Page 40 of Volatile Vice
“It’s better this way,” I say. “I love you, Raven. But trust me. It’s better this way.”
“No. I don’t accept that. If you love me?—”
“I do. Don’t ever question that. It’s because I love you that I’ve chosen to stay away from you. I should’ve never let it go as far as it did.”
“So you regret it then?”
Oh, she’s jabbed a stake into my heart. “Regret it? Being with you? Of course not. I regret everything else. Regret having to leave you. Because if I don’t, you’ll only be in more danger.”
“Falcon and Leif found surveillance equipment in my home.”
“That doesn’t surprise me. Why do you think I insisted that we go outside to talk on Friday?”
“I didn’t want to believe it.”
“Believe everything I tell you about what my family is capable of, Raven. I’m sorry you had to see so much of it. That’s why I need to stay away from you. So it doesn’t touch you again.”
“Can you do it?”
“What? Stay away from you?”
She pauses. “Yes.”
God, that voice. So much emotion in that one little word.Yes. She’s clawing at my heart, and how I want to give in. How I want to drive over to her right now, take her away, and keep driving. To Mexico. To Canada. Somewhere where we’re both away from all of this. Where it can’t touch us anymore. Where all we have to do is love each other.
But that leaves my sister vulnerable. My mother and father as well. And that poor little girl, Belinda.
I can’t in good conscience leave them to fend for themselves just for my own happiness.
And there’s no guarantee my bastard of a grandfather wouldn’t find us anyway. He knows I’m a flight risk, and he’s had his eyes on me like a hawk ever since I returned.
So the correct choice is clear.
“I have to,” I say. “There is no choice, Raven, if I want to keep you safe. And I want that more than anything in the world.”
“So you want to keep me safe more than you want to be with me?”
I rub at my forehead. She’s not making this easy on me.
“If I keep you safe now, perhaps we can be together sometime in the future. But being with you now will only put you in danger. I can’t have that. I couldn’t live with myself. You’re everything to me, Raven Bellamy. Every fucking thing. I didn’t ask for this. Neither did you. No one could’ve predicted it. I sure as hell couldn’t have. But my heart beats for you, Raven. Every fucking beat. Despite that, Icangive you up. As much as it hurts me, tears out my own fucking heart, I can give you up to ensure your safety.”
“Vinnie…”
“Please. Don’t fight me on this. If something were to happen to you, I wouldn’t be able to go on. I wouldn’t be able to do what I came back to do. It must be done, Raven. Please believe me. It must be done.”
A slight whimper comes through the phone.
God, this is killing me.
“Please don’t make it harder than it has to be, Raven. Please…”
The phone call ends with a soft click.
I’m sitting on a bench on a downtown Austin Street.
What I want to do is look to the heavens and scream. Curl my fists and release all the angst from my body into the stratosphere. Why? Why now? Why now did I find the love of my life, only to have to let her go?
The unfairness of it all.