All He'll Ever Be

by W Winters

  “You have no reason to be. Out of everyone involved, you have no reason to be,” I say and wish she could understand how empathetic I am to her. “I get it. Let it out,” I tell her while putting my hand on her shoulder and running it back and forth to try to soothe her.

  “I just can’t believe he’d be okay with the way Carter treated you. That he would do nothing.”

  I let out a long breath, understanding why she’s standing so strongly against Daniel, but hating that I’m a part of that reason.

  “I’ve come to terms with two things,” I tell her, hoping it will help her. “One, I love Carter even if he hates me.” The first confession brings her eyes to mine. “Two, I’m not going to sit back and do nothing. I won’t ever let him do something that will hurt me or my family without fighting him.”

  “How can you be with him, knowing…?” She doesn’t finish, but she doesn’t have to.

  “I don’t know how. I honestly don’t. And I don’t know if any of it really matters.” I lean my back against the counter and grip on to it from behind. “I can’t stop this war. I can’t protect everyone. I can’t stop the people I love from dying.” As I say the last part, my mother comes to mind and I try to block her out. I’m already spent with emotion and trying to balance right and wrong, love and war, that any mention of her will be my undoing and it’s not even ten o’clock in the morning.

  “This life is brutal,” I whisper and then clear my throat to face Addison again. “But it’s my life. And I want to be in control of my own decisions.”

  “You know we’re still locked up, right?” Judging by the hint of a smile on her lips, her words are meant to make me laugh and they do, a small breath of a laugh.

  Reaching for the butter and content to let the conversation die, she adds, “Let’s eat before we think of how we’re going to escape.”

  “I can hear you,” a voice says from behind us and scares the shit out of me. Eli’s in the doorway, a smirk on his lips and if he was closer I’d be tempted to smack it off his face.

  “I’m sure you all can,” I answer him and look toward the ceiling. “I haven’t found the cameras yet.”

  He doesn’t respond to my jabs as I watch the coffee maker sputter the last bit of my caffeine addiction into a ceramic mug. Instead, he tells me, “You have a message.”

  He’s so tall, it only takes four strides for him to close the gap between us and reach me, holding out a folded piece of paper.

  “Did you read it?” I ask him before taking the small piece of parchment.

  His stare is hard and unforgiving as he answers, “Yes.” Pissed off from the lack of privacy, I easily toss the precious piece of paper onto the counter. I have no idea who it’s from, but I continue moving around my warden to look for sugar in the cabinets.

  “Does Carter know?” I ask him when I finally find it. I close the door slowly, holding the box of sugar tighter than I should.

  “Yes.”

  I nod and then ask, “Is it from him?”

  I would be surprised if it was, since he didn’t have much else to say last night, and Eli proves my assumption correct with a single word.

  “No.”

  I swallow down the sudden pang of anxiety, wondering who it’s from and what it says, but I don’t dare let on to Eli.

  “You don’t have to hate me,” he says as I continue to walk around him and Addison as she fries something on the stove.

  “You don’t have to hover,” I answer him immediately.

  Without another word, he leaves, and I feel guilty although I know I shouldn’t.

  “What are you cooking?” I ask Addison after he’s left, staring at the piece of paper without reaching for it.

  “Eggs, do you want some?” she asks, peeking at me and then at the paper. I’m surprised she doesn’t ask about it; I can see the question in her eyes.

  “Sure,” I answer just to be friendly. I don’t think I could eat if I tried though. I’m already sick to my stomach.

  “How do you like them?” she asks before flipping her own in the pan.

  “Over easy, please, and thank you,” I tell her, trying to keep my voice upbeat and waiting to open the note until I’m alone.

  “Yolk?” Addison makes a face. “Eww. Really I don’t know if we can be friends anymore.” She’s only joking though. I know she is, but the thought of losing her sends a wave of nausea through me.

  “Fine,” I tell her back in as playful of a voice I can manage, “I’ll eat them however you’re making them. I like eggs however they come,” I lie. I’ve only ever had eggs over easy. I don’t even eat hard-boiled eggs. I can’t justify why I lie to her or why I’m so nervous and feeling so alone. But I do and am.

  “I can make them how ever.” Addison shrugs and then adds, “Over easy is the easiest way anyway. I just don’t like the taste of yolks.”

  Her easygoing reply settles the nerves still racing through me, but I glance back at the note and notice when her gaze follows me there. Still, she doesn’t ask questions and I get the feeling that’s a learned habit of hers.

  I watch as she cracks two eggs on the side of the pan, then takes a bite of hers from a plate on the right side of the stove.

  “I can totally cook them if you want to eat,” I offer, feeling guilty. I can’t shake all these awful feelings running through me.

  “I like it,” Addison tells me and then takes another bite. The pan sizzles as the tension runs through my shoulders and the note stares back at me.

  “Can I tell you something else?” Addison asks me, scraping her fork on the plate rather than looking at me. When I don’t answer she peeks up at me and I’m quick to nod my head.

  “I like that they’re here in a way.”

  “Who?” I ask her, feeling my forehead wrinkle with confusion.

