All He'll Ever Be

by W Winters

  I have to reach up to get the top of it lowered and when I do, I see Carter in the doorway. Fear paralyzes me when I see his face, contorted with a look of outrage and red from running. My skin is ice cold as I reach for the lid. My fingertips feel numb as I slam it down.

  There’s a snap, I hear it, but I don’t know what it is. It comes with a tug at the back of my neck that’s accompanied by a sharp pinch I try to ignore as my fingers slip along the edge of the lid searching for the lock.

  Shrouded in darkness, I struggle to find the lock, hearing Carter’s footsteps getting closer and closer, but my trembling fingers find it and the multiple clicks assure me I’m bolted in.

  All I can hear is my staggered breathing for a moment and then another.

  With a deafening roar of anger, the box lifts off the ground only an inch, if that. Through my tears still streaking down my hot face, I can see Carter lifting it with all his strength, but it’s meant to outlast such acts and so it does.

  Crouched in the box and gripping on to myself, I hold my breath knowing he can’t do a damn thing about it.

  It’s only then that I hear the rolling of the beads. It’s only then that I feel the pearls rolling around me. I shriek in terror at first, thinking that something is alive and in the dark place with me. But it’s only my necklace. The beads that have fallen off the broken chain.

  Tears leak freely at the realization.

  My chest hollows as I cover my mouth to keep from crying harder.

  The box moves a little more and I close my eyes until he drops it, making my body sway and tumble in the small amount of space I have. A small yelp escapes me, but I focus on calming down. I’m on the verge of a panic attack or worse.

  My eyes are closed tighter than they’ve ever been. Shock and horror still threaten to suffocate me as I struggle to inhale.

  A few minutes pass and all I can hear is Carter’s chaotic breathing. For a moment someone comes in, I think Jase, speaking quietly and trying to tell Carter to calm down, but the door closes shut with a loud click and then there’s silence again.

  Nothing but silence and the slamming of my own heartbeat and the rushing of blood in my ears.

  It’s going to be okay, I try to reassure myself. He has to understand. Even the thought is fleeting in my mind. All Carter knows is that I chose them, my family and his enemies. I pointed a gun at him and cocked it.

  Oh, my God. My head spins as the memory comes back to me.

  I threatened the life of the only man I’ve ever loved.

  When I finally open my eyes, Carter’s are fixed directly on mine. As if he can see me, even though I know it’s impossible. His dark eyes pierce through me, pinning me where I am and eliciting a new kind of fear.

  His deep voice sends a jagged spike of despair through me as he says low beneath his breath, “You can’t stay in there forever.”

  Chapter 57

  Carter

  I’ve never in my life felt like this before.

  The clock ticks as time passes. I can count on one hand every time I’ve been betrayed, but it’s never felt like this because none of them were close to me. I’ve never let anyone in.

  Not the guards I’ve depended on, not the boys I took in to help. I didn’t feel betrayed by them when they only stole from me or tried to bargain with someone else who wanted me dead.

  I’ve never let a soul close to me other than my brothers. So, no one can hurt me.

  No outsider has ever been close to me… except for her, the only woman I ever loved.

  A chill rolls through my body like the unrelenting tides of the ocean. The adrenaline has waned as I sit here in the chair, staring at that fucking box. My knuckles are bruised and cut, but I keep putting pressure on them, to keep me from thinking of a different pain, the aching in my chest.

  Every time I blink, the barrel of her gun is there, staring back at me.

  “Carter.” Daniel’s voice breaks me from my thoughts and brings me back to this reality. It fucking hurts; every piece of me hurts. Sitting up slightly in the chair, I finally take my eyes away from the box, away from Aria. I tilt my head as I take in my brother and the man standing next to him. Eli’s one of our guards and head of security.

  “Eli’s finished the walk-through.” He’s struggling to keep his eyes on me; I can see it in the way he swallows visibly and clenches his hands. Even his voice is strained.

  She did this. I know Daniel cared about her. And she betrayed him like she did me.

