by Bethany-Kris
“I will fucking kill you, Guzzi.”
A smile curved Marcus’s lips. “But will you? Or is the better question, can you?”
“I—”
“You haven’t asked what my plans are for you, Glen. Don’t you care to know? See, the shipment of illegal cigarettes you have coming across the border this morning? Oh, it was picked up by the Canadian officials. I know your supplier because he works with us, too. Thing is, the Guzzis can make it worth his while to lose your business, and so we did just that. By the time you get home, RCMP will be waiting to arrest you for smuggling contraband into Canada. Your freedom will only last you as long as it takes you to finish your coffee on the way home. Have a good day; we won’t be seeing each other again.”
Marcus might have taken the time to revel in Glen’s distraught expression, but he couldn’t be bothered. He had other things to do, now. Before the asshole across the table could react, Marcus slipped out and headed for the door. Glen was fast on his heels, but by the time Marcus exited the café, Chris was already waiting with the back door open.
And a gun pointed at Glen.
Chris kept the gun pointed at the biker as Marcus climbed in the back seat. Never lowering his weapon or looking away from the biker, his brother rounded the front of the car and slipped into the driver’s seat. Tires screeched against the pavement as they pulled away from the café.
“Did he fall for it?” Marcus asked, never looking away from the blank screen of his phone that he’d pulled out after getting in the car. The lack of calls or messages mocked him. This emptiness was not something he would ever become used to feeling, but that’s all he was now without Cella, it seemed. Entirely fucking empty. “Did he?”
Marcus looked up to see Chris peer in the rearview. The sound of a motorcycle’s engine gunned behind them, muffled from the distance they had already put between themselves and the bomb that a friend of a friend had been paid good money to place on Glen’s motorcycle while Marcus kept him distracted.
Everything else he said in the café?
All true.
The clubhouse would be gone.
The other chapters would leave soon.
Glen, however, would die today.
And then came the bang. The bomb finally blowing. The pressure hit the back of the car a couple of seconds later. Chris pursed his lips and nodded.
“Yeah, man, he fell for it.”
“Good,” Marcus murmured, going back to stare at his phone, “now we can get back to normal.”
Well, they could.
He was still alone.
Failure had never been an option before when it came to Marcus, and yet this felt more like that than anything ever had.
19.
“Knock, knock.”
Cella quickly hit the pause button on the remote for the television inside her office. The news that had been playing silenced instantly. The second her sister, Lucia’s, gaze turned on the television, Cella had already hit the power button.
“What are you doing?” Lucia asked.
“Taking a break before I get back down to finishing these designs for the final rooms of the Toronto job.”
“Ah.” Her sister rocked on her heels a bit, eyeing the black screen of the television on the far wall before she took a couple of steps further into the room. “Just thought I would run over and see if you wanted to maybe have lunch with someone instead of alone in your office again.”
Sure.
Cella heard what Lucia didn’t want to say. Her family had been so worried about her that for the last week and a half, they rotated traveling to Rochester to help her with Tiffany, and give her company. She pretended like that wasn’t what they were doing because they worried she might send them away, but really ...
She needed them, too.
“Lunch sounds good,” Cella said, standing from the desk. She tossed the remote for the television to the far edge and gathered her purse hanging on the back of her chair. “What are you feeling like? The little Mexican place, or—”
“Well, what I really want to do is ask you how you’re doing since that seems to be the thing we’re all avoiding right now, but I could go for some Mexican food.”
On another day, Cella might have laughed at Lucia’s attempt at being forward. Well, she supposed it wasn’t so much an attempt seeing as how she succeeded. In fact, it caught her off guard, and the first thing that slipped out of her mouth was not what she expected.
“I wish I didn’t leave like that, but I still don’t know how I could have done it differently. I couldn’t very well stay when I was having a nervous breakdown. And here we are a week and a half later, but he’s not called me. Maybe he’s waiting for me to call him. I’m not really sure, but every time I think of picking up the phone again, I get another flashback. I shouldn’t have to do that again, Lucia. I don’t want to lose what’s left of this heart of mine. I’m not sure I can take that a second time.”
Actually, she felt as though she’d said more than she wanted to. From the moment that she crawled out of her bed after her father safely tucked her in when they arrived home, she kept shoving all of this down.
Her regrets.
Everything she did wrong.
How she probably hurt Marcus.
Even the parts that were harmful to her, she ignored to the best of her ability. She refused to speak her dead husband’s name lest she be thrust into another round of memories she couldn’t handle and panic attacks that put her on her knees. She slept with the lights on because that was the only time she didn’t dream, and she was sick and tired of the nightmares.
Of Marcus dead.
Her daughter, gone.
Her life over.
