Scars and Silk 2 (The Calvetti Crime Family)

by Rose Harper

  I don’t want to look at the wall anymore, wondering when I’m going to be allowed to leave. I don’t want to shuffle through my day, loathing the fact that I’m even still alive. That’s the whole reason Father Avery is having Gavino watch me—to make sure I stay alive when people are sure to want me dead.

  I’ve had it. I don’t give a crap if he gets mad or not. I’m getting out of this room. Especially since I know what’s on the other side of it. He can’t keep me in here anymore. I’ve done nothing to him. It’s been all him since the very beginning, and it’s about time he knows it. Because Lord knows I can no longer hold my tongue.

  Stomping my way over toward the door, I ball my hand into a fist and start banging against it. I put all my weight into the assault, the sound reverberating off the walls as if a machine gun is firing all around me. The time for nice, subtle, innocent little Sky is over. He’s made me mad, and I’m going to fight back.

  “Get your butt back here, Gavino!” I yell, feeling the stirrings of the curse words bubbling in my belly.

  “Did you hear me?! Get the heck back here!” I scream at the top of my lungs, the decimal even hurting my ears.

  He thinks it’s all my fault? That I’m the reason something was taken away from his family? Bullcrap! The only thing I did wrong was work in that blasted library. That’s it.

  I’ve always paid my taxes. Been an upstanding citizen, even when I could barely make it. I don’t drink, I don’t curse—when I can help it—and I don’t think ill of anyone I come across—well, besides Gavino, that is. I did the right thing when I saw what went down at Columbia. So, why am I getting punished now? It doesn’t make a bit of sense, and I’m losing all rational thought fast.

  Ramming my shoulder into the door, I allow my anger to flow through me for the first time in ages. Fury over Gavino leaving me. Anger over the way he treated me when he did leave.

  The fact he took my virginity and shunned me like I was nothing more than a prostitute.

  “I’m going to break this door down if you don’t come back here!” I bellow, hearing the hinges scream against my assault. A bout of sinister laughter flows from my lips, scaring even me, but I continue. He brought this on himself. “You asked for it!”

  Stepping away from the door, my body vibrates with so much vehemence I can barely see straight. My vision blurs, but I know there’s nothing wrong with me. I’m just really furious with the treatment I’m getting.

  Taking two steps, I put all my weight into my kick, landing my foot in the dead center of the door. It barely groans under my assault, which infuriates me more. I’m so small, ineffective in almost everything I do.

  I swear life shouldn’t be this terrible. You’d think someone who’s been through as much as I have in my short life would get a pass on some things. That God would stop making me go through it all, giving me a break I desperately need. But no. Instead, I get kicked in the teeth over and over again.

  Tears glimmer across the surface of my eyes as I race toward the door, allowing a scream of fury from my throat. I beat and bang against the door, wanting more than anything to get the answers I’ve been asking myself for so long. I need them almost as much as I need air, and it seems the only person who has them is the man currently holding me hostage.

  “If you don’t come back here, I swear to God and my life, I will do something to make you!”

  It feels like I’m steadily going crazy. Where I was numb before, all my emotions are clawing their way to the surface. As if they’ve been steadily waiting their turn, and now that I’ve completely lost it, they’re taking advantage. And I allow it, knowing I need this release.

  I go to punch the door once more, but the static of the PA in my room has me stopping. My heart beats once, then twice, before his sex-fueled voice crackles through the speakers.

  “You’re hurting yourself for no reason, Sky,” is all he says. No explanation. No insight on why he completely went overboard, then left just as fast. After giving me the human contact I’ve been missing ever since he threw me in here.

  Before he came bursting in here, seething with rage, it had been so long since I had seen, let alone felt, a person next to me. Hell, it’s been even longer since I felt the sensual caress of a man against my back. The last time was my boyfriend before he was—or what I came to believe—brutally killed in the car accident.

