by Bella J.
“Whatever. You’re not even done with high school, and you’re already planning your escape from all this.”
“True. But you’re talking marriage. That’s a big step, especially if you’re leaving your family behind to do it.”
I pulled my hand through my hair and sighed. “It’s the only way, Karina. Layla isn’t meant for this life. She’s…she’s too…” I struggled to find the right words, “…she’s just too innocent, too goddamn delicate to be a part of this world. I can’t do that to her. I won’t do that to her. And I know the right thing for me to do is to walk away from her, but I can’t. I’m too much of a selfish bastard to live without her.”
Karina’s eyes softened, and I knew she got it. She understood. Of course she would. We were both the same, unlike our older brother.
She stepped closer. “You’re never coming back, are you?”
This was the hard part. The part where I had to tell my sister our goodbye would be permanent. I had to choose between a life of blood, deceit, and war…or her. And I chose her, but that meant never returning. Never coming back. I couldn’t risk it.
I took Karina’s hand in mine. “You know this is how it has to be. I chose her, and just by doing that I’ve already put her in harm’s way, which is why I have to do everything I can to keep her safe.” I etched my gaze on hers. “I’m sorry.”
A tear slipped down my little sister’s face, and it killed me to know I was the cause of it.
“I get it, Dante. I do. I just hope she knows what you’re giving up for her.”
I let go of her hand and glanced out the window. Not only was I a selfish bastard for not being willing to live without Layla, but I was also a selfish bastard by keeping my life, what it truly meant to be a Valenti, from her. The fear of losing her had turned me in to a coward. And I didn’t want her to be afraid of me, of who I truly was. Whenever she looked at me, it was with love and passion in her eyes. I never wanted to lose that—the way she looked at me.
Karina touched my elbow. “She doesn’t know, does she?”
I shook my head. “And I will do everything in my goddamn power to keep her from ever finding out.”
Karina let her hand slip to the top of mine, her fingertips brushing against the skin where the wolf which represented our family was proudly inked. I had it done on my eighteenth birthday, a simple act to show my loyalty to our family. Once that tattoo was inked on your skin, it was engraved on your fucking soul. But then I met her, the girl who changed everything. It was no longer the tattoo on my hand which determined my loyalty. It was my heart. My heart had chosen for me, and it chose her. Layla.
“I understand,” she said softly. “And I hope one day I’ll find what you found in Layla. But Antonio, he won’t understand. He will never forgive you.”
I snorted. “Yeah, I have no doubt about that. But that’s the difference between Antonio and me. He wants to prove himself to everyone. He wants to build his life around this family. That’s how I feel about Layla, only I don’t want to build my life around her…I need to build my life around her.” I shrugged. “She’s my air, Karina. Without her, I can’t fucking breathe.”
A tear slipped down her cheek. I knew this was hard for her. It was hard for me too. Karina and I had been inseparable ever since I could remember. Antonio was too busy trying to be the perfect child to have any kind of sibling relationship with us. But that was okay, because we had each other.
And now…I was leaving.
Karina narrowed her eyes. “Dante, did you say Layla?”
“I…I don’t know.” I clutched the phone tighter in my palm. “I think it was her.”
Karina walked up to me. “Are you sure?”
“No. No, I’m not sure.”
Lorik held his hands in the air. “Can someone please tell me who the fuck is Layla?”
Karina and I stared at each other, her dark brown eyes filled with sympathy. My little sister knew the pain I had lived with, the broken heart I had carried in my chest for years. There was a saying that only time could heal a broken heart. Well, I called bullshit. My heart was anything but healed. In fact, it was the bitter, broken pieces left behind, pulsing behind my ribs, that fueled the heartless bastard in me to fuck for nothing but pleasure.
Karina stepped closer. “Dante—”
I held up my hand and turned to Lorik. “I need you to get these phone calls traced.”
He crossed his arms. “Okay, but will you tell me who the fuck is Layla?”
I took a deep breath, the mere thought of talking about her choking me. I bit my lower lip as her face rushed through my head, my chest tightening with every memory.
“Just…” I swallowed. “Just get that motherfucking call traced.”
And then I stormed off. I couldn’t…there was no way I could explain to Lorik who Layla was—who she was to me. Just saying her name out loud was painful enough.
The more I thought about the phone call, the voice, the more I started to wonder if it wasn’t my mind playing tricks on me. If maybe it was me who wanted to hear her voice so damn much I imagined it was her…saying my name.
I clenched my fists while rushing toward the bar. The fucking bourbon was calling me, begging me to consume it. Alcohol and pussy were the only two things strong enough to fight off the memories, to numb the heartache. Pussy wasn’t at my disposal right now, but alcohol was. And judging by the way my heart was pounding, I was going to need a fuck-load of it.
Luckily for me, there was a full bottle standing on the bar waiting just for me.
