Merciful Vows: A Bittersweet Second Chance Romantic Suspense (The Giannotti World Book 1)

by Vanessa Luisa

  I cannot believe this is happening again. One glance is enough to see the stashes of white power and possibly hundreds of stacked up pill containers. I rush to shut the front door, which hasn’t received as much damage as I thought, and turn back to Marcus. “You’re using again?”

  “No. I’m not using.”

  “Look me in the eye and tell me again.”

  When Marcus does I curse at the redness crawling in them. I don’t know how I missed it before. “I’m not using. I’m…selling.”

  Oh, Dio.

  Years ago when Marcus moved states to attend college here and later work at my company, I couldn’t say no because of our past. Something else that happened on that Thanksgiving night has ironically bound us to this promise…one that I resent.

  We have never gotten along, but I continued to help him. He is my blood after all. There are times he’s asked to borrow thousands of dollars, and thinking he’ll use it for good or at least something legal, like starting up his own design business, I accept without question. Even though he’s never paid me back, I’ve maintained a fraction of faith in him. Looking back now, I’ve been too generous. Helping Marcus is a foolishly desperate move to keep him as part of the family.

  Foolish.

  I stopped the additional payments when I walked in on a drug trade in his office months ago. It’s irresponsible. I feel like a fucking tour guide in my own freaking building; and on the left it’s drugs in Marcus’ office, down a level and to the right it’s sex in McCarson’s office. Take your pick. Fuck no. It’s preposterous. This needs to stop. Marcus has always pledged he’s only the seller and that he’ll stop. I have never believed it and how he’s acting now is why.

  “Do you know how bad this is, Marcus?” I can’t speak sense into him, no matter how hard I try. “If the police find you—”

  “They won’t.”

  “Let’s say they do. Are you prepared to throw away your entire life?”

  “I’m careful with the people I sell to.”

  “You’re twenty-three, Marcus! You have your entire life ahead of—”

  “The only way the police will find out is if YOU tell them. Okay?” he hisses. I see the terror in his eyes, even if he doesn’t want to admit it. “If you tell them, I swear on my mother’s life that I will tell them everything.”

  “Don’t you dare. They are two different situations. You promised me—”

  Marcus cuts me off. Again. “Don’t tell a soul. You owe me! You fucking owe me this!”

  I don’t see a man in front of me; I see hell. That wicked look in his eyes has been there ever since he learned the word ‘brother.’ Yes, he lost his father too, but I became an orphan that night. I admit I haven’t been the best to him, but I have my reasons.

  What reasons does he have?

  Marcus took my mother’s favorite pieces of gold jewelry and threw them in the river.

  My father praised him.

  He keyed my first car.

  His mother laughed it off.

  He set my bed on fire the day before I left for Seattle.

  The happy couple said “it was going to be removed anyway.”

  That nine-year-old playing with fire grew up to be a man toying with every opportunity in his precious life.

  Marcus’ anger fluctuates as I stand motionless in front of him. I can’t give him more than I already have. A steady job. Steady pay. A steady family through my children.

  “I don’t know what to say, Marcus…”

  “Nobody cares, Giulio. You know where I was this past weekend? Jersey. My mom got remarried and wait a minute…oh, that’s right you weren’t invited.”

  “Good luck to her. There’s no need to be childish about it, you know that I would not have gone even if I was invited after what she did to my mother. I want to talk some sense into you. I want to help you. But I can only explain it to you. I can’t understand it for you, Marcus.”

  It happens in a split second.

  He launches at me and his fist collides with my left cheekbone. I don’t flinch. My half-brother doesn’t stop there. He punches my diaphragm and keeps going. My breaths stagger but I don’t retaliate throughout the entire ordeal. I simply stare ahead at him with a clenched jaw.

  He throws punch after punch. One blow to my stomach and I’m on my knees, suppressing the groans that threaten to escape.

  Not for him.