  Shaking, I step away from the door and hold my arms out from me. Turning in a circle, I sniffle, allowing the tears to fall, as I scream with rage, “Then so be it! I’d rather have cuts, bruises, and broken bones than to be emotionally cut off. Your silence has done far worse than anything I could ever do to myself, I can assure you.”

  “That was your only warning,” he growls, his voice causing tremors to wreak havoc on my body.

  I can’t stand the fact my body reacts to his words and touch. I can’t stand it, because he doesn’t deserve any of those reactions from me. The only thing he deserves is the knife I want to bury in his chest. God, please forgive me.

  “I don’t care. Seriously, do your worst, big guy. At least then you would be paying attention to me.”

  “You don’t deserve a goddamn thing from me!” he bellows. Why does his temper cause me to become a puddle of need? I mean, he’s been nothing but a butthole toward me since he threw me over his shoulder and brought me here. There’ve been slips here and there of emotion before he tossed me back in here, but not enough for me to make heads or tails of it.

  It’s so disconcerting. So maddening.

  I feel it before it happens. It’s like a volcano laying dormant for so long, then all at once, exploding.

  “I never ask you for a motherfucking thing, you chauvinistic son of a bitch!” I scream out, relishing in the rawness of my throat. It’s been years since I allowed myself to turn into this person—this hateful, spiteful woman I barely recognize. But I have a feeling this is the only way that I will ever be able to get through to him.

  “Maybe I should just kill you now then. Hm?” he asks, and for the first time, I’m actually relieved one of us said it first. I’d rather be dead than to feel like this.

  To feel this sexual pull for nothing more than a monster.

  “I’d rather fucking die than be anywhere near you! Get a shovel. Get a gun, knife, rope, poison—I don’t care. Just fucking do something, you pathetic piece of shit!”

  It feels so good to allow those words to leave me. Makes me feel more like myself in such a long time, which leads me to believe I’ve been nothing more than living a lie since the accident took the lives of my parents, boyfriend—to all the people who ever loved me.

  Exhaling, a rush of endorphins flows through my body. The clay dirt has more texture under my feet as I push my toes into it. Every muscle on my lithe body tightens in preparation because even I know I can only get away talking to him like this for so long before he completely loses it. He had a bad temper in school, and I can only assume it’s gotten worse over the years.

  “Be. My. Guest,” he replies cryptically, making me smile in triumph.

  Turning toward the door, I allow the smile to take over my face as I slowly move backward. Bunching my hands into tight fists, I lick my lips, excitement practically thrumming through my veins on overdrive. I may not be a violent person, but it feels good to let myself go like this. If I had done it with anyone else, instead of holding my tongue like I usually do, they would have left me in a red-hot second.

  I’ve put myself into this bubble over the years, and I’m taking the first bloody knife I can and popping the son of a bitch. I’m tired of fitting into everyone’s idea of what I should be like. Yes, I’m a goddamn librarian. I love being silent and reading more than being boisterous and partying.

  At least, that’s how it’s been since my parents died. Now? I finally feel like I’m being my true self.

  Hearing the lock click, I ready myself. He’s more than likely holding a gun right by his side, feet shoulder width apart and ready for anything coming h
is way. Furrowing my brows, I wonder where that thought came from. But just as soon as it entered my mind, it’s fast departing. Now isn’t the time to get lost in there because I have a bone to pick with a certain bad man, and I’m going to make him pay for what he’s put me through.

  I deserve this.

  Seeing the door open before me, I come face-to-face with the man who’s taunted my every waking moment since I was sixteen, the year before my parents’ demise. I see the maniacal smile tugging at his lips, and just as I predicted, he’s holding a gun by his side.

  His chest is heaving as he continues to glare at me, his eyes running along the length of my body. My nipples bead under his perusal, my core clenching as a look of dark hunger falls over his eyes. It’s a look I haven’t brought out in anyone in my life, but a look that calls to me like nothing else.

  “You better say your last words, because this ends now,” he says, stepping into the room.

