Trapped in his End Game (Series)

MELANIE

I’ve spent the better part of three weeks wondering if I’m going insane, and every morning I wake up in a distinctly confused fog. Is this all a dream? It seems like one. I was stolen from the life I hated, and he handed me a new one that I initially rebelled against.

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My legs stretch on the blue satin sheets, which are pleasantly cool to the touch, and I slip from his bed. The cold floor immediately makes my toes curl, and I open the huge walk-in closet, inhaling the smell of Tommy’s suits. I touch the cuff of one of them and a pleasant squirm moves inside my stomach. Then I grab a fluffy blue bathrobe and descend the stairs.

The smell of coffee roasting burns the air. Suddenly I’m pitched forward into memory and I recall the FBI agents clutching their mugs of coffee. My heart gallops forward, and I remember that today I’m supposed to meet with them. The staircase squeaks and cracks as I descend, somehow adding to my anxiety.

He sits in the kitchen, still dressed in last night’s clothes with his face buried in his hands. Concern tightens around my heart and I approach his broad back, laying a hand on the back of his neck. I’m afraid he’ll throw the hand off, but the tension in his muscles seems to relax a little.

“Tommy?”

He finally perks up, moving his head out of his hands to look at me through bloodshot eyes.

“Sit down.”

Refusing to look away from him, I pull out my chair, my chest starting to shake from my hammering heart.

“What’s wrong?”

His fingers make a scratching sound from the stubble on his face as he runs them across his chin. “Do you still want to go to college?”

I sit down next to him, surprised by the question. Yes, that deep-seated yearning is still there. It’s not going anywhere, anytime soon. “Yeah, ‘course I do. I just can’t imagine how it’ll be possible, after everything.”

“I could have given you whatever you wanted, Mel. I would have.”

Curious, I glance at his profile. His lips are turned down and his eyes are glassy.

What the hell?

I take his hand in mine and he turns my palm around, bringing it to his lips. “What-what’s going on?”

“You need to go,” he says in an urgent tone. “You need to get the fuck out of here while you still can.”

My breath catches in my chest. “Why?”

“You’ve got to get away from me before I get you killed.”

I snatch my hands away from him. “What the hell are you talking about? I’m not leaving!”

“I’m going to do something crazy that’s probably going to get me killed, and I don’t want you caught in the crossfire. When you meet with the feds-” he breaks off, suddenly biting into his closed fist, “make a deal with them.”

“What?” I’m on my feet, blood racing through my veins. “Is this some kind of sick joke? You spent weeks trying to get me to throw out my testimony. Now that I’m finally willing, you change your goddamn mind?”

“Melanie, it’s not like that.” He stands up, hands circling around my arms. He gazes down at me with a desperate look on his face. “You think I want this? I’ve spent my whole life in the mob, trying to become someone I’ll never be. At least, not anymore.”

My body feels strangely numb as he pulls me into his chest, giving me a fierce hug. “You need to leave here and never come back. You deserve to follow your dreams without someone like me in your life.”

Tears spring in my eyes as heat billows in my chest. “No, I’m not leaving-”

Fingers caressing my cheeks cut off my words. “You have to, sweetheart.”

“I haven’t had a say in anything these last few weeks, but this is a choice I’m making. I want to be with you.” My voice trembles as a tear slips down my face.

His face turns as if he’s just heard something unpleasant. “Please go. Just get the fuck out of here, and save yourself.”

“No.”

“Damn it, Melanie. Don’t make me hurt you.” A menacing look flashes over his face, reminding me of when he first kidnapped me-the knives on the table.

“You destroyed everything I was, and now you’re just throwing me away?”

“I’m not! I’m giving your life back to you. I’m giving you a chance to survive. Isn’t that the right thing?”

He looks like he no longer knows what’s right and wrong.

Everything he says makes sense, I know that. The logical part of my brain wants me to listen to him. Flee. My heart breaks at the thought of leaving him, of never being able to feel his hands on my hips and his lips on my face, and never hearing his voice again.

“You made me fall for you. I can’t go on with my life as if you don’t exist.”

He pulls me into a fierce hug as my body shakes with sobs.

“I love you.”

I hear his sharp intake of breath, and suddenly his embrace feels frozen. “You don’t know what you’re saying.”

“Stop doing that. I know how I feel.”

He disengages his arms from my back and looks at me with a pained expression. He rakes his hand through his hair and stares at me, looking quite terrified at the very idea of love.

“Melanie, just ask yourself this: Why the fuck would I love someone who kidnapped and tortured me?”

The apartment rings with my sobs as I collapse into his arms. I don’t know why. Love doesn’t always make sense.

“You gave me something I never felt before. You protected me from Jack.”

“Melanie,” he says in a raw voice. “The whole time, I was prepared to end your life. That was the plan all along. I lied to you.”

Something cold spears through my chest as I stare into his eyes, which are creased with misery. I search them for any indication that he might be lying, but I don’t see anything but the painful, raw truth. Nausea rises in the back of my throat. I suspected what he was going to do, but I trusted him when he told me it wouldn’t come to that.

“When?” It sounds like a harsh growl.

“I don’t-”

“When did you decide that you weren’t going to kill me?”

His eyes lower from my heated gaze. “I don’t know, exactly. It doesn’t matter, Melanie. I don’t love you. I never will.”

I stumble backward from him, somehow struck by the force of his words. If he stabbed me in the stomach, it would be less painful. Shameful tears invade my eyes as that dark look descends over his face again.

I feel like such an idiot.

“Don’t come back.”

“You’re the worst thing that ever happened to me.”

I hurl the words at him, determined to hurt him as much as he hurt me, but a small, apologetic smile appears on his face.

“You never broke. If you did, you wouldn’t be able to talk to me like that. If there’s one thing I’m happy about, it’s that.”

“Fuck you.”

Pain momentarily flashes over his face before he turns around, and I feel a stab of guilt.

“Goodbye.”