  “Eli and Cason.” She doesn’t hide the guilt in her tone. “I know they’re basically keeping us hostage but seeing all those people on the TV this morning,” she pauses and visibly swallows. “Hearing the update on the death toll in this gang war?” She rolls her eyes as she repeats what the reporter called it. Looking over her shoulder at me and then reaching for another plate, she tells me, “At least I know we’re safe.”

  I can only nod and accept the plate. I’ve been ‘safe’ all my life. There’s no such thing as safe, only the illusion of it. Telling Addison that won’t help her though.

  My fork shuffles the eggs around on the plate while Addison watches, but she doesn’t say anything about it. I try to take a bite and then another, but it’s flavorless and it only makes the pit in my stomach feel heavier.

  “Are you going to read it?” she asks me and then tilts her head toward the note.

  I nod once and finally reach for it, but after I read it, I don’t tell her who it’s from. I don’t tell her what it says either.

  All I know is that Eli read it and I don’t know what that means for me.

  Aria,

  Meet me tomorrow night. I just need to see you. I need to know you’re all right.

  Meet me at the candy shoppe on Main Street. You can walk there; I’ll be there. I promise.

  Tomorrow. Eight at night.

  Yours,

  Nikolai

  “Are you all right?” she asks me as I feel the blood drain from my face.

  The sound of my fork abruptly scraping against the plate drowns out my answer to her. I mutter, “I just need a second,” as I walk past her with the note clenched tight in my hand. It feels like a betrayal of Carter to see Nikolai. But I need to. I have to see him. I have to know he’s all right.

  My steps are deliberate as I walk as quickly as I can toward the stairwell, intent on searching out Eli. I don’t have to look far; he’s waiting for me at the top of the stairs.

  “Eli,” I speak his name quickly like I can’t get it out fast enough. The uncertainty I’m feeling makes my skin tingle as I hold up the note.

  “Aria,” he says my name back easily and as if nothing’s wrong.
>
  “You read this?” I ask him even though he already told me he did.

  He only nods.

  “Are you going to stop me from seeing him?” I ask him, the strength in my voice threatening to vanish at any moment.

  “It depends.”

  “On what?” I ask him with no patience at all.

  “On what Carter tells me to do,” he answers, and I stand here helplessly in front of him.

  “Are you going to kill him?” It’s the next logical thought.

  He hesitates, and I plead with him, “I won’t run from you if you let me go to him. I need to see him.”

  He only takes a moment to respond, “I’m waiting to hear Carter’s decision,” and I can’t contain my frustration any longer.

  “You go ahead and wait. My decision is made.” I know my words mean nothing to the cadre of soldiers surrounding me. It’s a false threat, but I’m done playing these games where I’m some damsel trapped in a tower.

  “Before you storm off,” Eli begins with a straight face before I can turn my back on him and do exactly as he thought I would, storm off.

  He holds out a package and I stare at it cautiously rather than take it. “What is it?” I ask him.

  “You don’t trust me now?” he asks with a hint of an asymmetric grin.

  I don’t respond. This isn’t a game to me, it’s my life.

  “It’s from Carter.” He holds it out to me and I finally accept it, reeling with emotions I can’t even begin to describe.

  “What is it?” I ask him, but he only shrugs. The box isn’t particularly big or small, so I can’t even begin to guess what it contains.

  “Tell him I want to see Nikolai… please.”

  With a short nod, he puts his hands behind his back and takes his position as if guarding the stairwell was what he was told to do. And maybe he was. Maybe Carter thought I’d run down the stairs and out the door the moment I got a note from Nikolai.

  I don’t wait to get to the bedroom to open the package. I peel back the tape as I walk, and force open the box.

  Inside is a phone, simple and black, and art supplies, a drawing pad, and colored pencils.

  Such little things, but I stare at them on the bed for far too long in silence, wishing I hadn’t grown up in this world.

  Chapter 63

  Carter

  Hours have passed, but she hasn’t moved from the bed. Occasionally she flips open the sketch pad, but she doesn’t draw like she did before.

  Mostly she looks at the phone, expecting it to ring.

  She’s waiting on me. She’s waiting for my move, but I don’t know what the best action to take is.

  Every time my phone rings and I’m given intel on where the men are and where they’re going, my orders are immediate, confident, and not to be questioned. All who stand in my way will fall.

  But what Aria wants… I sit back in my seat, observing her as she stares at the pad in her lap. I don’t know how much leeway to give her. Free of her cage, my songbird might very well never come back to me given what I’m planning to do. And I can’t have that. Aria is mine.

  “How many men did Romano send in there?” Daniel asks as he walks into the office unannounced. No knocking whatsoever. I guess some things don’t change.

  Taking a deep breath that stretches my back, I answer him, “Four.”

  “And he wants us to send a dozen?” His tone is incredulous, but I had the same exact reaction and I give him a look that says as much.

  Turning my attention to Daniel, I take in his dark eyes and the rough stubble that’s overgrown on his jaw. He’s still in the same shirt he was wearing yesterday too.

  “Did you sleep?” I ask him, and he shakes his head no, but he moves the conversation back to business matters. Back to busying himself and ending the bullshit that keeps him from having Addison back.