Once I poured a good amount of bourbon into the glass, I gulped it back with one mouthful. My eyes closed as the sting of the alcohol traveled down my throat, the burn settling in my stomach. But I still saw her beautiful face, amber eyes, and heart-shaped lips. The vivid image of her was so real it was like I had only seen her yesterday. After five years, I had hoped the memories would fade, slowly but surely disappearing from my mind…my heart. I should have guessed it would never happen. Not with her. Not after what we shared. Pity it didn’t mean the same to her as it did to me. If it did, we would have been together, living the life we had planned. But she left. She fucking left without a goddamn word.
“Fuck!” I threw the glass and watched as it shattered into pieces against the wall—just like my heart the day she left.
Chapter 3
Dante
My mind was reeling. Never in my life had I felt so alive, so fucking happy. I was so optimistic about the future, I could barf. I never thought this day would come, a day when I would find something worth more than money and power.
My father, my brother, even my mother—they would never be able to understand why I left. But as soon as I looked into those amber eyes which held the power to captivate me with a single glance, there was no chance in hell I would ever doubt my decision.
As I drove out of the driveway of our estate—my home—I glanced in my rearview mirror. It would probably be the last time I would see the place. I was leaving everything behind with nothing but a suitcase and the prospect of living a happy as fuck life with the woman I loved.
I would miss my family—especially Karina. But I had no choice. If I stayed, I would be without Layla. And I knew without her I would have no reason to grab hold of the little good I still had left inside me. God knew I had done my fair share of fucked up things—things I hoped Layla would never find out about. Things that would haunt me for a long time, but as long as I had her, there was no demon strong enough to torture me with the past.
I checked the time on my Audi’s dashboard before speeding up. Just twenty more minutes before our forever started. But I was parked in front of her sister’s house within ten.
Layla’s parents both died two years ago in a car accident—at least that was what she told me. But I had dug a little deeper, pulled some strings, and eventually found out her dad was in prison for theft and money laundering. It was obviously something she kept to herself, and since I had a secret of my own
, a secret about my family and my life, I chose not to confront her about it. To leave it be. Everyone had baggage these days. The world we lived in was too fucked up not to leave scars on every damn one of us.
But her mother, on the other hand, did die in a tragic car accident, which was why Layla lived with her older sister.
I got out of the car, my gut filled with nervous excitement. All of this felt so surreal, being able to take my girl and go start a life of our own. Ever since we were little—especially Antonio and I—we were bred to thrive in a world consisting only of power and wealth. Control and supremacy. We were taught to reign and rule, to spill blood to accomplish our goals. For a short while, I thrived learning to rule alongside my brother. I thought it was what I wanted…until she made me realize there was something more powerful than control and ultimate power.
Love. Love was what I needed…with her.
I loved my family…but I loved her more.
As I made my way up the porch, Kate, Layla’s sister, opened the door. But the second I saw her face, her eyes red and cheeks wet, my heart dropped to the soles of my feet.
“Layla?”
“I’m sorry, Dante,” Kate whispered.
“Where is she?”
“Dante—”
“Where the fuck is Layla, Kate?”
Kate dropped her gaze to the ground as she leaned against the doorframe. “I’m sorry, Dante, but Layla isn’t here.” She held out a white envelope. “She asked me to give you this.”
I studied Kate’s face, trying to determine what the fuck was going on. Nothing about that moment made any goddamn sense.
Kate avoided eye contact, her lips were pulled into a straight line, and I knew my world was about to come to a fucking end. My soul was on the verge of being ripped apart.
I ignored the envelope in Kate’s hand. “Where is she?”
“I can’t tell you that, Dante.”
“When did she leave?”
Kate shrugged. “I can’t tell you that either.”
“Why the fuck not?” I stepped closer, the blood in my veins simmering, as hurt and confusion slowly started to crack my chest wide open.
Kate glanced up, then down, and then over my shoulder.
“Kate, will you fucking look at me and tell me what the fuck is going on?”
“I don’t know, okay?” Kate tossed the envelope toward me, and it fell on the ground next to my feet. “All I know is she left, and she asked me to give you the goddamn envelope.”
“What else did she say?”
Kate bit into her bottom lip, crossing her arms in front of her chest.
“Jesus Christ, Kate!”
“She’s not coming back!” Her cheeks turned a light shade of red. “My little sister is not coming back. Not to me. Not to you. Never.” She took a step back into the house. “I don’t know what you did, Dante. All I know is because of you, I will never see my fucking sister again.”
And with those words, she slammed the door shut in my face.
I stood there, stunned. Everything around me faded to gray. There was no sound, no movement, as if someone had pressed the goddamn pause button on my life. Within less than two minutes, my dreams, my hope, my fucking life came to a crashing halt. Every goddamn happy emotion I had felt on my way here had drowned in the pool of pain that now occupied every part of me.
I glanced down at the envelope, and with every beat of my heart, I knew whatever was written in that letter would destroy me.
Slowly, I bent and picked it up. It felt like the flimsy piece of paper weighed a thousand pounds. The words hidden between those pages held so much power over me, I could feel it crushing me, suffocating me…killing me.
As I tore through the paper, fear started to squeeze the air out of my lungs. No matter what I was about to read, the pounding ache inside my chest told me I had already lost her—the love of my fucking life. I lost her.
I pulled out the letter, then sucked in a breath when I saw her familiar handwriting. I didn’t know what to expect, but what I found written wasn’t it.
