by Penelope Sky
I’d hoped Magnus would bring my sister, but it was clear he was stag. “You didn’t bring her?”
“Why would I?” He switched to English, and his tone was clipped and angry, like the mention of her infuriated him the way it infuriated Fender.
Fender drank from his glass, changing the subject. “Stasia is looking for you.”
His face remained stony at the mention of this person.
I should keep my mouth shut, but I was instantly hit with a need to defend my sister, who loved this man. “Who’s Stasia?”
Magnus dismissed himself without giving an answer. He walked off and headed down the hallway.
This was my chance.
Someone else walked up to us and engaged Fender in conversation, so while he was distracted, I excused myself. “Excuse me, just need to use the restroom.” I kissed him on the cheek, received a quick look of approval as he continued his conversation.
I went down the long hallway, a hallway I guessed was correct, and searched for Magnus. He must be in the bathroom, so that was where I was headed. Then I heard his voice from a room—with a woman.
“C’est le cas. C’est juste que je ne suis plus intéressé, Stasia.” His voice was even more annoyed than it’d been before. I could roughly translate it. I don’t. No interest, Stasia.
Her entitled voice responded. “Les hommes ne se désintéressent pas des femmes comme moi. Alors si tu la gardes dans ton froc, ça veut dire que tu te réserves pour quelqu’un d’autre. Intéressant. C’est qui ?” Men don’t lose interest in beautiful women like me. Who are you fucking?
Magnus didn’t answer before he stormed out and kept going down the hallway, not seeing me because he headed in the opposite direction.
Stasia remained inside, probably recovering from his rejection.
I went after him. “Magnus?”
He stopped in front of the bathroom and slowly turned to look at me, his eyebrows raised. He immediately glanced behind me to make sure Fender was nowhere in sight. “What the fuck are you doing?”
“Thank you…for being loyal to my sister.” I had a whole other agenda, but I had to show my gratitude for the one man who looked after her, who was loyal to her despite the dangerous position it placed him in. “I really… It means the world to me…that she has you.” I got choked up when I didn’t expect it, but this man deserved every ache of my heart. “You love her.”
Just like his brother, he had a face carved out of stone. No reaction of any kind. “What do you want from me?”
“Just to talk.”
His eyes filled with irritation, and he glanced over my shoulder several times to make sure Fender hadn’t come looking for me. “You better make it quick, because I won’t be able to help you if he catches us.”
I ran with it and didn’t waste a second. “I know you don’t agree with the camp. I know you don’t agree with the way it’s run. You wouldn’t risk your life for my sister repeatedly if you did.”
His gaze remained hard.
“Do you believe…that Fender can change?”
Subtle differences moved into his face, a softness he couldn’t fight.
“Because I think he can. I just…don’t understand why he is the way he is. If I knew…it would help.”
His eyes shifted behind me before he responded. “Yes.”
I inhaled a breath of relief, like Magnus had literally lifted a burned-down cabin off me. “Then can you talk to him—”
“I’ve tried.”
“Again—”
“I’ve tried more times than I can count.”
Disappointment hit me like a punch to the gut. It took me a second to recover. “Then why do you think he can change?”
He inhaled a slow breath, like the answer was so complicated that a response was daunting. “Because he’s a good man. He’s just obsessed with a goal to the exclusion of everything else. It doesn’t matter who he hurts in the process…since he was hurt.”
“What hurt him?”
Magnus shook his head. “Can’t tell you.”
“Why—”
“Because I’m literally the only person in the world who knows—so he’ll know your source.”
I inhaled a deep breath in disappointment. “I won’t tell him.”
He shook his head. “I won’t betray my brother. If he wanted you to know, he would tell you.”
“But if you tell me, I might be able to get him to stop.”
Magnus stared me down for a while, like the thought was tempting. But his answer cut through my dreams. “Then get him to tell you. Not my place.” His eyes flicked past my shoulder. “You should go back now. I’m surprised he’s left you unattended this long.” He turned away.
“He won’t sleep with me. Why?” I barked out my question because I knew the conversation was over and I’d never get this opportunity again.
He hesitated before he turned back to me. A deep stare ensued. “Same reason.”
“What do you mean, same reason?”
“Everything he says, everything he does, everything he’s become—it’s all for the same reason.” He glanced behind me before he turned to the bathroom door. “Go.”
Sixteen
Death of Innocence
Fender
Days passed, and we barely shared a few words.
She read in my office while I worked. We had dinner together in my bedroom, sharing looks across the table, but having no conversation. Clothes came off, and we made love in my bed. We’d done it a hundred times, knew the other’s body better than our own, and it was somehow just as fascinating to me every time.
My life had always been full of money, power, and sex.
But it was filled with something more now.
I pictured her walking around the palace with her hand over her bulging stomach, chasing down a little boy with my dark hair and eyes. She gave me back the very thing I’d lost—a family.
She was propped on her elbow with her hand on my stomach. “What are you thinking about?”