  Eli steps forward to speak, telling me about each of the bombs they found and disposed of and where exactly the Talvery men ran. No surprises and nothing I give a fuck about at this point. Not when the woman who caused all of this is still right in front of me, but safely hiding in plain sight.

  “All of them?” I ask just to pretend to be present, pressing my sore back into the chair and still staring at the fucking box. I can barely see Eli nod in my periphery as he answers, “Yes, sir.” With his shoulders squared and his hands behind his back, he looks like the soldier he used to be.

  But he defied me.

  “You let them live,” I say flatly, turning my attention directly to him for just a second, so he can see how pissed I am, hardening my gaze and my scowl. Then I look back to the box. The box I took from a man I refused to show mercy to. Aria’s breathing picks up and she moves within its small confinements.

  “I ordered Eli and the guards to let them live.” Jase’s voice sends a cold trickle down my neck. It’s hard to swallow as my blood heats with anger.

  One by one, they’re all turning their backs on me.

  Aria moves inside of the box again; I can faintly hear her crying. It’s then that Eli catches on to the fact that she’s in the box. Glancing at him, I can see his expression fall, the puzzle in his head forming as each of the pieces fall into place.

  It takes a moment for him to fix his fucking face and wipe the look of disgust off of it.

  She did this. She will suffer the consequences.

  I gave her a chance; I would have given her anything had she simply chosen me. I was stupid for ever loving her. Or for thinking she loved me.

  “Leave,” I bite out the command, feeling the raw word scratch against the back of my throat. Eli’s the first to turn around sharply and leave at once. Daniel and Jase step forward rather than retreating and my muscles tense, my teeth gritting as I lean forward in the seat I haven’t left for nearly an hour now.

  “Carter,” my brother says, and Jase’s voice is strong and demanding. Not like the way Aria’s been saying it as she whimpers in the box, begging me to understand. I won’t hear it. There’s no excuse.

  “Fuck off.” It’s all I can say back to him. The rage blisters inside of me, eating me alive that they all defied me.

  “Carter.” Daniel’s tone is softer, more placating. “Just relax for a minute. Calm down,” he tells me.

  I can barely inhale, refusing to believe everything that’s happened.

  “Did you hear that, songbird?” I ask her rather than facing my brothers. The legs of the chair scratch against the floor as I lean forward, searching for a seam in the box where I think she can see me. I stare at it with an unforgiving bitterness as I tell her, “I just need to calm down.”

  I can feel the depth of emotion roaring inside of me as Jase speaks, “It was an unfortunate event, but we can use this to our favor.”

  “Unfortunate?” I can’t hide the disbelief and venom in my voice as I stare back at him, finally rising from my seat. The force of the abrupt movement shoves the chair back. All I can hear is my heart beat in time with my heavy footsteps as I move closer to my brother.

  Same height as me, the same determination in his voice.

  “Knock it off,” Daniel says and walks between us, separating us with a hard hand on both of our chests. “What about Aria?” he says quickly as he pushes me back. His glare pleads with me to think about something other than her apparent betrayal. “She’s not okay.” He lowers his voice
to tell me the obvious and then lets his gaze move to her before looking back at me.

  “What about her?” I ask him in a hardened tone. My hands form fists so tightly, I can feel the skin across my knuckles nearly crack and the cuts that are there split even wider.

  A whimper from the box catches the attention of my brothers, both of them looking toward her as I stare at them.

  “What the fuck do you even care for?” I sneer at Daniel. I raise my voice to remind them of the hard truth, “She chose them.”

  The sobs return from the box behind me and it enrages me. “Now she cries,” I say, talking to her more than to them as I walk closer to where she is. The box is off-center now, crooked and making the end of the rug uneven from my useless attempts to open it even though I know it can’t be done.

  “She wasn’t crying when she held a gun to my head!” Everything turns to white noise. Whatever my brothers say, the relentless crying from the woman I loved as she hides from me for fear of her own life, all of it.