  Marcus kicks my side. Once. Twice. He screams, telling me to fight back and then switches to insults. All of which reminds me exactly of my father. It’s exactly what he used to do. I let Marcus treat me however he likes because I know the demons inside him will never stop without a release. I take it. Blow after blow. I do not care that I will wake up in the morning battered and bruised. All I care about is that Marcus wakes up tomorrow morning with at least one brain cell that tells him just how wrong he is.

  “Marcus, what the hell?”

  “Leave me alone, Bryce. He fucking deserves it.”

  There’s a struggle between them. I miss it, too desperate to catch my breath.

  “Get out of here! Innit enough you’re a dealer? Don’t add being a nutter to the title.”

  I clutch my side, compressing the sharp pain I haven’t felt in a long while.

  The front door opens and slams shut. Marcus is gone.

  A hand is extended to me.

  I smell bergamot.

  Bryce.

  It’s Bryce. Helping me?

  “Your face is alright, it’s the body that will bruise up,” he says with a pinched expression, his nose scrunched up. “He shouldn’t have gone that far. Come on, up ya get.”

  I stare at him perplexed and he has the exact expression. He’s just as astonished as I am that the Bryce McCarson is taking my side.

  Has Marcus kicked me into the Twilight Zone?

  I can’t forgive Bryce for what he did to Valencia, but what I can do is take Bryce’s tattooed hand. And I do, and Bryce helps me up. I thank him while adjusting my suit.

  I attempt to work through exactly what just happened. Bryce stopped the altercation and as a result, made Marcus leave the house. Now he’s protecting me, ushering me into the mid-century wood kitchen and pulling out vinegar from under the sink.

  I came here to put Bryce in his place.

  He knew this as much as I did.

  Then why is he helping me?

  McCarson sets out a small bowl and pours a dash of vinegar, the rest he fills with warm water. I watch wordlessly as he disappears and returns with a rag. His green eyes flicker to mine and then my torso.

  “Take ya shirt off.”

  “Why?”

  He looks at me as if I’m insane. “Because those bruises will make ya feel like shit in the morning if you don’t do something about them. How can I help ya with it on? Rubbing vinegar and warm water on the areas before they appear will help the coloring and healing.”

  I swallow hard. “I meant why did you take my side back there?”

  Bryce stays silent as I take off my shirt. He stares outside the kitchen window, shoulders tense underneath his Harley Davidson sweatshirt. I’ve never seen Bryce this quiet or somber.

  McCarson without the sarcasm? Unthinkable.

  “Have ya ever been to Hoxton, England?”

  “No.”

  “Hmmm.” Bryce nods, his gaze still on the outside. When he speaks, his accent shines through. “Well, I was born there. Now if ya ask me, my mother, or say the local bread-maker what makes Hoxton really Hoxton, we’ll all say different things. The bread-maker would say the tight-knit communities and cloudy days, right. There’s something poetic about it. My mother would say her bread and butt’er pudding with raisins. She hates nutmeg and puts so many raisins in it’s basically a raisin cake. Every bite there’s like sixty pieces in your mouth and you’re paralyzed…but I never questioned it because it’s what she likes. You see, a lot of people have different perspectives on the world. It’s the same place but different things stand out. Like you in yo
ur job. Ya notice things that I wouldn’t necessarily pick up and that there takes courage to notice things others wouldn’t without the fear of being judged.”

  I take the small towel and wipe over the beaten areas. Still, I’m attentive to Bryce and keep my eyes on him. The spot near my diaphragm stings and I hiss in protest.

  “Easy, mate. It’ll hurt for a bit…Anyway, if someone asked me what I love about Hoxton, I would say the warmth of friendship. I had friends back there.” He smirks when he turns to me. “Hard to believe that, innit?”

  The corners of my lips rise. “Am I allowed to say sometimes?”

  “You’re allowed. All tough guys with the softest hearts, ya know how it all goes. I left them for opportunity here in Seattle. One thing I learned about my group of friends is if you fuck with one of us, you fuck with us all. I’ve never had a long-term girlfriend, I’m the casual type of guy. This week I hid from ya because I…I know what I did was wrong. If I was back home, all my mates would circle me and beat my ass. We love each other but we always put each other in our place too. Ya know what I mean?”

