Monster: Made & Broken (A Mafia Bad Boy Romance)

by Nora Ash

  "I hurt her!" It wasn't quite a shout, but the sound of my shame spoken out loud still seemed to echo through my head until it filled the air. I buried my face in my hands and slumped against the wall, my muscles finally giving up their ability to keep me upright. "I hurt her, and she needs to get far, far away from me and all this shit so no one can ever harm her again. Especially me."

  "Marcus..." Blaine sounded more than a little hesitant at my confession, but he gripped my shoulder and gave it what would have been a comforting squeeze had I had the ability to feel anything but pain and regret. "Are you sure you actually hurt-hurt her? She looks fine—or as fine as anyone can look after having walked in on one of your little massacres. And..." He sighed, and I could practically hear him steeling himself to force the words out. "Look, I know falling in love is... it's fucking brutal. Trust me, I get it. But mate, that girl stayed with you every minute of every day you were in the hospital. She switched sides for you, risking Brigs’ wrath. We get one chance at true love. One. And the way you two look at each other... I'm pretty sure she's it for you. Do you really want to give up on her? Because if I use my connections to make her disappear—she's gone. For good. There won't be any second chances."

  Another kind of pain made it through the fog of self-hatred, making my resolve flicker for a single moment. I knew, without a shadow of a doubt, that if I gave up Evelyn I would give up the only tie I’d ever found to my humanity. She was the only one who had ever been capable of making the darkness resign, the only one to pull me out of the depths of my black insanity.

  Losing her would finally break my weak grasp on the parts of my soul I could ever have called good.

  But there wasn’t anything I wouldn’t sacrifice for Evelyn. Even my own soul.

  “I’m sure,” I said, pushing down the cry of denial threatening to escape my throat. “She deserves to find love with someone who isn’t a monster.”

  * * * *

  Chapter 22

  Evelyn

  "Are you all right?"

  I looked up at Mira from my perch on the bed, not entirely sure how to answer her well-meaning question.

  Specifically because my entire body was still throbbing from sexual exertion, and here I was, sitting half-naked in the company of a woman I'd seen only once before. I clutched Marcus' shirt tighter around my body and tried my best to suppress my embarrassed flush.

  "Yeah. Thanks. Just a little..." Sweaty? Sticky? Still emotionally wrought from the intimate bond I'd shared with the man who'd dumped me with his sister-in-law minutes after the most intense sex of my life? There just really wasn't any way to finish that sentence, so I didn't even try.

  "Ah, the Steel men," Mira said lightly as she walked over to the big, wooden wardrobe and began pulling out clothes. "Very intense. Not very good at easing a girl down to Earth after. Do you like navy blue? I think we're roughly the same size, aren't we?"

  I looked at the simple, but elegant dress she was holding out and could have kissed her. "Navy blue is perfect. Thank you." To be fair, any color would have been fine if it meant I didn't have to spend the rest of my time in the Steel patriarch's house wearing Marcus' bloody shirt and ripped panties.

  She smiled and handed me the dress, along with panties and gray woolen tights. "There's an en-suite if you want to freshen up a bit."

  "Yeah, that would be good," I mumbled. A quick shower wouldn't be the worst of ideas, so I disappeared into the adjoining bathroom and turned on the shower.

  If I'd had my way, I would have currently been curled up with Marcus somewhere where it was just the two of us and we could bask in the afterglow. Even the first time we'd made love, when he'd lost control and fucked me like a wild beast, it hadn't been as emotionally volatile as this time. This time had been... I didn't have words for what it had been, but I knew in the depths of my soul that I would never be the same.

  The sex had been rough and the stench of blood littering the air hadn't exactly set the most romantic mood, and yet I had connected with my lover more deeply than I'd ever imagined possible. It had been just him and me, just the insurmountable need he had for me, and my longing to quell all the pain I knew was warring inside of him as he unleashed his agony with every thrust and every groan.