  I hate everything at this moment. I hate everyone. But I hate myself the most.

  “She wasn’t crying when she found out her family was coming to kill us. To kill all of us!” The last bit comes out louder and harsher than I can control, and I reach above the box to the bookshelves, shoving aside a row of them. The hardcovers and pages fly into a flutter before slamming down on the floor.

  “I was!” Again, I hear her cry out, “I was!”

  But all it does is fuel me to continue wrecking every shelf above her. All of the books falling around her, some of them slamming against the box, only make her cry out louder.

  I hate her.

  I hate them all.

  I hate everything.

  It takes both of my brothers to pull me back against the office window and away from the shelves. As I catch my breath, I think about destroying all of it. Wrecking every piece of this rich interior. It mocks me. It’s a façade of control and I have none anymore. Not a damn shred of control.

  “You never loved me!” I scream at her. “I should have kept you in that fucking cell until you knew better than to defy me!”

  “Please, Carter, let me explain,” she weeps.

  “I was too fucking good to you,” I sneer at her as loud as I can, feeling my composure deteriorate just as any ounce of mercy has. I scream at the top of my lungs, wanting to shred something apart. Every last bit of my humanity will do.

  “Stop,” Daniel says, his head close to mine. As he uses all of his strength to push me against the cold glass window, he’s so close that I can feel the burn of his body heat.

  “It’s okay,” he tells me as Jase grunts, his expression strained and his face red with exertion. Every inch of my skin is numb with a pain I’ve never felt before.

  I want to tell them all nothing is okay and that I’ll never stop. Never. There’s nothing left of me but this shell of a man. But before I can tell them that I’ll find the men they let get away and I’ll rip out their fucking throats before they can breathe a word of how Aria betrayed me, a small voice comes from the doorway.

  “Fuck.” Daniel barely breathes the word before releasing me to run to her, to Addison, but he’s too late.

  I don’t know how much Addison saw, or what she saw, but her face is pale.

  Aria’s still crying uncontrollably, and it’s going to be obvious. It’s obvious I’m hurting her and that she’s scared. She’s scared of me because I’ve fucking lost it. Nothing else matters.

  There’s no hiding now. Not from my brothers, not from the Talverys. Not from Addison, the one connection I still have to my brother Tyler.

  Shame and disgust are a painful cocktail to swallow, but I choke it down.

  “What the fuck are you doing?” Addison’s voice vacillates between strength and panic as she stands in the doorway to my office. Her eyes dart from me to Daniel.

  “How long have you been standing there?” Daniel asks Addison.

  “Long enough… to…” Addison struggles to even look at Daniel. “You’re hurting her,” Addison barely glances my way.

  Aria’s sobs are punctuated with hiccups as she breathes in heavily, like she’s desperate to stop, desperate to quiet her cries.

  “Aria?” Addison’s tone reflects a despair I’ve never heard from her before and inside I shatter. Whatever bit of anger that lingered, fragments and scatters in the pit of my stomach. Sucking in a deep, shuddering breath, her eyes go wide with fear and she takes a half step back.

  “Daniel,” she says hesitantly, her eyes wide with shame and disbelief as her body shakes so strongly I can see it from across the room. “You can’t be okay with this?”

  Fuck. Fuck. It’s all fucked!

  I straighten my stance as Jase lets go of me, moving out of the way and taking a few strides closer to Aria, away from me and out of sight from Addison. But the movement makes him that much more obvious to her.

  “Get her out,” she says, and her demand is strained by the veil of fear. She’s pointing to the box but doesn’t dare to let it steal her gaze from Daniel.

  “Addison, stay out of it,” Daniel tells her as he takes another step closer to her, his hands held in the air.

  “Are you fucking serious?” As each word cracks with disdain, pain grows on her face. “Daniel, help her.” The last word comes out in a croak as she backs away from him, further into the office and closer to the shelves. She nearly trips on the fallen books but manages to keep herself upright. She only takes her eyes off of him to see where Jase and I are. Neither of us is moving as she struggles to get closer to the box, closer to Aria who’s quiet, and for a moment, I worry if she’s all right.

