“Take it back,” Carter tells me angrily. “I don’t want it.”
“Maybe not, but you need it,” I tell him, putting my hands up to refuse the money and then looking back to make sure Chloe can’t see.
She can never know.
“I know you’re leaving.” Carter’s voice breaks. I don’t know how he knew. Word spreads fast, but if that’s going around, Romano is going to hear it before long and that means I need to get the fuck out of here as fast as I can. I don’t need him looking for me, or worse, finding the body I left in his shop before the weekly deliveries on Monday.
“Who told you?” I ask him, my pulse beating harder in my temples. My jaw stiffens with the fear of a fight coming.
“No one,” he answers, “but I know when goodbyes are coming.”
Time passes slowly, and I feel myself breaking down. My first reaction is to go to Chloe Rose. I forget it all with her. I forget who I am and all the pain that comes with it. With her, I’m not alone.
“You need it. You can’t run far without cash.” He gives me a look of complete sincerity as he pushes it back into my hand. “It’s not for me, and I don’t want it.” His voice is clear like he knew I’d give it to him.
“I have enough cash,” I tell him. “Take it for your brothers then.” My heart squeezes harder in my chest knowing how fucked they all are. It’s two grand, and two grand more than he’ll get selling dope on the street corner like he thinks he can do. I worked for Romano, but Carter doesn’t. And it’s not safe.
Carter gives me a weak smile and shakes his head. “We’ll be all right. I’m heading up to the north side. I’ll take care of us.” I know that means he’s dealing something. Although what and for who, I don’t know.
His eyes are so serious. He seems so much older to me now.
“You can come with me,” I tell him. “I don’t want to leave you here. Come with us.”
The weak smile is pulled into a smirk, one cloaked with sadness. Goodbyes are never easy, but they shouldn’t hurt this much. “Don’t stay here,” I beg him. “I want more for you than this.”
“I can’t leave my brothers,” he tells me and then licks his lips before handing the money back to me. “Take it.” The bills brush against my knuckles and I’m reluctant to take it, but I do. “Find a better place than here.” The money weighs heavy in my hand as he pulls his away. I won’t take it. If anything, I’ll leave it in the mailbox and pray one of them finds it.
“It’s good you’re skipping out,” Carter tells me in a tone that lets me know something’s up.
“What’s going on?” I ask him, feeling my nerves ramp up.
“I heard Eddie say Romano wants to talk to you on Monday. I think they know you’re involved and they’re pissed they didn’t know.”
“Good thing I won’t be around Monday.” I start thinking about all the possible outcomes of that meeting and I don’t like a single one of them. I could never rat Marcus out, he’d kill me. And even if I did, Romano would kill me for following someone else’s orders. I have protection from no one and enemies everywhere.
“Did you tell her?” Carter changes the subject abruptly. “Does she know you killed them?”
I shake my head, wishing all of this was a nightmare I could wake from. All of it but Chloe. “I had to lie to her, but it’s never felt like that,” I tell him, confiding in my best friend one last time.
“Felt like what?” he asks me.
“Felt like I was hurting her by lying to her. I’ve never wanted so much from someone and to give her so much in return.”
He smiles a genuine but sad smile that reaches his dark eyes. “I knew you loved her,” he says lightheartedly. Brushing his thumb against his nose, he peeks behind him. It’s darker now than it was before, not a single star in the sky to cast light down on us.
“I think it is love,” I tell him and kick the rubble on the broken concrete.
“It’s all right to say it,” he jokes, “I won’t make fun of you.”
“I only just got her. I can’t lose her, Carter,” I confess to him. If it wasn’t for her need to run away from here, I’d stay for him.
“Go ahead, I’ll be all right,” he tells me, and I want to believe him. “Hey, do you have that stuff though? Before you go?”
It takes me a minute to realize he’s talking about the sweets. I have the last vial in my pocket and I know Chlo is never going to want to take it again, so I hand it over to him.
He’s quick to slip the vial into his pocket. “Thanks, man. It’s been rough sleeping.”
Giving him a nod of understanding, I wonder if I should tell him that Chlo thinks some of her paranoia is from the drug, but I think she’s wrong. She was right the entire time. Call it fear and intuition maybe.
“I hope it helps you sleep,” I tell him and then glance back at the car.
“Get out of here, man. Get out while you still can,” Carter tells me and it fucking hurts that I’m leaving him, but I have to. I have to get the hell out of here and take Chloe far away.
I have to reach out and hug him, pulling him hard into my chest. And he’s quick to give me a hard pat on the back, followed by a grip I’ll never forget.
There’s no way I’d have made it out alive without him. I know that much.
Before the tears can show, I pull away from him, the only family I’ve ever had. “She can’t stay here,” I tell him as if I’m begging him to understand, but he already knows.
She’s never belonged here.
“Come with us,” I plead with him one last time even though I already know his answer.
“I have to stay.” His voice is calm this time like he’s resigned to his fate.
Epilogue
Chloe
Two weeks later
The cool wind flows through my fingers as I rest my hand against the window. We’ve been off the highway for a little while now, still venturing into the unknown.
It’s odd how the unfamiliar can offer so much comfort. How easy it is to leave everything behind and start a new life.
