He Canceled Our Wedding Ninety-Nine Times, So I Joined His Enemy novel · Chapter 16 of 24

Chapter 16: The Bridge

I answered it on the fifth ring, standing in the hall in Gabriele's shirt.

"Renata." Massimo's voice was thin and scraped, and I had never heard it that way. "Don't hang up."

"I'm listening."

"Meet me on the harbor bridge at dawn. Alone. Please."

I had never heard him say please to anyone.

"Why?"

"Because it's about Paola, and I can't say it where anyone can hear."

"I know who she is," I said.

The line went silent for a long time.

"Then you know why I called," Massimo said.

He hung up first, as he always had.

When I turned around, Gabriele was in the doorway in his trousers, barefoot, with his hair wrecked from my hands.

He had heard all of it.

"No," he said. "You don't go alone."

"He asked for alone."

"He asked, and you owe him nothing."

"I know."

I took a step toward him.

"If I don't go, I'll wonder for the rest of my life if I could have walked away from it," I said. "I want to be done, and I can't be done while I'm wondering."

His jaw worked.

"I'll drive you," he said finally. "I'll stand at the south end of the bridge. I won't cross."

"You trust me?"

"No." He touched my cheek. "I trust the woman who turned a clock to the wall."

The sky was gray when I walked out onto the middle of the harbor bridge.

Wind came off the water, and the cables hummed.

Massimo stood at the rail with his coat open and no tie.

He had not shaved.

There were no cars behind him and no guards, which meant no guards he could trust.

"You came," he said.

"You asked."

"I haven't asked you for anything in five years that you didn't already give me."

I said nothing.

"She sat in my study last night," he said. "She told me her name. She took my pistol and walked out with my own men."

"I know."

"Do you know she has the page?"

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