Please don’t look for me. I beg you not to search for answers you will never find.
Just let it be.
I’m sorry.
Four little sentences. That was all it took to rip my heart out and allow the darkness to take its place.
I took a deep breath after swallowing my second glass of bourbon. The memories felt like daggers piercing the flesh of my heart over and over again. I hated that they still held so much power over me. After all the time that had passed, the memories still tortured me. She still tortured me.
“It’s a little early for a drink, don’t you think?”
I looked up at Antonio, who took a seat across from me by the bar. “You want one?”
“Fuck, yes.”
I snorted and poured my brother a drink while refilling mine.
That was another thing I hated about all this—everyone knew. Everyone knew who Layla was to me, and what it did to me when she left. For months after, I was nothing but a walking corpse who lived on alcohol. I spent my days either drunk or hung over, and thoroughly fucked. Sex numbed the pain. It still did. And the more, the merrier. Gang banging and orgies while drinking myself into a stupor was the only goal I had for a very long time.
Antonio took a sip from his drink. “You sure it was her?”
I shrugged. “I don’t know. The more I think about it, the more I wonder if I might be wrong.”
“Lorik is on it right now. We should have answers soon.”
I pulled out the bar chair and sat. “If it was her, why now?”
“Who the fuck knows.”
I let out a laugh. “Fuck. I don’t even know why she left. Now I don’t know why she would be calling me after all this time. That’s if it even was her.”
Antonio emptied his glass, cringing from the sting of the alcohol. “You know Lorik. He’ll have an answer within the hour.”
“Answers? Or just more questions?” I stared at him, and Antonio shrugged.
“I don’t know, little brother.”
For a second, Antonino looked worried—sympathetic, even. It was a rare occurrence for my brother to show any emotion other than anger and disappointment. On the odd occasion, I kind of understood why he was the way he was. Our dad was harder on him while we were growing up. Antonio always had to set the standard, be the example. Day in and day out, our father would remind him that one day the responsibility of the family’s wellbeing would be his, and he needed to be prepared.
God knew I never wished to be in Antonio’s place. Never envied the burden that lay so heavily on his shoulders. No wonder he never had a sense of humor, or a need to just fuck up every once in a while.
Antonio cleared his throat. “So, what if it was her?”
“What do you mean?”
“How would you feel if it was Layla who called?”
I snorted. “Jesus, are you a shrink now?”
“I’m just wondering. It’s been what? Like four, five years since she left? And you’d need to be a special kind of stupid to not notice you’re still fucked up about her.”
I leaned my head to the side. “Good God, you are terrible at this.”
“At what?’
“At brothering.”
Antonio stared at me deadpan for a few seconds before he exhaled and let out a laugh. “I am. I suck at being a sympathetic brother.”
I refilled both our glasses. “We both know you never liked Layla.”
“The only reason I didn’t like her was because she turned you into a pussy-whipped asshole who only thought about white picket fences and puppies.”
I leaned back in my chair, swirling the amber liquid around and around in the glass. “I won’t deny it. If she didn’t leave back then, I probably wouldn’t be sitting here right now.”
“Yeah. You’d be out there in the world raising your two children, loving your wife, and picking up dog shit every day.” His gaze met mine. “You certainly wo
uldn’t still be here, living in this house, working for Dad by getting rid of problems. Speaking of which, I assume everything went down smoothly last night.” Every contour of Antonio’s face turned all shades of serious.
I pressed my thumb and forefinger at the bridge of my nose. “Yes, Antonio. The fucker is buried somewhere with a bullet in his skull, and a few fingernails short. So, I’d say everything went smoothly.”
Antonio shook his head. “See? Completely fucked up.”
I tilted my glass in his direction, then swallowed it all in one gulp. “If it wasn’t for me being so fucked up, you wouldn’t have an executioner for a brother.”
“You know you don’t have to be the one to do that shit. We have other options.”
I snorted. “Other options? Who else would you trust with delicate matters such as killing people who piss you off?”
Antonio stared at me. He knew I was right. He and Dad, they wouldn’t be able to trust anyone else when it came to disposing of problems. Lucky for them, I had the balls and the stomach to kill and torture.
“Okay,” Antonio got up from his seat, “Vertigo tonight. I’m sure we won’t have a problem getting Lorik there.”
“Yeah. I’ll just warn Karina so she doesn’t kill us when we bring him back in a comatose state.”
“Good thinking.”
“Did I hear my woman’s name?” Lorik strolled in, and Antonio and I exchanged knowing looks.
“Yes, you did. We were just trying to figure out what the hell our sister sees in you.” I grinned at him.
“I already told you. It’s my giant-sized Albanian cock.”
Antonio cringed. “In the name of everything that is holy, could you please stop referring to your cock when you talk about our sister?”
Lorik shrugged. “You talked about her first.”
I rubbed my temples. “Is there a reason you’re here?”
“Oh, yeah. First, Karina took the time to fill me in on who this Layla woman is. Sorry, man.”
Lorik shot me a sympathetic stare, and I rolled my eyes. “Spare me your pity.”