  Something about his attitude pushes me over the edge. Narrowing my eyes, I get into a defensive crouch, widening my feet. “We’ll see who calls uncle before this is over. You had me pegged wrong, Gavino, and I’m going to laugh when this is over.”

  8

  GAVINO

  Such a spritely little thing. If I didn’t want to kill her so much, I’d fuck the life out of her instead. But, here we are. She’s practically begged for this, and who am I to go against what she wants?

  Stepping into the room, my eyes can’t stop their ravenous assault on her body. The sweat coating the surface of her skin makes her shine, giving her a look of allure that most could never pull off.

  Cocking my gun, I bring it up, leveling my eyes with her. “One,” I say, taking another step.

  “Ticktock,” she taunts with a smirk.

  Rising heat overtakes me as I feel all reason slip away. She looks so feral right now, with her knotted, wet hair falling around her heaving breasts. Craning my head to the side, I get my last look at her before I end this. The Brotherhood knew better than to put this little princess in my care. They should have known this is where it would eventually end—me killing her, then burying her in my backyard.

  “Two.”

  “Pussy,” her filthy mouth spouts off as she counters my steps.

  Something is different about her. She’s not the same terrified girl I brought here when the threat against her life started. She’s changed; her demeanor matches that of a crazed feline.

  Positioning the barrel of the gun between her eyes, my breathing slows to a hum. The familiar numbness that always encompasses me before a kill starts filling me from the inside out. Now, instead of glaring at her with loathing, I’m looking at her with pure indifference. As if she means nothing to … She does mean nothing to me! I inwardly yell as my lips pull away from my teeth.

  “Three,” I growl.

  Bang!

  My finger pulls the trigger effortlessly. The breath whooshes from my lungs as the bullet leaves the chamber of my Glock. But, instead of it hitting her right between the eyes—which is where I pointed the goddamn thing—it misses her completely.

  And that’s because she’s unleashed all her fury, ducking as she races toward me. Before I can get myself together and process what the fuck is happening, she jumps from the floor and wraps herself around me. Stumbling back, I almost lose my footing as the force of her hit knocks me against the wall in the hallway.

  I expect her to get off me and start running, giving me that reprieve to end her as she runs away from me. But she doesn’t. In fact, her claws come out to play. She rains blow after blow against the side of my head with her fists as she continues to climb me. Her strong legs wrap around my waist as her fingers delve into my hair, holding it so tightly I feel them jerking from my scalp.

  “I’m going to make you pay for everything you did to me!” she screams, pummeling the side of my head.

  I grunt from one particularly good hit she lands on the side of my face. Instantly feeling it open up as warm blood slides down the side of my face. Without thought, I raise my hand and tunnel it into her waist length hair. Jerking her away from me, I expect her to let go. Only she holds on tighter, throwing in some elbows against the side of my head.

  It isn’t until I’m getting the shit beat out of me that I realize how light I feel. How it feels as if all of my problems have just floated away. I still hate her, but now a burning deep inside of me is working its way to the surface. As if her feral actions are a beacon and it’s answering the call.

  It’s fucking delicious!

  “If I knew you had this fire in you, I would have fucked you a long time ago,” I force out, releasing a dark chuckle as I slap her hands away from me.

  My mother taught me to never raise my hand to a woman. It’s a lesson I never fully picked up. I don’t beat women, if that’s what you’re wondering. But, if they do think they can stand up to me and try to beat the shit out of me, then I’m going to show them that simply isn’t true. Because if they have the balls to go up against someone like me, they better be ready for the repercussions that follow.

  My words instantly cause her to still in my arms. “What?”

  Something about the way she says that has me pulling away to look at her. I see confusion, betrayal—I see it all shooting from her steel gray eyes. She’s always had that problem. Even when we were in school. Her eyes are so expressive you would be able to know what she was thinking even without her saying it out loud.

  “Why are you looking at me like that?” I ask.

