82. Devil Of Venice

[LAURA]

Erica.

How did he…? The question dies in my mouth, much like my faith in his goodness. The gun he’s pointing at my face is clear evidence that he isn’t the good man I thought he was.

How did I read him wrong? What did I miss?

“It’s not your fault,” he says, his face sombre, with no emotions passing across his forever-handsome features. I can tell just by the way he’s holding the gun that this isn’t his first time. “And neither you are the first person to underestimate me.”

Of course, that’s true.

What was I thinking? That just because his family kept him away from their dangerous business, he wouldn’t be any less dangerous? That just because he lived a simpler and lonelier life, he wouldn’t have a single bad bone in his body?

I should have known he was capable of just as much damage as his brother, that he was just as menacing. They were siblings. It was impossible for them not to rub off on each other.

But nothing compares to this feeling churning in the pit of my stomach, th