by W Winters
“I don’t know …”
“I know you can. And you’ll feel better when you do. Both of us will feel better when we go in there.” His eyes plead with me—not just to go in for him, but to be with him.
He holds out his hand for me, leaving it in the air until I finally grip on to him.
“Don’t leave me,” I whisper and stare into his eyes.
A tight smile is the response I get, followed by him leaning down to kiss me once on the lips.
His hot breath tickles my skin in the crisp fall air as he lowers his mouth to the shell of my ear. “I know this isn’t …” He trails off and I can hear him lick his lips. “This isn’t a fairytale. But there’s nothing for me in there if it isn’t also for you,” he finally says and then pulls back.
My heart clenches with a pain that I think I love. A pain of a shared past, but of knowing we can have a future together.
Standing in front of the estate, with his thin black cotton shirt stretched tight across his shoulders, a shade of black that almost matches the darkness in his eyes, how could I deny him?
“They know you’re coming. They know you’re mine.” He speaks with a conviction I feel in my soul.
It’s not the first part of what he said that comforts me. It’s everything in the second part.
I want to be his, and they know that I am.
I swallow thickly and ignore the churning in the pit of my stomach as we walk up the stairs to the entryway.
It’s safe. Everything is alright. I’m with Daniel.
The thoughts are comforting enough to give me the strength to breathe as he opens the large front door and leads me inside.
Each step is harder to take and I feel myself pulling away from him. I don’t want to face his brothers. I’m too afraid of what they’ll think. I’m afraid of their judgment and hate. Because I’ve only ever had love for them. Not the kind of love I had for Tyler, and not what I have for Daniel. But love nonetheless. They gave me a home when I had none. They were my family.
And right now … I can’t bear for them to send me away.
“It’s okay,” Daniel says and holds me in the quiet foyer. “It’s going to be hard at first. The memories are the hardest part, I think, and there are a lot between us all.”
“I don’t know if I can do this,” I admit to him, wiping under my eyes to see a blurry vision of mascara smeared on my fingertips. I sniffle and then wish I hadn’t come.
“We’ll have good days and bad days, like everything else. And if it gets to be too much, we’ll leave for a while, however long we need. We can go wherever you want to go. We don’t have to stay here. I’m fine as long as we stay together. All that matters is that you stay with me.” His eyes search mine as we hold each other.
I’ll stay with him. Daniel is where my home is. “I’m not going anywhere.”
“I’ve wanted you for far too long to not have you forever now.”
“I’m yours,” I promise him.
“You’ve always been mine.”
The sound of footsteps is drowned out by a voice that echoes down into the open space. It’s grand to say the least, but I can’t take it in. I can only watch two men walk into the foyer.
“Addison,” one of them says, catching me by surprise. It takes me a long time to realize it’s Jase. I almost cry when I do. He looks so much more like Tyler than Daniel does. They always looked alike. Daniel tightens his grip on me as my voice cracks. “Jase.”
I clear my throat as Jase stands tall in front of me.
“You look so different,” Jase tells me.
“You don’t,” I say quickly but then take it back. “I mean you do, but you don’t.”
He smirks down at me and runs his forefinger and thumb over his chin. “Funny, I don’t remember you being this shy.”
I can only shrug; I don’t trust myself to speak and I can hardly keep eye contact as I remember all the memories together. Jase and Tyler were close. The closest. And unless Tyler wanted privacy, Jase was there. Like an annoying brother.
Part of me is still aware that I’m holding on to Daniel with a white-knuckled grip. And that part of me wants to let go, so I can hug Jase.
“It’s good to have you home. Everyone else thinks so too, trust me.”
“Do you-” I falter and pick worriedly at the pocket of my jeans with the hand not being held firmly by Daniel. The questions I have are all begging to come out at once.
Do you hate me for leaving him?
Do you blame me for what happened?
Do you forgive me? That’s the one that lingers. That’s the only one that matters. “I’m sorry-” I start to say, but the words are tainted with a small cry.
“Addison.” A voice to my right startles me before I can gather the strength to chance the apology. “So how’d you get him back here?” a deep voice asks me and I know immediately it’s Declan.
Daniel pulls me in closer, planting a small kiss on my temple in front of both of them as we stand in the foyer. It’s all too much, but none of them seem taken aback. Neither of the brothers is looking at me as if anything is off.
As if I’m not a reminder of what they’ve lost. Not an outsider. Not an enemy.
