Mason coughs loudly, sitting up in his hospital bed, so loud that he lurches forward. Brooklyn immediately grabs the cup of water by his bed and brings the straw to his lips, allowing him to take a sip. “Are you okay?” She asks in a barely audible whisper. I don’t think Mason heard her, but he nods anyway.
“I didn’t tell you because of your Mum, girl. Don't you think that I knew how bad you struggled when your mum was dying? It was tearing you apart. Didn’t want you to worry about my old Irish arse, especially when you have enough to worry about now,” he mutters, glancing over to Ashley, who still sits with her legs drawn to her chest. “I’m not sorry that I didn’t tell either of you. You both would have been spending the last few months waiting on me hand and foot. I’d be damned if I let that happen!”
“We should have been doing that. Don’t you get it?” Brooklyn hisses at him, “You are the most stubborn man on this planet. Dammit, Mase! You….good god….I could have…”
“You could have what, girl? Spent more time with me? The time you needed to be spending with Logan and preparing for that ham you’ve got now? No. You needed to be with your family.”
“You are my family!”
“Bullshit!” Mason snaps, glaring at her, “I am not your family. The only family I have in this room is Ashley. You don’t get to tell me how I get to die, no one does. Got it?”
Brooklyn’s mouth snaps shut. If the old bastard didn’t have cancer I’d sock him in the face right now. He crossed a line, and he knows it. “Yeah. I got it. I’m not important to you at all. In fact, you didn’t tell me about your cancer because you’re so selfish! I could’ve helped. I could’ve…” Brook runs past me, yanking the door to the hospital room open and slams it shut behind her so hard that I can see the framing shake.
“You are such a dick,” I tell him. He looks over at me, the rays of sunshine glistening over his slowly decrepit body.
“I sure as hell am, boy, but I’d rather her hate me than pity me. This was my decision, and if I had any say she still wouldn’t know. Her mother’s diagnosis tore her apart, and I’d be damned if mine did too. That girl has gone through too much, it’s about time she didn’t have to anymore.”
“I know you love her, just as much as you love Ashley, but that, right there? That wasn’t right. You know she’s upset because she loves you. Because you are like a grandfather to her. You are as much family to her as Sebastian, Logan, Jordan, and me. We are her family. We might not share her blood, but she is our family, and you just hurt her beyond belief. You deserved to be punched in the face, but you’re dying, so I’ll let it slide. Excuse me while I go clean up your mess,” I growl, angered by how he’s just treated her.
I find Brooklyn next to a vending machine in the hallway by the waiting area. She’s munching on a Crunch bar as I approach. “Ah. Chocolate, the go to cure all, yeah?”
“Yep. Chocolate makes everything better, even finding out that your adoptive grandfather has cancer and maybe a month to live,” she sobs, munching down on a piece of chocolatey deliciousness. I look at her, and sadness fills me completely. This isn’t just a random person to her. Mason was in her life from the time she was a toddler, almost like a fill in father. He’s done so much for her, I’d say that a grandfather more accurately describes their relationship…I know that this is breaking her heart. “I can’t believe he hid this from us,” she murmurs quietly.
“The old ass did it to protect you and Ashley. I can see that. He didn’t want either of you to know that he was sick, or that he was suffering.”
“That doesn’t give him an excuse, or make it right,” she tells me firmly, and I agree.
“No, it doesn’t, and I’m not saying that it does. I’m telling you that he was trying to protect you both, save you both some hurt and heartache that he didn’t want you to have.” What Mason did wasn’t right. He shouldn’t have kept this secret from Ashley or Brooklyn, but he did. I know why he did it, but like Brook said, it doesn’t make it right or excuse his actions.
“What did it matter, though? We still found out, and we’re still barely holding our shit together. Did you see Ash? She hasn’t been that quiet since she’s been alive! She is losing it, Christian. Her grandfather is everything to her, dammit, he is everything to me too.” Brooklyn’s sobs turn into soft cries. I follow my instincts and wrap my arms around my soon-to-be-sister, holding her close against my chest. There’s nothing that I can say that will make her feel better right now, I can only be here, giving her physical support, because at the end of the day we’re going to have the same outcome. Mason is going to die.
Shit.
***
Selena
Tonight. Wear the dress I bought for you. I’ll have a car pick you up at 8. Be prompt.
I stare at my phone, a little shocked that Christian wants to have our date so soon. To be honest, I didn’t think it would be for another week or two at least. I do have to give it to him, he is persistent, and that persistence makes me smile. I love that about him. I’m a woman who handles shit, who doesn’t get handled, but Christian – he can handle me. Every time I’m a bitch, he throws something just as snarky back to me.
I’ve met my match, and that scares the living hell out of me.