  “Jett went down late last night to Carlisle. He said this morning that he counted at least twenty-two Talvery soldiers that come and go down the block.”

  “That’s right inside the northern border between the two of us, not between Romano and him.”

  “Right,” he answers me, but I didn’t need him to say a damn thing, I just needed a moment to think.

  “Are the rest of the areas high density like that?”

  “High density?” he echoes, not understanding. He hasn’t been back long and he’s still catching up.

  “Instead of spreading his men out, he’s keeping them heavy and clustered in one area? Or is this the only street like that?” Crossing my right ankle over my left knee, I lean back in the chair and pick up a pen to tap it against the desk as I think.

  “It’s like that three blocks from the divide between Romano and Talvery on the upper east side. Bedford, I think it is.”

  “Where are the rest of them?” I ask him. “I want a count and whereabouts of his men at all times.”

  “We need more eyes out if we want that intel. Jett can’t move if he wants to pick them off.”

  “Then get them.”

  “Most of our men are surrounding the safe house…” For the first time since beginning this conversation, he lowers his voice to confess, “I don’t want to move them.”

  “So, we need to take on an army with only a handful of men.”

  “Skilled men hired for this express purpose. Men who have been waiting for this for how long?” Daniel reminds me. Most of the men we picked up came with us for a reason. Hate is a better motivator than fear is and Talvery’s made more enemies in his decades of reign than I’d like to give him credit for. As he grew older, he grew harder.

  I wasn’t the first boy he nearly beat to death for dealing in his territory. The others had families though, families who knew exactly who was responsible. Families who came to me, knowing we shared a common enemy.

  I glance at the monitor, at my songbird who’s staring at nothing and consumed by her helplessness. For a split second, I wonder if she knows everything her father did. But I already know she doesn’t.

  Daniel continues the conversation, hellbent on coming up with a plan. “Jett thinks we could use eight men total, two on each corner of that street and the other four on the other side to clean up that area.”

  “Eight men, to take on their twenty?” My voice is flat, my gaze pinned to his, but all I can see is how this will go down. How we can take out each of them.

  “Romano’s supposed to be sending down four in the next two days to go in, since he wants clean kills to avoid the news and having to pay off more cops. But I think we should hit them tomorrow night with the automatic assault rifles we just got from the docks.”

  I nod my head in agreement. Clean kills take more time, time that they’ll use to react. “Why wait until tomorrow?” I ask him.

  “It’s Sunday,” Daniel reminds me. A huff leaves me, somewhat sarcastic, somewhat pathetic. There are rules in this industry if you can call it that. No women, no children. Give peace at funerals. And leave Sundays for families. They’re signs of respect and boundaries. The only reason they’re kept is that sometimes enemies become allies and it’s easily justified by saying that the enemy always gave respect.

  I know only one man who defied the laws and my little songbird stabbed that fucker to death. Not a soul defended him. And who would when his death was justified for breaking a sacred rule?

  Well, that man… and then myself. I took Aria from Talvery.

  “Tomorrow night then.” Daniel’s eyes shine brighter with the challenge of pulling this off.

  “Jett can stay where he is and take out any of Talvery’s men that survive the hit. We need the police to stay back for at least eight hours. Instead of going in to see who’s still breathing, we let the men try to come out to read the situation, and Jett will pick them off.”

  “They’ll be easy to pay off. I know Officer Harold will hold them back for a grand a minute.”

  Daniel considers it and then offers another plan. “The alternative would be using explosives. But t
he street is a good location and that’s a mess that’ll bring too much attention.”

  “Hit them tomorrow night with the automatics. Pay off the cops for four hours and we’ll hit the Talvery line up north as a distraction with the RDX, my explosive of choice courtesy of the shit Talvery put us through. Set off the explosives there at the same time as the hit on Carlisle Street. Let them focus on the bombings while we destroy their front line.”

  Daniel nods in agreement, relaxing into the chair, although his foot doesn’t stop tapping on the floor, giving away his anxiety.

  “Who all is there?” I ask him as my own qualms creep up on me.

  “What do you mean?”

  “Of Talvery’s men, who…?” I pause to swallow thickly and ask my brother flat out, “Are any of them Aria’s family?”

  “Her cousin, Brett, comes by the bakery in the morning. It looks like their usual meet-up spot. He’s been there every morning for the last three days, according to Jett. But at night, no. None of her blood. What she considers family is debatable though.”

  “You would think Talvery would be going out full force against Romano,” I answer back instead of entertaining his thoughts on who Aria’s family is.

  “He was until yesterday. He moved the men to Carlisle, to our border the night after the dinner.” He clarifies what night he’s referring to when I give him a questioning look. “The night she killed Stephan and Romano passed the message to him. Then, yesterday, something else changed.”

  I close my eyes remembering that night, remembering the feeling of pride and lust I had for her growing that night she ended Stephan’s life. “When it was confirmed that we had Aria.”

  “Yeah, that’s when he moved more of his men to our side.”

  “So, now he’s coming after us?” I can’t help that I smirk, loving the challenge and the flow of adrenaline in my blood.

  “There are equal numbers of men posted on the two borders. But if I were him, I’d be gunning for you.”