He knew Luigi would have to kill Lissa after she took out the head of the Porcelli family. Aldo Porcelli would be the last target Luigi would give her and then he would have no other choice but to kill her. He had known all along, from the moment he had taken Lissa into his house when she was a small child, that he would have to kill her. The man was cold-blooded enough to kill his own brother and sister-in-law, take in their daughter and raise her to be a weapon for him, knowing all along he planned to get rid of her. He couldn’t afford for her to put the pieces together because he knew if she did, she would come after him.
Casimir had been raised in a brutal school. No one had pretended to love him. There were no deceptions. He knew what was expected of him if he wanted to live and if he wanted to keep his brothers alive. Lissa had been raised in a home with people she thought loved her.
Casimir tightened his arms around her and dropped his head on the top of hers, wanting to surround her with comfort – with an emotion he didn’t dare name. Emotions, for him, were deadly. It was never good to be vulnerable, and Lissa Piner made him very vulnerable. He understood his brothers now, their need to band together and protect their women. They’d found something to hold on to, and now he had that very thing in his arms.
She wept silently, and to him that was even more heartbreaking than if she’d screamed aloud. The tears were hot on his skin, and her body, in his arms, shook with the force of her grief, but she didn’t make a sound. Not one single sound. He would have liked it better if she screamed out her pain at the depths of her uncle’s betrayal. The soundless weeping was like an arrow piercing straight through his heart. Her heartbreak was too deep for anything but silent tears and made his resolve to make her uncle and Arturo pay all the more firm.
Lissa and Casimir had no safe place to go. They had no sanctuary. If they had even a small chance to get out of the mess they were in alive, they would have to trust each other implicitly. Rely on each other. Take each other’s back. He had to convince Lissa that she could trust him.
He was practically a stranger to her. It would be human nature for her to pull away from him after her own flesh and blood betrayed her. He had to be very, very careful over the next few days to make certain she knew she could rely on him. Words wouldn’t do it. He had to show her. She had to feel it. The only way he could guarantee her fidelity, absolute loyalty, was for her to see it for herself. There was only one real way.
They had a psychic connection. He’d established that through his mark on her. It would be uncomfortable and dangerous for her to see him. All of him. Know the terrible things he’d done. He would be taking a terrible risk, but if she could accept him with his bloody, vile past, she would know absolutely she belonged to him and he would aid her and guard her in anything she chose to do.
He took a deep breath, fear clawing at his gut. She lifted her tear-wet face, her eyes moving over him, seeing him. Seeing Casimir the man, not one of the many masks he wore. “What is it?”
7
Casimir studied Lissa’s face. Not many women could weather a storm of silent weeping, have their heart ripped from their body, and still manage to look beautiful. She did. Her blue eyes remained steady on his, and he knew he had fallen hard and fast because of that look. She might be knocked down by the knowledge of the extent of her uncle’s treachery, but she got back up. She would always stand back up and she would hold firm.
“What is it, Casimir?” she repeated.
He took a breath, knowing he was risking everything. “You need to know you can count on someone, malyshka. We’re going to do this together. Beat them. All of them. Your enemies. My enemies. To do that you have to trust me.”
She hesitated and then nodded. “I do.”
Casimir shook his head. “You want to trust me, Giacinta, but how can you when you’ve known nothing but betrayal? You have to have doubts whether you want to have them or not. I can put your doubts to rest but in doing so, you will see Casimir. The real man. The killer.”
She shook her head. “That isn’t the real man.”
“It is. I am what they made me. I can’t separate the two. I lied to myself for a lot of years telling myself that it was the role I played – those men were killers – not me. But all of those roles, they were still me.” He shackled her wrist with gentle fingers and turned her hand over, palm up. “Through this mark, you can see into my mind. Everything. I won’t be able to hide from you. You will see that you will never have to have a single doubt about my loyalty to you. I can give you that. But you’ll also see all of me, and I’m afraid that will terrify you. Repulse you even. I’m not a good man.”