For the next two hours, I busy myself with household chores, finally tackling the massive load of laundry that I’ve been purposefully avoiding over the last two days. It’s Luke’s chore and he should be doing it, I only ask that he does his own laundry the towels and sometimes tosses Ellie’s stuff in too. I wouldn’t dare ask him to touch my stuff, oh god – I can’t imagine my little brother washing my thongs. Nope. No! Not going to happen. After the laundry, there’s the dishwasher, and clearing out everything that’s been sitting in the fridge for the last week. I’m a stickler when it comes to not wasting food, I hate it so much, being wasteful, that is. But getting these kids to eat leftovers is not an easy task. You might as well have said that it was cooked on the sidewalk. They think it’s germy and disgusting.
My cell phone starts ringing, and it’s the call that I’ve been waiting on for what seems to be like weeks. I’m not a girl who hassles to get answers or things done for that matter, but I really didn’t think my bank would take this long getting back to me about the money that was wired into my account. I just wanted something, some sort of trace to figure out exactly who it was, where it came from. Just something! I didn’t know what I did to deserve this cash, or maybe even earn it, but I needed to be prepared.
Shit.
What if Matteo Varca wired me this money? What if this was some fucked up way of trying to pay for what he did to me? Oh, my god, as if walls are closing in around me, I can’t take another breath in. Everything suddenly becomes too much, but I know one thing, and one thing only. If I don’t answer that phone, I will have no idea who put that money in my account and I refuse to live in fear.
“Hello,” I answer, listening as the woman on the other side of the phone greets me in her poised customer service tone. I have to give it to her, she is good at her job. She’s already made me forget that it’s been days since I last spoke with a representative from my bank.
At the words she speaks, I almost drop my phone. There were thousands of scenarios that went through my mind, endless possibilities from unknown life insurance money that my dad may have purchased before he died, to my rapist sending me money in hopes to keep my mouth shut. Never did I think I would hear what I just did. “Can you repeat that again, please?” I ask the woman on the other end of the phone, sure that I’d need to hear it one more time before I truly believed it.
“Sure thing! It looks like your wire for one hundred thousand dollars originated from a business. I had to put a tracer on it, and I do apologize for the delay, sometimes it takes us a few days to gather all of the information, but anyways, it originated from an LLC. To be exact, Steele Enterprises, LLC.”
Steele Enterprises.
Steele.
Christian.
Chri
stian Steele sent me a hundred thousand dollars, and I plan on finding out exactly why.
CHAPTER 14
Selena
In true Christian style, the town car picks me up at just past 8 p.m. and takes me straight out of my small neighborhood onto the freeway that leads into downtown Atlanta.
I did what Christian asked of me and slid into the emerald green dress that made its way to my door just after I finished folding laundry. I gotta give it to him, he knows how to dress a woman.
I run my hand over the silky fabric, in awe of the quality and color. Emerald green is my absolute favorite. I can remember from an early age, getting compliments from my mother, how beautiful I looked, how my light olive skin complimented the green, and now my stomach churns thinking of those memories or anything to do with her, really. I can’t think of her right now, not in this moment, and not ever. She made her choice to leave, to walk straight out of our lives, so why do I put myself through the hell of remembering her?
Tonight, is about something else, it’s about… learning more about Christian, about finally accepting that I want to pursue something with the arrogant ass. The arrogant ass who deposits over a hundred thousand dollars in my account. I guess that’s not an asshole thing to do, though. I am wondering why he did it, and I will get my answer tonight.
A few minutes after the dress arrived, I received a call from Christian on my new cell phone, he gave me strict instructions to curl my hair in a loose wave and to put on my eyeliner in that “cat” way. He meant cat-eye, I held back my giggle at his lack of makeup knowledge. One thing stuck with me, I was wearing my hair curly and had a cat-eye the night that we first met – I was even almost as dressed up as I am now, a few notches below, but nonetheless, I was smoking hot.
I remember that night very vividly. It was funny, or maybe funny isn’t the word. I was having a blast with Christian until I found out who he was, and he’s right; as soon as I found out who he was I bolted, but could he blame me? Given everything that circulates about the Steeles, could he really blame me for doing that? Especially knowing the life I have, bringing any unnecessary danger to my doorstep was never an option and it still isn’t, yet I find myself sitting in a town car being chauffeured into downtown Atlanta to go on a date with this dashing criminal.
Yes. I just fucking called Christian Steele dashing. What the fuck is happening to me? How did I go from obviously refusing any move the man made on me to this, to sitting in this damn car with butterflies in my stomach? Oh, my god. I have butterflies. Oh, I know, ‘cause the guy scooped me up after the world’s most traumatic scenario and saved the day. He white-knighted me even though I didn’t ask for it; even though I fought him on it; and somehow, I started to see more of Christian than his dangerous status. Maybe I started peeking beneath the shell, seeing him for the man that he is underneath it all, and maybe – just maybe, I want to know that man.
The town car continues through the city until we’re in the southern part of Midtown. I immediately recognize where we are, the place where Christian Steele first laid his very eyes on me.
Stroke, the latest art gallery to hit the streets of Atlanta, hosting artists that are well-known and new to the business. If you’ve been accepted to show your work here it means that you’ve got an undeniable talent, and I can’t disagree. To be honest, I’m surprised that Christian chose this of all the places to have our first date. There wasn’t one part of me that would think he’d catch on to the fact that I’m a huge art fan, it’s ridiculous, I save pictures to my phone of numerous work, for instance – Picasso, Monet, Van Gogh, Di Vinci, Dali, Pollock, Matisses and even Rousseaus.