  My heart skipped a beat as I remembered how fully he had surrendered himself to me in those moments of passion. I hadn't known it was possible to be that close to another human being, but he had shown me differently.

  The sheer elation of knowing that I was loved and wanted and needed by the man my heart had fallen for without ever asking permission was the biggest gift of my life.

  I'd sobbed like a baby once it was done, too overwhelmed with emotion and bliss to put into words what he meant to me.

  Something I intended on rectifying the second he came back from whatever it was he was doing.

  It was ironic, really. When Blaine had come into the room where Mira and I were waiting and said Marcus had “lost it” on the hostage, I'd rushed down to the basement—despite his attempt at stopping me—intent on saving Marcus from the nightmares I knew would follow if he lost control.

  I hadn't given Brigs' man a second thought, hadn't cared about his life at all—and when I walked into the room and saw his mangled corpse, all my empathy had been with the hunched-up man with blood on his hands who'd been sobbing in the corner, oblivious to the world.

  I'd tried to resist the pull between us from day one because I didn't want any more part of the violence in the underworld than what Brigs had already forced me to participate in. Had thought being with a man who murdered people as part of his job would make me resent and fear him.

  And yet, when it came down to it, it didn't matter. All that mattered was that he'd needed me, and I needed to be with him.

  Even now, I didn't have much empathy for the man who had tried to kill Marcus and I, not even after how gruesome his end was. He'd tried to take away the man I loved. He deserved everything that came to him.

  I walked out of the shower dressed in Mira's clothes, and found her sitting on the bed with Aidan in her arms and Blaine leaning against one of the bedposts.

  "You called it, we are exactly the same size," I said and did a twirl before shooting Blaine a teasing smile. "Maybe the twins are right and you guys do, in fact, have a type."

  The frown on both their faces made my smile falter. "What?"

  "Marcus is waiting for you in the hallway," Blaine said, and something in his tone made my stomach drop.

  "Is something wrong?" I asked, walking toward the door before I even knew my feet were moving. "Is it your dad?"

  He just shook his head, and I didn't have time to stay and grill him—not if Marcus needed me.

  He was waiting a few yards down the hallway, still shirtless and with his hands pushed down the front of his jeans pockets. His face was as dark and broody as ever, and the churning in my gut clenched at the pain in his eyes.

  "What's going on?" I asked as I stopped in front of him. I reached out to touch his bare arm, but he moved out of my reach before I could touch him.

  Confused, I looked up into his stormy eyes. "Marcus, what's the matter?"

  "I've talked with Blaine, and he has agreed to use his connections to send you out of the country. Tonight," he said, turning his face so he was no longer returning my gaze.

  "I don't understand," I said, frowning at his words as much as the cold distance in his voice. "I thought you were staying here to fight with your family?"

  "I am," he said. "You're going alone. Once you get on the plane, no one will be able to find you again. Not Brigs, not Blaine. Not me. I'll give you some starting capital so you can begin a new life somewhere else."

  "But..." The clenching in my gut turned to lead as his words slowly began to sink in. I stared at him, willing it to all be a misunderstanding even as my shocked brain finally took in why he was so cold. He was leaving me. "But what about us?"

  "There is no us," he said, an angry slant to his mouth. "And there
never will be. Rob is waiting down in the driveway to take you to the airport. You're getting a ticket out of this life—out of all the violence and the crime. It's what you wanted, right from the start. I suggest you take it."

  "Marcus..." I wanted to say something else, demand that he explain why he was doing this, why he had lied to me, but I couldn't force the words out. All I could do was stand there and stare at the man I'd given my soul, the man I'd trusted with everything I was as my heart broke into a million pieces.

  He didn't want me, after all.

  "Goodbye, Evelyn," he said, and then he turned around and walked down the hall, down the stairs, and out of my life.

  I don't know how long I stood there, numb from shock and pain with tears trickling down my cheeks, but when I finally regained the ability to move it was like a layer of ice had closed around me. It was thin and brittle, but it made me able to walk down the stairs and out of the mansion to the waiting car.