This wasn’t just about what happened in Toronto for her. Nothing could be that simple because her life wasn’t that easy. The events in Toronto had simply been a catalyst to the reopening of her trauma from William’s death. Only now, it felt worse because she couldn’t only consider herself here when she had a child old enough to understand what was happening around her.
“Grief is funny, you know?” Cella asked, rounding her desk as she shifted the strap of the purse onto her shoulder. “It has a way of warping and changing. It’s ever-changing. Just when you think you might have a handle on it, well then it comes back around to remind you that really, you were never in control. It’s always going to be there feeding off you until you have nothing left to give.”
“He’s not Will—”
“I know Marcus isn’t William,” Cella interjected fast, not quite ready to move away from her desk, “and that’s never even been a question for me.”
“Do you want him? Isn’t that really what it comes down to, Cella? Either you want him, and being with him is worth the risk, or you don’t?”
“Is can’t not an option?”
Lucia shrugged. “Not with love, no. You’ll love him today and tomorrow and five years from now even if you don’t speak a single word to him in all that time. Shit, maybe you get out of a cab someday and look across the street to see him standing there staring back at you. And you know what? You’re still going to love him then, too. So no, can’t is not an option, but I think you already knew that.”
Yeah, she did.
“What do I even say?” Cella asked, feeling the tears starting to fill her eyes even as she tried to blink them away. “What do I tell him when I call—I’m sorry that I ran, but I basically had a nervous breakdown. Oh and then I couldn’t convince myself to pick up the phone and call you because I spent the last week and a half trying to convince myself that maybe we shouldn’t be together even though I know that isn’t true?”
Lucia blinked. “Well ...”
“Lucia.”
“Is that the truth?”
Cella let the first tear fall, although she quickly wiped it away. “All of it. As stupid as it is, yes.”
“It’s not stupid. And yes, that’s what you tell him. The truth.”
How simple that seemed.
>
Lucia cleared her throat and nodded at the blank television. “I’ll let you finish watching the newsreel—I saw it this morning. You only have a minute or so left. I don’t mind waiting in the car.”
Shame might have filled Cella at being caught watching a newsreel highlight of current events in Ontario and Quebec, but she couldn’t even muster up that, honestly.
Her sister gave her a shrug before she turned to leave the office. Cella shook her head, but the urge to finish watching the news program was also too much for her to ignore. So, she didn’t and grabbed the remote to resume where she had left off.
Which just happened to be where the reporters had caught Marcus leaving the police station after what they reported were several hours worth of interviews regarding the attacks on a biker gang in Quebec.
Or rather, the slaughter of an entire chapter.
“Mr. Guzzi,” a reporter called to him, “we have it on good sources that you had a direct hand in the bombing and fire that killed several Riders in Quebec. Do you have anything to say on the matter?”
Marcus, in his three-piece suit, not looking at all worse for wear, smiled at the man as he passed him by on the steps of the police station. “I’ll tell you the same thing I told the cops.”
“And what is that?”
He smirked at the camera. “Prove it.”
• • •
“You know, I can just run in and grab us food to-go,” Lucia said.
Cella glanced up from the phone in her hands, realizing for the first time that they were currently parked outside of the little Mexican restaurant. Her distraction clearly wasn’t missed by her sister, and even Lucia made a pointed look at the phone she held.
“And why don’t you make a phone call?”
“You don’t know that’s what I wanted to do,” Cella muttered.
“I do when you look at your phone like it’s your whole world.”
“Every teenager does the same thing.”
“But you’re a twenty-nine-year-old woman, so ...”
Cella frowned. “Sometimes, you could just let people have their pride, Lucia.”
“What is that?”
Of course.
She wished she was surprised.
“And,” Lucia added, “now is the time you fight for what you want, Cella. I don’t think you’ve ever really had to do that before. Back then, everything was just taken from you and nobody gave you any choice at all. You have a choice now. Fight for it.”
Lucia winked at her sister and climbed out of the car while muttering about take-away food. That left Cella alone in the car to watch as her sister headed into the restaurant, and she still sat there with a phone in her hands.
It should be easy.
All she had to do was dial.
Except it scared her to death.
Lucia was right, though.
Can’t would never be an option when someone asked if she loved Marcus. She wasn’t a liar either, so she couldn’t say she didn’t love him. And though she fell in love once, and had that man ripped away from her by things outside of her control ... she would not lose her second chance to be happy because of her own doing.
Yes, it terrified her.
Yes, he was also worth the risk.
Before Cella could overthink it for even one more second, she turned on the screen of the phone, unlocked it, and dialed a familiar cell number. It had never taken Marcus more than two rings before he picked up a call of hers, but this time?
It took five before someone answered.
It wasn’t even him.
“Ashley Marcey speaking.”
Cella blinked. “Um, I think maybe I called the wrong number. I was looking for Marcus—”
“Oh, yeah. I’m his personal assistant. All his calls for this old number and his home office now come through me. What can I help you with?”