  “I do.”

  Bryce takes a step forward and motions towards my hand. “See what I like about you, Giannotti, is what you did to me. You hit me. Valencia, she slapped me. Now, I’m not saying violence is the answer but it’s needed to place things into perspective sometimes. I put myself in ya shoes; it’s something I’ve never done, right, so I put myself in those shiny fancy fucking Italian shoes you wear and imagined myself with kids and a wife. I imagined my wife assisting her employee with important work. They got drunk and he…he thought that maybe she was sick of me and wanted to show her what she was missing.”

  He pauses with a staggered breath, his face flushed. There’s aggravation within him and I notice now it’s anger at himself. With each sentence he takes a pause, amplifying the severity.

  I should be giving Bryce McCarson a piece of my mind, but he’s surprising me. I never expected this, that he would actually have an honest conversation with me. Then Valencia crosses my mind and how distressed she was in that shower. I know this is going to be more complex than I initially thought.

  “If I stepped inside that bar and I saw that, right? If I saw somebody feeling up my wife, kissing her neck…I would have killed that man. I wouldn’t have stopped at a punch. I would have fucking ended him for even thinking, let alone kissing her without her wanting it. Why didn’t ya go that far with me?”

  “I’m not that type of man.”

  “Nah. I saw the havoc in them eyes. If she wasn’t there, you may have gone there.”

  I swallow hard. No. No, I wouldn’t…not with him.

  McCarson’s confidence is like no other person I have ever crossed. There’s something very cynical about him. He’s the type of man who rakes carnage and isn’t afraid to drag everybody down with him. But right now, there’s a different side to Bryce McCarson. Perhaps the side he only shows for Marcus, close friends, and particular women.

  Is the arrogance just a façade?

  “I needed to attend to Valencia.”

  “Nah.” He shakes his head confidently. His pointer rests upon my chest and taps twice. “You didn’t go that far because you still love her and you didn’t want to face the consequences of killing a man in front of her. That’s a life sentence in marriage. I know you hate me, Giulio, but every once in awhile the hero needs the antagonist and vice-versa. That’s exactly what happened earlier…and now.”

  Bryce and I are left staring at each other. I don’t know what to say because I never expected this from him. You still love her. The cords of my neck soften at the thought of civil ground, but I cannot let go of the repercussions of his actions and how much it reeled Valencia back into our greatest suffering.

  “I have never seen Valencia that drunk in my life. It wasn’t her and perhaps that wasn’t you either, but you hurt her deeply and that hurts me.”

  “I know, mate. I am sorry for everything that went down. It was never my intention going into the night and the alcohol fucked with my head and I just felt…I don’t know what I felt.”

  I ring the towel and wash out the bowl.

  I need time to evaluate everything that he has said to me. I need to talk to Valencia about it and I already know it can’t be tonight. Therapy is hot on the schedule and I’m counting on it helping us.

  There was so much animosity in the air and then Friday night we confided in each other. I was so damn close to kissing her and showing her just how much I’ve missed her, but it wasn’t the right moment and I needed to leave. It was the same feeling when she thanked me for giving her the mental health handbook. The heat in her eyes matched the blood pumping through my body, coaxed with nothing but my very much still present feelings for her. Just like on Friday, that moment had me wanting to whisk her away into the mesmerizing sunset with me and give in to every last one of our desires.

  I need time to think.

  You’ve got a lot to think about, Giannotti.

  Bryce follows me on the way out. I’m wordless in my pursuit to slip on my blazer and undo a few of my shirt buttons. I can’t walk straight without feeling the pressure of each blow.

  I quicken my pace by the coat closet and Bryce notices. “For the record, I’ve only seen Marcus sell them. I don’t do any of it. I’m more of a…drinks type of guy.” His rough, rumbling accent has a way of making me glance towards him as his eyes widen. “Even though I know alcohol is…never…the…ahem, answer.”

  I’m so used to the unmotivated, cocky, persuasive Bryce. He’s nothing but wise now. I’ve never heard him speak so much truth. Would this bloom into some unlikely alliance?