Countless times I’ve felt the fear of what could be waiting for us if we ever went back. And almost as if Bastian can read my mind, he asks me every time we stop somewhere new, “How about this place?”
“I can be a butcher anywhere. Or anything. We can be anything,” he keeps telling me. “Just don’t leave me.” He says that a lot. As if I’d ever want to. One day, I think he’ll know in every way that I’ll never do that.
In every beat of my heart, I know I was supposed to run away with him. And he was supposed to run away with me.
We should have left when we were only children. We shouldn’t have stayed in that place as long as we did. When the lights around you flicker and dim, it’s a sign to run. To run far away and toward light and hope. It’s an innate feeling I knew deep in my gut, but I swallowed it down and nearly let the darkness choke out what little life I had left in me.
It’s only taken days of being away with Bastian at my side, holding my hand as we drive farther and farther away to know that’s true.
I can smell the salty ocean air as the sun kisses my skin through the window. We’re close to the ocean.
A line springs to mind and I jot it down in my notebook. It’s half-full already, with ideas for a book so close to what I’ve been through. Some changes here and there because it’s hard to write about the truth. It’s hard to imagine what people would think of me if I told them my story. It’s even harder for me to write it all down and to be okay with everything that happened. Because of what happened in my life, the things that were done to me and the things I did… well, it will never be okay, but maybe it would make a memorable tale.
“Do you want to stop here?” Bastian asks, pointing to the left at a sign for a burger place.
My shoulders lift easily in a contented shrug. With my cheek resting against the headrest, I ask him for the tenth time since we left, “Where do you think we’re going?” I need answers to what we�
Bastian’s large hand wraps around mine as he pulls my knuckles to his lips to kiss them one by one. The car idles at the stop sign and he looks me deep in my eyes.
“We’re going where we’re supposed to go. Together.” His words are a balm to my broken soul. It’s the only word that matters. It’s the only word that’s ever mattered. Together.
With tears pricking my eyes, the tears I wish would go away, even if they are from a happiness I never thought I’d feel, I whisper, “I love you.”
He braces his hands on either side of my head, stealing a ravenous kiss from me, taking my pain away like he did so many years ago. But the pain now is minuscule and it’s because of him. He’s taken it all away. And I’ll spend my life making sure I do the same for him.
With a bruising kiss, I can hardly breathe until he pulls away from me, letting the tip of his nose brush against mine. His eyes are still closed, his hands still tangled in my hair as he tells me, “I’ve always loved you. And I’ll never stop loving you. I’ll always choose you.”
* * *
Sebastian
Years later
About two weeks after we got in the car and sped away as fast as we could, I got a call from Carter’s brother, Daniel. I didn’t let her see as I broke down against the bathroom door of the motel we’d stayed in for the night. We’d move from one place to the next, constantly on the go until we found a spot on the West Coast, far away from Crescent Hills. A local bed and breakfast was looking to hire a butcher for their farm and also in need of a bookkeeper for the inn. Fate gave us our opportunity to stay, to find a new home, and we did. We grabbed it with both hands and didn’t let go.
That night in the motel though, it almost didn’t happen. The first few days we were on the road, everything changed with a single phone call. I almost got into the car and drove back to that hellhole when Daniel told me what happened. I would never have brought Chloe, but she wouldn’t have let me leave her behind either.
The Talvery crew almost beat him to death the night we left. Carter nearly died for selling on the wrong turf. Daniel told me not to come back, that my name had been marked now, and I knew what that meant. If I went back, I was dead.
When I talked to Carter, I knew I’d made a mistake letting him stay. He had no one anymore, and everyone to provide for.
If I could go back, I would.
I’d never leave him behind.
It took over a decade before I dared show my face in that city again. Years of the phone calls coming less and less often. Years of building a life with the girl I always loved, while the memories of my past faded to bad dreams.
Life is a compromise. I left behind a friend, destined to stay, and be held captive to a city that had no mercy.
It would force him to become a brutal man I didn’t recognize.
The Carter I abandoned in Crescent Hills, died that night I ran, and I’ll never forgive myself for it.
* * *
Thank you for reading! Carter’s story, MERCILESS, is available now…
I should’ve known she would ruin me the moment I saw her.
Women like her are made to destroy men like me.
I couldn’t resist her though.
Given to me to start a war; I was too eager to accept.
But I didn’t know what she’d do to me. That she would change everything.
She sees through me in a way no one else ever has.
Her innocence and vulnerability make me weak for her and I hate it.
I know better than to give in to temptation.
A ruthless man doesn’t let a soul close to him.
A cold-hearted man doesn’t risk anything for anyone.
A powerful man with a beautiful woman at his mercy … he doesn’t fall for her.
ONE CLICK MERCILESS NOW >
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Copyright
This is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events or locales is entirely coincidental. All rights reserved. Except for use in a review, the reproduction or use of this work in any part is forbidden without the express written permission of the author.
Secrets © Romig Works, LLC
The King © Skye Warren
Taken © Natasha Knight
Thicker Than Water © Michelle St. James aka Michelle Zink
Ultimate Surrender © Kaye Blue
Renata Vitali © Parker S. Huntington
Mafia Daddy © Renee Rose
Dark Mafia Prince © Annika Martin
Captive of the Hitman © Alexis Abbott
A Kiss To Tell © Willow Winters
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