What?
When had that happened?
Cella quickly came back to her senses, replying, “It’s Cella Marcello, I was hoping to speak with Marcus.”
“Right, the woman who is heading the team at the penthouse. I guess I am to put you through to Chris if you need anything regarding the penthouse because Marcus is busy handling other ... things, at the moment. Is that going to be a problem?”
Um, yes?
And now she was just the woman heading the team?
Cella cleared her throat, regaining whatever sense of professionalism she had left as she replied, “No, that’ll be fine. I’ll just ... take his number down, thank you.”
For nothing, she added silently.
• • •
“Ma, have you seen Marcus yet?”
Cella did her best to smile at her daughter through the video chat as she walked through the Toronto penthouse. A week after her attempted phone call, and she didn’t have a choice but to make the trip to give her final okay on a few of the rooms. In a couple of weeks, the rest of the rooms would be finished, the project would be done, and that was that.
Hard to believe, but the penthouse—despite everything else that had gone wrong and crazy since she started this contract—turned out beautiful. Not that she honestly expected anything less when it came to seeing her designs come to life.
“Well?” Tiffany asked.
In the background of the call, someone cleared their throat. Either her mother, or father, Cella couldn’t really be sure. They’d agreed to watch Tiffany while Cella made the trip to Toronto, all the while trying to find out if she was going to see Marcus while she was there.
If only she could have said yes.
Really, she didn’t know.
The assistant still took her calls, and Cella had little to no desire to explain to the woman that she wanted to speak with Marcus because their relationship was more than just this fucking penthouse. It wasn’t the woman’s business so what did it matter?
“I haven’t seen Marcus, no,” Cella said quietly. “And I am leaving tonight to fly back home, so I can pick you up as soon as you open your eyes tomorrow. How does that sound?”
Actually, she’d arrive in New York around midnight, drive to her parents’, and sleep there for the night, but those were details that weren’t important for Tiffany to know. She hadn’t even bothered to drive to Toronto this time when she wouldn’t be staying for longer than the couple of hours it would take to give her final approval on the majority of the rooms.
“I miss Marcus.”
Cella went back to the conversation with her daughter, wishing her heart didn’t feel like the entire organ had broken into a million and one pieces inside her chest. She kept trying to fix it, but nothing worked.
Nothing but him would do it.
Tiffany helped, though.
“Me, too,” Cella replied.
On the screen, Tiffany frowned. “Well, if you do see him, will you tell him I said hi?”
“I absolutely will, baby. Now, I gotta go so I can finish up here before the team comes in for our meeting. I will call you back to say goodnight, okay?”
“Okay, Ma. Love you.”
“Love you, too.”
Cella hung up the call, and slipped the phone into her bag as she turned around to head for the kitchen of the penthouse. One of the first rooms to be fully finished and ready for her final approval. She didn’t make it more than a step toward the kitchen because as soon as she turned around, she came face to face with a Guzzi she hadn’t expected.
Chris stood at the end of the entry hallway, leaning against the wall as though he had been standing there for a while. Cella let out a gasp, her hand coming up to press against her chest where her heart suddenly felt like it was about to race right out of her chest.
“You don’t make noise?” she asked him.
The man shrugged. “Was taught not to, actually. It’s better this way. I often hear things people don’t intend for me to, and I like that.”
“Spying, you mean?”
He didn’t reply.
Cella had another thought.
“Were you listening to my conversation with my child?”
Chris cleared his throat. “Maria asks about her a lot—Tiffany, I mean. Always wants to know when she’s coming back so they can play hide-and-seek again. Mia Cara is still too young to really play it right, and all, so ...”
“That doesn’t answer my question.”
“I know.” Chris let out a hard breath, tipping his head to the side as he surveyed her. “You just took off that day—and I was right, you were the first person he asked for when he came out of the sedation.”
Ouch.
The man didn’t pull any punches.
That one hit her right in the heart.
“Tell me,” Cella replied, “between the flashbacks I was trying to get through of my husband’s murder, my terrified daughter, and the police officer who was threatening to deport me while also file paperwork to make sure my daughter stayed in their custody because she was a witness ... how I should have handled that day, Chris?”
The man said nothing.
Cella nodded, scoffing under her breath. Not caring if he had anything more to say to her, she decided that she didn’t have to stand there and wait for him to figure it out. She headed past him in the hallway, determined to just wait in her rental car downstairs until the team showed up for her final directions.
Chris’s next question had her hesitating halfway down the hallway. “Have you even tried to call him?”
She swung right back around. “Excuse me?”
“Marcus. Have you tried to call him at all, or are you just going to pretend like you didn’t leave him hanging here wondering if his mistakes were too much for you?”
“His mistakes—”
“Are you going to answer my question?” Chris demanded. “Or is your next move to run away again because you can’t deal, Cella?”