  “Why did he say cell?” Addison asks, and I can’t even begin to think of when I said that word or how I used it. All I can see is red and my memory is a white fog.

  “Addison, please,” Daniel begs her.

  “He’s hurting her, putting her in a cell?” she shrieks and then turns any bit of remorse or disgust into anger. “You’re allowing it! You knew!”

  “She put herself in there,” I say, cutting off the interrogation directed at Daniel and feeling the need to defend us against Addison’s unspoken, yet all too clear thoughts. “Tell her, Aria.” I raise my voice, feeling my cold blood fill my veins and praying to hear her voice.

  “What did you do to her?” Addison’s breathy words are filled with accusations.

  “Nothing.” Aria’s voice is finally heard, although it trembles and is minuscule compared to ours.

  With a hardened jaw, I dare to stare back at her, narrowing my gaze and not allowing her to blame this on me.

  “She ran up here and hid because she held a gun to my head.” Each word comes out harder, but I stay where I am as Addison inches closer to Aria.

  “Addison,” Daniel says as he tries to reason with her, keeping his voice low, but not to be denied, “get out.”

  “Fuck you,” she spits at him and then finally lays a hand on the box.

  “Aria,” she calls out to her, banging the palm of her hand on the box behind her, although she still faces Daniel with a defiant expression on her face.

  Aria whimpers for Addison to go, to leave her alone and stay out of it.

  “I’m not going anywhere,” Addison’s quick to reply, tears leaking down her face.

  “Don’t cry,” Daniel pleads with her, stepping forward and trying to reach out for Addison. The resulting slap is so hard, so vicious, I practically feel it against my own skin. Daniel’s cheek instantly turns bright red, his head rotating back slowly to face her as Addison screeches at him, “Don’t touch me!”

  “Addison, you need to.” Daniel barely gets another word out before Addison loses her shit entirely. Her voice three octaves higher than it should be, her entire body shaking with a new kind of vengeance, she’s only getting more agitated.

  “What did he do to her?” She sways in anger as Aria’s sobs are echoed in Addison’s voice.

  What did I do to her? To Aria?
>
  I loved her the only way I knew how. My head feels light and everything I think I know means nothing.

  I should have known it would never be okay. I’m too fucked up to keep a woman like her. To keep anyone at all. What did I do to her? I drove her to betray me, to threaten to kill me.

  “What happens between them--” Daniel starts to try and defend himself, not me. Not the relationship I had with Aria. Because there is no defending that. I know it deep in my gut.

  I try to take a step forward, toward the door to get out, but stop when Addison shrieks at Daniel, shoving him away as he tries yet again to go to her.

  “Please, just go!” Aria begs her and that only makes Addison more adamant at getting her out of the box.

  As Addison screams at Daniel, I force my heavy and numb legs to move forward. “You knew! You knew what he was doing to her!”

  The ice in my veins freezes my blood, and my heart refuses to beat without the warmth. “How could you?” she wails.

  In a single day, everything has fallen.

  Even as I walk out of the office, shutting the door behind me and hearing the faint screams leak into the barren hall, I know everything is ruined and nothing will be the same.

  Everything is broken, and I have no way to fix a single piece of it.

  It’s all dashed beyond repair.

  Chapter 58

  Aria

  They weren’t going to kill them. I want to think Carter and his brothers would never do that. They wouldn’t execute my family in front of me. It’s all I keep thinking as my eyes burn in the darkness of the box.

  Nikolai would do it, though.

  He would kill the Cross brothers, all of them, to set me free. But he doesn’t know them and everything that happened. I haven’t had a chance to convince him otherwise; all he knows is that I was taken. With every second that passes, I calm my panic, knowing I have to talk to Nikolai and stop this. I need it all to stop and for them to listen to me. For one of these thick-skulled men to just listen to me.