My eyes shifted to hers, seeing the way she absorbed my stare. She knew when my thoughts were outside the four walls of this bedroom. She knew when my thoughts strayed, when my heart changed its pace, when a glaze settled over my eyes. I held her look and never answered, my hand moving to her flat stomach. That fantasy was for a time in the future, a dream on the horizon. Not today. Not tomorrow. Time would ravage our appearances, but my love for her was a candle with an endless wick. It would burn—always. For her and no one else.
She didn’t ask again. “So…who is Stasia?”
The party was days ago. Already forgotten about it. “Socialite.”
“I mean, was she his girlfriend or something?”
“No. She’s trying to hook him because he’s rich and powerful.”
“How do you know that?”
“Because she did the same with me.”
Her eyes immediately changed, reacting in jealousy.
“Before we met.” I’d always tell the truth, and if she didn’t want to hear it, she should stop the line of questioning. “She went for me first since I’m the count.”
Her eyes dropped, looking at her hand on my stomach.
My hand slid up her neck and to her cheek. “But I’ve found my countess. And she’s far more beautiful than any other woman in that room.”
Her eyes lifted again, a slight smile entering her gaze. The tightness of her features faded when she heard my praise. The previous jealousy faded until it disappeared entirely. “Je t’aime…”
My thumb brushed her bottom lip, and I stared at her mouth, the source of those poetic words. The waves of her love washed over me, brought me deep under the sea until I couldn’t breathe. But I’d rather suffocate with her than take a full breath without her. “Je t’aime.”
“Mon amour…” Her quiet voice came from the couch in the sitting area. Her book was on the coffee table in front of her. The daylight streamed through the open windows and blanketed her beautiful face in a
wondrous glow.
I stared at her from my seat at the desk, taking in the scene like a work of art. It could easily be painted and hung over someone’s mantel. I closed my laptop and moved to the couch across from her. Arms on my thighs. Hands together. Eyes on her face. Work required my attention, but it became secondary to her needs. “Oui, chérie?”
Her legs were crossed, and she held herself with poise, her back straight, her hands together on her lap. She had all the qualities of royalty without even trying. Most of the qualities she possessed were innate and didn’t need to be taught. “You’ll give me anything I ask for?”
The softness in my features immediately turned stony. “Except one.”
“Then I want to ask you something—and I want an answer.”
My eyes immediately narrowed at the bait and switch.
“You can’t tell me you love me without giving me this answer. You can’t say you want me forever without giving me this answer. I want this answer, and if you love me, there should be no hesitation to oblige.”
I felt like I’d walked into a negotiation unprepared. She set the tone, manipulated me into denying her only one thing, so she could ask for something else and get the answer she wanted. I was annoyed. Irritated. A little pissed off. But I also felt respect. “I never want to hear you say you’re stupid ever again.” Her sister had destroyed her self-esteem with lies. She’d ripped her apart and held her to a standard she never asked to be held to. The only reason Raven was alive was because of her. The only reason she was spared time and time again was because Melanie fought for her. Raven was just jealous that Melanie was far more beautiful—as she should be.
Her eyes softened in a way they never had before. Her entire face changed, her breathing included. Her stare lasted a long time, looking at me like I’d just given her wings. Her insecurities were erased by my confidence, because I knew my chérie better than Raven ever did.
“What is your question, chérie?” I’d been the provider and the protector since Magnus and I fled in the streets with gunshots ringing behind us. I became the man of the family because my father was a coward. There had been no one else I wanted to take care of until Melanie, and it was my greatest joy. It wasn’t the fancy clothes and expensive makeup that I provided. It was the love that she needed. It was the confidence that she needed. It was being the man that she needed.
She hesitated, her fingers starting to fidget in her lap.
Still and silent, I gave her the floor to speak her mind. No one else could command my attention the way she did. No one could yell and interrupt me and live to tell the tale. But I let her do whatever she goddamn well pleased. Because she was my chérie.
Her eyes were reinvigorated with confidence. “I want to know what happened to you.”
With my hands together, I gave her the same look I had for the last few minutes.
“I want to love all of you, not just the man I know now. I want to love the man I never met. I want to…know you. I want to know you in a way no one else does.” Her eyes pleaded with mine, desperate to get this answer.
My thumb moved over a knuckle on my right hand, the knuckle that always ached in the cold because I’d dislocated it so many times. “It won’t change anything, chérie.” I knew she believed I was capable of change, but she was dead wrong about that.
“Then you should tell me, so I’ll understand.”
I massaged my knuckle again as I kept my eyes on her. My future wife. The future countess. The future mother of my children. My future widow. With every day and every week, I let her in, let her deeper inside, shared my life with her without barriers. The night she left me never happened. Those months apart had been erased. For the first time, I didn’t live in the past. I cherished the present. “My family was murdered.”
She inhaled a deep breath, her eyes instantly watering.
“Mother. Sister. Brother. All of them.” So much time had passed that their images had faded from my mind. Their pictures were in my safe, and sometimes I would look at them and remember my childhood with my siblings, the cookies my mother would make every Sunday, the house at Christmastime.