  He was right. This was what I'd wanted—a ticket out of London and the criminal hell I'd been wrapped up in for the past year and a half.

  And if nothing else, that was what Marcus Steel had given me.

  Even if the price was much higher than I'd ever wanted to pay.

  * * * *

  Chapter 23

  Evelyn

  "Can we drive by my flat on the way, please?" I asked Rob as I climbed into the backseat and shut the door behind me. "I need my passport."

  "Everything's taken care of," he said, handing me a thick brown envelope before he turned the keys in the ignition of the sleek Lexus. "New identity, new passport, money. You'll be an entirely new woman once you walk into Heathrow."

  I let my fingers slide over the envelope and felt the lumps inside. One of them felt like it was the size of a passport, and a couple of the others like rolls of money. An entirely new woman, huh? Well, at least that sounded good, because I couldn't stand to be the one I currently was for much longer.

  "Wait for me!"

  I jolted when the passenger door opposite me was ripped open and Mira shoved a gurgling toddler through and into my arms before she followed, slamming the door shut behind her. "Go, quickly now, before Blaine realizes I've left the room."

  Rob stared at her in the rear view mirror, mouth agape. "Absolutely not! Get back inside, before he sees us and skins me alive!"

  "Oh, don't be so dramatic," Mira huffed even as she ducked down so no one from the house would be able see her. "We're with you, it's perfectly safe. And I'll deal with Blaine. Just drive, Rob. The sooner you get us there, the sooner you can get us back again."

  He stared at her for a moment longer, and then let out a string of profanity as he set the car in gear and pulled out of the driveway. "I miss the days when you were scared of him."

  "So does he," she said with a cheerful smile before she straightened up in the seat and reached out to grab Aidan again. Then she turned to me, tilting her head a little.

  "What happened in the basement, Evelyn?"

  I shook my head. "Doesn't matter now."

  "Of course it matters. Before he went down there, you two were getting married, and now he's sending you away? Did he hurt you?"

  I frowned. "No, of course not. He... we... I thought I comforted him. I thought... I thought everything was good. But I guess I was wrong."

  "Hm," she said, still with that head-tilt that made me feel like she was trying to analyze me. "Well, I might not always understand what goes on in that head of his, but I do know that Marcus loves you. More than he probably knows how to express. All the Steel brothers... they're pretty damaged. They had a rotten childhood, and to put it blatantly, it's really messed them up. Especially Marcus. He's always been so withdrawn, hardly ever spoke. Until you showed up.

  "Evelyn, I don't know what happened or why he's suddenly decided the best thing is to send you away, but I promise you it's not because he doesn't love you, or whatever idiotic thing he told you to make you give up without a fight. Knowing him, it's probably some misguided attempt at protecting you. They're big on that—protecting the people they love—and sometimes it comes across in less than ideal ways."

  I shook my head, willing my tears to stay put. "You didn't see him. He meant what he said. If he loved me, he wouldn't have sent me away. You don't do that to someone you care about. I learned that early on in life."

  She gave me a sad little smile and shifted her baby so she could put a hand on my arm. "You have to do what you think is right for you, I get that. Forgive me for being pushy about it—I have a soft spot for my brother-in-law, and the only time I've seen him look happy was with you. As long as you are one hundred percent sure that this is the end of the road for you two, then getting out is probably the smartest thing you can do."

  I bit my lip and nodded, not trusting my voice to hold as I watched her bounce the toddler when he started fussing. He had the same dark hair and gray eyes as his father and uncle, and looking at him made an achy spasm cut through me. it was what Marcus said he wanted with me—a baby and a future. And I... I'd let myself want it, too. Looking at Aidan made the longing for everything I'd never have well up, sharp and painful. I turned away and looked out the window at the passing traffic instead.

  Soon, I would be able to forget I'd let myself believe that life came with happy endings for people like me.

  Mira didn't try to broach the subject of Marcus again, but she kept her hand on my arm for the rest of the drive.

