I went upstairs to Lucia’s closet and found an overnight bag and began to pack. I found a black dress. I’d look stunning in it. It would be perfect for the funeral. And for showing Victor Scava he’d failed. That he’d now pay. Tomorrow may be Franco Benedetti’s funeral, but it was my coming-out party. I didn’t care about Benedetti. No, check that. I cared that the news held so much power over Dominic, considering their history. I knew now he’d truly done nothing but run, nothing but dig himself deeper into this black hole over the last seven years. A hole he would not be able to climb out of, not on his own. I saw it in his eyes, read it in his reaction. It was the same thing that I’d seen while he’d held me at the cabin. That hint of the humanity, the vulnerability behind all the hate and rage. Dominic Benedetti may be a monster, but he was a monster with a bleeding heart. That heart was in no way made of gold. It was more barbed wire and steel and sharp, deadly edges.

And those were the things that drew me.

Maybe it was because he wasn’t the only monster in this strange thing happening between us. Maybe we had both truly met our match.

Love wasn’t always beautiful. It wasn’t always kind or sweet. Love could be a twisted, ugly bitch. I’d always known this was the kind of love I’d find. The only kind that could touch me. Because some of us, we belonged in the dark, and Dominic and I belonged in the dark.

After I finished packing my bag, I went into Dominic’s room and found his duffel. He hadn’t unpacked it since arriving. I emptied it to see its contents. Two pair of jeans, a couple of shirts, that was it. That and a small, worn-out envelope that fell out from the pocket of one of the jeans. I picked it up off the floor and opened it. I pulled out a worn photo of a little girl wearing a hot-pink cast on her arm and beaming into the camera. Dirt smeared on her face and wisps of hair stood wild, defiant, unwilling to be contained by her ponytail. She looked to be about nine years old.

I had to smile back at the little girl with creases across her face from the much handled photograph. Effie. I would have recognized her to be related to Dominic even if I didn’t know about her. It was her dimple in exactly the same place as Dominic’s. But more so, her eyes betrayed her heritage. The color, the shape, the shrewd cockiness inside them. It was all Dominic.