Whenever I get stressed, I look at the paintings, and they take away every ounce of negative energy that I’m holding onto. I think about how it must have felt to paint each piece, how each artist must have been thinking of their next brush stroke or simply of nothing, of letting the art come to them in the most natural way. Art dissipates everything for me. I no longer think of my life, or of the circumstances that surround it, but of the beauty of the color. In fact, I revel in it, like an addict to a drug it gives me the perfect high.
The car barely stops before I see Christian walking out of the doors that lead to the gallery. He swiftly darts down the three steps and opens my door before I know it. The moment his eyes rake over my body I instantly feel the heat rising up from my core into the pit of my stomach. “Dammit, Cinderella, you look hot as fuck. Green was a good choice, a very good fucking choice.” He is not breaking his sightlines from me as he extends a hand, and I take it, getting out of the car and stepping onto the pavement. It may be the early evening, but it’s still sticky and humid. No matter what you do you can never escape Atlanta’s notorious humidity.
“Thank you,” I manage to say, before he takes my hand in his monkey sized palm, dragging my short butt up the stairs and into the gallery. He is eager as I’ve ever seen him, and once we are inside, I know why. I’ve been here before, it may have only been once, but I can recollect how the gallery looked that night. It was serene, filled with color, there were blasts of color coming from every direction. In my opinion, Alec Rosseau was trying to portray life through his paintings, many people have different observations when it comes to art and that was simply my own.
Tonight, everything is different. The soft honey oak wood floors are covered in what almost looks to be like a black sheet, except I can hear the bottom of my heels clicking on the floor. The exposed brick is covered with nothing but white, and the lights are low, yet bright in certain areas. Tonight – there is no color, it is colorless, it is blank, like a canvas. “I’m sure you are wondering if the owner suddenly decided he hated the color, or if this is something I’ve done.” I nod at his statement as we continue to walk further into the gallery. Out of nowhere, a man dressed in a black suit comes up to us with two glasses of what looks to be champagne. Christian grabs both glasses and quickly thanks the man as he hands me one.
“It figures a Steele would have a personal bartender,” I tease him, trying to keep the mood light. There is something heavy brewing. Even though we have never been on an actual date, we have crossed lines that make it seem as though there is more there than there should be. He says I am his and he saved me from an awful situation. I have been in his house, and he knows probably more about me than I would like right now. I sip on the chilled champagne, finding comfort in the bubbles and crisp taste as it floats in my mouth.
“This was all me. I had thought a lot about the night that you and I first met, about what was in the gallery, how it looked, the atmosphere. I wanted things to be different tonight, to show you that things could be different, I suppose.”
I look at the man standing before me, clad in a fitted, what I imagined to be, Armani suit. “What did you want to be different?” I inquire, staring straight into his blue irises.
“If I could have changed one thing from that night, it would have been letting you get through those doors. You don’t understand the hell of a time I’ve had trying to track you down, Selena. You were a bitch to find, you know that?”
I find myself chuckling at him wanting to find me, and at how determined he was to. “How long did it take you, to find me, that is?”
“Months. I wasn’t even the one who found you, it was my brother – Jordan, who tracked you down at Russo’s.” Hmm. I didn’t know that, and I can’t say I am not at least a little flattered by the lengths he and his family went through to find me. I can’t think of many times in my life where anyone has fought for me in any way so hard.
I find myself naturally stepping closer to Christian, feeling more at ease as I can see his feelings for me plain and clear. In the quiet of the gallery, when it was only us and some waiter who had disappeared to give us privacy until he is needed, I can feel something different, a charge that I had been so good at ignoring and pushing to the side. But here in this dress, looking at blank walls and a well-dressed Christian, I have to admit that I do feel a bit like Cindere
lla.
I may leave tonight and go back to a home where I care for children that are not mine and worry about where money and food will come from, but for right now, I am at this beautiful place, looking beautiful with probably the most fucked-up prince I could imagine. And yet, I don't think any other prince would do.
I glance a table in the distance, as I have more champagne and know he has gone all out. It is another blank canvas though, with white chairs and a black tablecloth. If this is the first date, I can’t imagine what a second or third could look like. Not that I should be thinking about that. This is all I promised him; this one night.
That is all it is, right?
I polish off my champagne, and he calls for more to be poured for us before I ask the question I will come to regret in three…two… “So, what made you decide to make everything so empty and black and white?”
“I wanted you to be the only thing to look at in this room.”
“I’m sorry, what?” I ask, confused at the sudden change in conversation.
“We’re in an art gallery, where artists put their most precious pieces on display. Arguably, the most beautiful things in the world are in galleries. I didn’t bring you here tonight to look at art, Selena. We came here tonight because you are the art. You are the piece, the most beautiful thing in this gallery.”
Knox Brotherhood Page 91