“Magnus and I are the last of our line.” I spoke without emotion because I was numb to the loss. It was factual at this point. Grief was complicated, and sometimes it would arrive at my shores like a hurricane, and other times, it was silent for years. Right now, it was silent. Probably because of her.
“I…I’m so sorry.”
I gave a curt nod.
“Your father?”
“He was the one who killed them.”
A quiet gasp left her lips as her hand cupped her mouth. The watery film over the surface of her eyes increased, reflecting the sunshine coming through the windows behind me. “Why…?” Her voice broke, and she gave a loud sniff. “Why would someone do that?”
“Because he’d rather kill us all than suffer the public shame of his financial ruin.” I hadn’t talked about this in years. My voice was sterile. Emotionless. It was just a story to me now, not something I’d lived through. “He gambled our wealth on bets he could never pay. Then he gambled more to recoup those losses. Just went deeper into the hole.” It was the reason I never gambled. I went to the horse races for sport, not for money.
She was silent in her disbelief.
I let her soak it in before I continued. “I came home later than I was supposed to. He must have assumed I was already in bed or thought he could just shoot me when I walked in the door later. He’d drugged everyone during dinner, and in their sleep, he shot each one in the head.”
She inhaled another strained breath, on the verge of sobs.
“By the time I got there, it was too late. Mom was dead. My sister was gone. He was executing my other brother when I discovered Magnus was still alive. He was the last on the list because his bedroom was the farthest down the hall. I was young and weak at the time, so I struggled to carry him.” I could still remember the way he felt in my arms, the way I clenched my teeth together so tightly as I strained my arms. It was the last time I allowed myself to be physically inadequate. I hit the gym every single day, no exceptions. “I dropped him on the stairs. He hit his head and woke up. Thankfully.”
She continued to breathe hard, hanging on to every word of the story.
“That got my father’s attention, so he came to the top of the stairs. Gun in hand. Hatred in his eyes.” I’d never forget the way he looked. It was forever seared into my brain. He was actually angry that I’d halted his plan. Angry that I got my little brother to the door. Angry that we wouldn’t die like he wanted. There was no love. There was no remorse. Nothing. When I tracked him down later, I showed him no remorse too. “Magnus and I got out the door and missed the bullets. We ran for our lives down the street in the pouring rain, the sound of gunshots following us until we turned into an alleyway.”
With wet eyes, she was completely absorbed in the story. “Then what happened?”
“Magnus and I lived like rats in the street. We couldn’t go to the police because they would just put us in an orphanage, which would make it easier for our father to find us. We took food out of the dumpsters so we wouldn’t starve. We stole from people so Magnus could get me to the doctor when I got pneumonia. We lived that way for a long time, scrounging for food, trying to survive, growing weak and emaciated.”
Tears broke and dripped down her cheeks.
“We eventually got into the drug trade—and the rest is history.”
Her makeup ran. Her cheeks puffed. Her eyes turned bloodshot. The story haunted her as if she’d been there, digging through that garbage with me. Perhaps now she would understand. Perhaps now she would accept me as I was. “You…you killed him?”
I nodded. “Eventually.” When I had the money, the resources, and the strength, I came for him. “It took a long time. A decade ago. Like a coward, he was hiding in the middle of a forest in Romania. He must have known that we would grow into strong, ruthless men. He must have known what we would d
o to him.”
“What did you do to him?”
I’d spare her the gory details that would give her nightmares. “He died a coward. My family got the revenge they deserved. He tried to kill me as a boy, but I came back and slaughtered him as a man.”
Tears continued to run down her cheeks, the pain too much for her to carry.
“I became the biggest kingpin in this country. I earned back the wealth that was taken from us. I earned back the respect that his scandal caused. I left that house as a weak boy, but I became the strongest man who could carry all of my siblings out of that house to safety. I became the man who would have kept my mother safe. Never in my life will I be weak again. Ever.” My hands tightened in anger because I’d failed my family. “If I’d been stronger, I could have saved my other brother. If I’d been smarter, I could have suspected his intentions and killed him before he put that gun to my mother’s head.” My voice rose entirely on its own. “I will protect the brother I have left. I will protect my family name. And I will protect the woman I love.” My knuckles turned white as I tightened my fists more than I ever had. I forced them to release before I ripped all the tendons underneath my skin.
She moved into my lap, her arms hooking around my neck as she pressed her face close to mine, rivers of tears down her cheeks, her eyes filled with remorse for crimes she’d never committed. She looked at me before she pressed her forehead to mine. “I’m so sorry…”
My arms wrapped around her and held her against me, smothered by her love and affection, smothered by her smell. She was the single most important thing in the world to me, and as I felt her delicateness with my hands, I knew I would protect this precious thing to the forfeiture of my own life. In a heartbeat. “Now you understand why I won’t change. Why I’ll never change.”
We didn’t speak of it again.
Days passed and she didn’t mention it, but I knew it was on her mind because of her silence. Her mind always seemed elsewhere, living in the memories I’d shared with her, dissecting the tale that no one should have to tell.