my own damn horse, and if it happens to buck me off and disappear, I can walk out—guns blazing—on my own.”
The woman was more trouble than I ever wanted to be associated with—and I killed people for the mob.
It was a beautiful lifestyle, but one that tangled you up and suffocated you until you were lying there bleeding out.
And we were her victims. Katalina was poised as bait but never ended up just that.
“Don’t make me hate you even more, Kate-Bait. Don’t make me regret it.”
Above all else, Rome would never know he had my heart because I knew I could never own the monster that controlled his.
Our true families had died, and we had died with them. Now, we wandered around without souls attached to us, trying to be a part of something.
Our problem—we weren’t anyone’s. We were dead inside.
“Don’t sacrifice your health, mental or physical, for someone else’s comfort, toots. They might be important, but you’re the most important thing to yourself. Got it?”
Would they miss me? Would they really always be there to protect me? Or would I have to protect myself? I knew the answer. Deep down, everyone knew the answer about the family.
“Little one, you only learn by getting up yourself and making sure you face your opponent again. The one who falls down over and over is the strongest of all in the end.”
After graduation, though, nothing monumental happened. No mountain moved, and no river parted.
You might not care, but I’ll care twice as much for the both of us.
The fact that she wasn’t doing that now proved she cared enough, and a little piece of my parentless heart warmed.
“Excuse you, asshole. I’m hot as hell.”
Rome was seen as the monster, but he was the monster that saved them all.
The stark white against my skin felt like a lie every time I put it on. It was one of the reasons I always wore it, like I could fool my body into thinking it was innocent again.
“I bleed, you bleed . . .”
“You want to choose this? Choose the man who can kill you in a heartbeat? I’m the family’s monster, Katalina. I don’t have a heart to give you except a fucked up one.” “It’s the only one I want.”
Maybe this was where our end began.
Our light was gone.
“Draw the line, Rome, or you’ll end up lying in a pool of your own regret.”
Bait. I was pretty sure I wasn’t okay with her being that any longer.
“I’m not asking you to be anything to me.” “And yet I’m yours and you’re mine.”
“Choose me, Katalina,” he whispered. “Let me consume you. Pick our destruction, not his safe haven.”
“Like she’s your heaven and your hell. A dream and a nightmare all wrapped up in one tiny little warrior.”
Women should have been leading the world, not men.
“I’m not some voodoo—” “No, you’re Cleopatra,”