  When Rob pulled over in Heathrow she gave me a one-armed hug and the same, sad smile as before. "Good luck, Evelyn."

  "Thanks," I said, feeling like I should say some more but not knowing what. "You too. With... everything."

  "We'll be fine," she said, her smile turning somewhat more determined. "There's nothing the Steels won't do for their family."

  I nodded, clutching my envelope in one hand before I climbed out of the car.

  It was an odd feeling of loss, watching them drive off. Something about knowing that they were on their way back to fight for the family that had almost been mine made a fresh wave of grief flood through my system, and I steeled myself against the press of tears.

  Irritated with myself for dwelling on what could have been I tore open the envelope to get a look at my new identity.

  Apart from cash and a passport with a photo of me along with the name Emily Brisbane, there was an awful lot of documents in the envelope.

  I leafed through them, finding a plane ticket and a pre-paid hotel room in Chicago. I almost closed the envelope then, intent on looking through everything else when I was on the plane, when my eyes caught sight of another plane ticket, this one with the name Eleonore Brisbane on it.

  I frowned. It was for tomorrow rather than this evening, and instead of leaving from Heathrow it went from Chicago to California.

  Quickly, I looked through the rest of the documents, looking for an explanation.

  When I found it, my legs nearly gave out from underneath me.

  Fumbling, I dropped down on the concrete wall separating the pavement from the trolleys as I stared at the piece of paper in my shaking hand.

  It outlined detailed treatment plans for advanced Alzheimer trials at UCLA for one Mrs. Eleonore Brisbane.

  I recognized the name of the program. A year and a half ago, when my mum first got diagnosed, I had frantically looked up any and all possible ways to cure it, and found none—apart from a newly commenced closed-trial program in California, which showed promising results but were still years off being made available to the public.

  And, I'd been told by the kind doctor who had diagnosed my mother, even when it did become available to the public, it would likely be another decade before it would be available through the NHS. It would be far, far too expensive to pay privately, even if my mother's memory would be salvageable so far into the disease.

  And yet here I sat, with a document that would let Mrs. Eleonore Brisbane undertake treatment no one on the planet had access to.

  If it
went well, someday I could potentially get my mother back.

  Marcus had given me a chance for my mother to return to me.

  At the bottom of the treatment arrangement was a small note attached with a paper clip. It simply read: I need you to be happy.

  It was an interesting feeling, going from so much grief to the shock of my discovery, and then elation so intense my mind struggled to grasp it. But in the mix of confusion, one thing became increasingly clear the longer I stared at Marcus' note: he still cared for me. Very much. Not even a guilty conscience for going back on his promises of a future together would make someone spend the kind of resources this trial would cost for someone they didn't care about.

  And I had let him go without a fight.

  I'd been too scared of the hurt from his rejection to stop and question him on his sudden change of heart, too consumed in my own pain to stand my ground and demand an explanation.

  Was Mira right? Was this some idiotic attempt at protecting me?

  I didn't know, but as I stared at the envelope he'd prepared for me, I knew that I could never be sure until I'd talked to him and demanded that he explain what had happened to make him change his mind.

  Could I really live with the knowledge that I'd given up on a man who would go to these lengths for me, without trying my damnedest first?

  No. No, I could not.

  A refreshing wave of resolve burned through the numb grief, and I got to my feet. Even if he no longer felt anything for me, if this truly was just a parting gift, then I was going to make him look me in the eye and explain everything, and not just ship me off because it was easier that way.

  I rented out a safety box in the airport, leaving most of the contents of the envelope minus some money for a cab behind, and then went out to the taxi ramp.

  Marcus Steel might think he was done with me, but I wasn't done with him. Not yet.

  * * *

  The solitary house on the country road outside of one of London’s poshest suburbs was a looming block of quietude. There wasn't a single car parked up by the house as far as I could tell, and I frowned as I slipped the cab driver his payment and got out of the car.