  Warmth of friendship.

  Every once in awhile the hero needs the antagonist.

  As Bryce slides his hands into the pockets of his dark faded jeans, I ask myself, can I forgive him for what he’s done? Can Valencia forgive him?

  When he slips his hood over his head, I start to say something but I’m distracted by a figure in my peripheral vision. Head low, Marcus is down the street and walking back up at a slow pace. I don’t think he’s seen me, but I do and so does Bryce.

  “Don’t worry, I’ll calm him down,” he says.

  I eye Bryce who’s still focused on my half-brother. Then something dawns on me and I stand paralyzed for a moment. Does he know about…? No. Why would Marcus have told him? He wouldn’t have told him. It doesn’t involve Bryce. But what if he did? I don’t trust Marcus but he wouldn’t do that.

  Oh, Dio. Stop overthinking it.

  “Thank you.” There’s no anger left in me. I came here intending to settle the score, but his peacemaking has derailed everything. I’m so pensive yet perplexed I can’t even think straight.

  “Your clients cannot be disregarded any longer, Bryce.”

  “I know…I promise I’ll fix everything when I return to work. But if it’s alright with you, I just need to talk it out with Valencia first and apologize. Ya know, make her feel okay.”

  I slip into my beige leather driver’s seat, my left foot still pressed against the pavement. Turning towards him has my injuries ache. “Zeluci tomorrow night at 7 P.M. She’ll be there with Kayla and her sister, Helena. Don’t tell her I told you. Make it right with her and we’ll review your position in the coming days. Okay?”

  Bryce nods and I shut my door. “Okay.”

  With one final nod, I switch on the engine and shut the door, not knowing if I should have told him where Valencia would be. It’s done now and it settles me that she won’t be alone with him. He wouldn’t do it again.

  I have to trust Bryce McCarson.

  I have to accept our truce.

  Marcus is almost at the drive but stops to stare straight through me. I ignore the urge to talk to him and refocus on Bryce. I slide down the window when he taps on it. “Aye, don’t forget to apply vinegar and water in the mornings, even after the bruises appear. It’ll help ‘em.”

  “Will do. I’m curious, who hurt you
so bad you needed to learn all of this?”

  That cunning smirk makes a return.

  Bryce smiles. “A sweet little thing called the warmth of friendship.”

  Valencia

  Giulio kills the engine outside of the therapist and my eyes slam shut.

  Breathe.

  We didn’t mention anything about our moment on Friday during the entire drive here. Instead, we spoke about the children, his run in with Zoe last week and he also then briefly mentioned he saw Bryce McCarson this morning who apologized for the drunken bar incident. It doesn’t fix everything, but apparently Bryce sounded sincere and wants to make amends with me one of these days.

  One point during our conversation earlier Giulio’s hand laced over mine. It was of those gentle thumb caresses that made my heart skip a beat and want him even more. Even the rough tension diffused and for once the silence between us wasn’t awkward. It was refreshing.

  Now, as I mentally prepare myself for therapy, I attempt to drown out all my previous thoughts with positive affirmations.

  I can do this.

  It will be alright.

  Trust the process.

  “Everything okay?”

  “Yes, I’m just preparing myself. It helps me get through it.”

  There’s a soft hum to my left.

  Giulio’s door shuts and I wait in anticipation for the next move. His fresh, citric aroma with a hint of elegant spices wraps around me, softening the bubble I use to protect myself from the world. The same bubble he can see right through. This is my life. Mine. And I’m doing my best to get through before the storm. I’ve been burned before. I know this pain too well.

  I hear my door open. “What are you thinking about?”

  My eyes open to Giulio looking down at me smiling, his hands outstretched on the roof of his car. “Small nuggets of hope. Or like Slonne likes to call them, nussets.”

  Our laughter fades and we become nothing more than two broken souls watching each other. Time stops when Giulio crouches down and his hand falls upon my right thigh. Both our gazes drop there, simply analyzing how he circles my knee and later spreads up over my light blue Levi jeans. Every single second bursts at the electric waves beneath his palm.