  “You—” she licks her lips, “You just said you would have fucked me a long time ago.”

  It was a slip during my anger. I didn’t take any notice to it, and I sure as fuck didn’t stop all motor function to a halt over those words. It’s just a fucking phrase. Nothing more, nothing less. But now that I have time to think, the words cause those memories to taunt at the back of my mind, renewing my anger.

  “Yeah, Sky, I would have fucked you a long time ago,” I seethe, narrowing my eyes. “But your little boyfriend beat me to it, then he told me about what you had been doing and that the little ‘scuffle’ in the hallway had been a setup to get me in your web of lies.”

  Dropping her like her touch burns, I almost laugh at the way she sprawls on the floor at my feet. Right where she belongs. Instead, I hunker down next to her, something resting across my face that has her scooting away from me until her back hits the wall.

  I already know what she’s seeing. The part of myself I show everyone; the emptiness that resides within me ever since that night. The dark, bottomless void of nothingness she helped create.

  “No,” she says around an exhale.

  Scoffing, I reply. “You can drop the act, Sky. No one is here to see your performance. As for the fact you fucked me over, fucked your boyfriend, then allowed them to do this to me—that’s the reason I will never forgive you.”

  Taking my shirt in my hands, I rip it right down the middle—just enough for her to see the scars littering my chest. Her eyes immediately fall down to the movement. Tears dance in her eyes as she takes it in, playing the perfect actress once more. Bullshit! She can’t play that shit with me anymore. I’ll never fall for it. I’m older and wiser than I was in high school. No longer the horny little fuck who would do anything for the girl sitting in front of me.

  “Gavino.” She hiccups on a sob as she reaches her fingers out to touch them.

  I don’t know why, but I allow it. Peering down at her, my eyes are glued to her face as she watches her fingers slowly ghost across my chest. She’s deliberate in her movement, almost calculating what she’s going to do next. It piques my interest, which I loathe admitting. I don’t want to be interested in her, other than to ask her how someone like her—someone who appears so innocent—can dodge one of my kill shots.

  Only, I can’t. I try to summon my voice, but her reaction at seeing my chest leaves me gobsmacked. Cotton fills my mouth, making me unable to do anything more than breathe in her direction. I
see such sadness littering her features. Sadness that confuses me to no end.

  “Skylah,” I whisper, shocking her into jerking her gaze up to mine. “Why do I get the feeling you knew about none of this?”

  It isn’t until I ask the question that I actually consider it myself. She looks at me with such anguish, such shock, it almost leaves me breathless.

  I’ve been in the middle of familia wars. Been the brunt of everyone’s gruesome jokes. Yet, nothing shook me as much as her tear-filled gaze does now. And no matter how much I want her to remain my enemy, even I can feel the shift inside of me. It feels like ice slowly melting, making room for a new warmth I haven’t felt in so long.

  “I thought you hated me,” she gasps, crying. “I was so confused how you could turn like you did—how you could hate me for absolutely nothing.”

  My heart freezes inside my chest as I watch her lean toward me. Clenching my fingers, I wait on bated breath as she slowly moves closer and closer until her plush lips lightly graze against the letters carved on my chest. My entire being ignites, my eyes widening at the feeling coursing through my veins. Such a small touch, small taste—yet my physical reaction is more than anything I’ve ever known.

  “How could anyone believe you’re the devil?” She pulls away, lifting her tear-stained face up to my face. Her eyes connect with mine, holding such heartache, I feel conflicted. It makes me question every goddamn thing that’s ever happened to me. “How could you be anything of the sort when you were so much more. You were my savior.”

  9

  SKYLAH

  My heart feels like it’s shattering inside my chest over and over. The scars. Pain. Torture. It’s all in front of me plain as day, taunting me.

  “Who did this to you?” I ask, sniffling. “You said it was my boyfriend, right? I only had one, and he wouldn’t do something like that—at least, the person I knew him as then wouldn’t have.”