My lips part and I’m not sure what to say, but I’m grateful. I’m so grateful that I’m welcome. And that I get to see them again.
I never thought I would.
“Where’s Carter?” Daniel asks Declan, wrapping his arm around my waist and pulling me in more just slightly, but still easy and casually. His thumb hooks into my jeans and gently caresses my hip as he talks to both brothers.
I try not to make it awkward.
It takes everything in me not to cry upon seeing both of them.
I’m surprised when Daniel loosens his grip on me and whatever they were talking about comes to a halt.
I’m even more surprised when Jase leans in close.
“It’s good to see you, Addie,” Jase says and hugs me hard, so hard that Daniel has to take a step back. Finally letting my hand go as Jase pulls me to him. It’s been a long time since someone’s called me Addie. They all did back then. All of them but Daniel. I was always Addison to him.
The hug is short-lived and I’m still numb from it along with the shock of everything when Daniel asks for a minute. As soon as his brothers turn away, I press my palms to my eyes and try to calm myself down. It’s emotionally taxing to see those you’ve mourned because you thought you’d lost them forever.
“I’m okay,” I tell Daniel weakly as he rubs my back.
“I promise I’ll love you forever.” Daniel whispers words that frighten me. Words that threaten to take him from me one day. I hesitate to say it back and he adds, “Just stay with me.”
It’s a plea from the lips of a man who could destroy me.
Sometimes when you walk into a darkness, a place filled with both what terrifies you from the past and what will forever haunt you in the future, you get a sick feeling that washes over you.
Like you know bad things are coming.
“I love you too,” I whisper to Daniel and let him take my hand.
He squeezes lightly as I step further into the Cross estate.
It’s brightly lit, but it doesn’t fool me. The darkness is here.
There’s a certain feeling in the pit of your stomach. I felt it when Tyler brought me to his home all those years ago.
It’s a feeling that tells you you’re doing something wrong. Something you know you shouldn’t, but it tempts you and whispers all the right things; it promises you that you’re meant to be here.
Not unlike what I’ve felt since the moment I met Daniel. This force of needing to be with him. Of knowing I was supposed to be his all along.
Even if the very thought of being his was enough to send a chill over me each time he dared to breathe near me.
That feeling is supposed to warn you, to keep you safe.
Daniel kisses the underside of my wrist as I let the feeling settle through me.
Sometimes that feeling is terrifying.
Sometimes that feeling is home.
Merciless
Carter
* * *
I’m not used to the anxiousness ringing in my blood.
But times have changed and until this shit is settled, I’m going to be on edge.
I need all the help I can get.
And judging by the way Daniel can’t take his eyes off of Addison, he’s not in the right mindset.
But the important thing is that he’s back.
Daniel cranes his neck to look up at me from where he’s seated with her in the den.
Addison Fawn. I never thought I’d see her again. I thought I’d lost her when I lost my brother.
“Do you have a minute?” I ask him, getting their attention. Addison glances between Daniel and me, and I give her an easy smile. I’ve barely spoken to her, but it’s only because of everything else. The war that’s starting. That’s what has my attention. That, and whoever decided to fuck with us.
Whoever decided to touch Addison and fuck with Daniel.
It’s only a matter of time before we know who. Although the thought of Marcus being involved sends a chill through my blood.
Daniel winces as he stands, reminding me of the gunshot and rekindling that anger inside of me. He bends at the waist to kiss Addison. My eyes stay on her, noting how she pulls back slightly, but his hand on the back of her neck keeps her there. Her doe eyes look back into his and he brushes the tip of his nose against hers. And then she reaches up to kiss him this time.
I don’t know what she did to my brother, but it’s been a long damn time since I’ve seen him care about anything other than himself.
It’s a good look for him.
“I was wondering when you were going to come for me,” Daniel says as we walk back to the office. I keep him in sight even as he looks over his shoulder to check on her.
“You think she’s going to run off?” I ask him jokingly, but it only makes his expression harden. Maybe he’s still blind to it. But it’s obvious she loves him. It was obvious five years ago too.
Silence escorts us until I close the door to the office with a loud click.
Daniel takes a seat in front of the large desk and rather than sitting at the head of it, I take the seat across from him, feeling the worn brown leather beneath my hands.
“I need that package,” I tell him and wait for whatever the hell it is. He’s already been here for hours, but Addison needed him for a little while. I could afford them that.
With a nod, Daniel slips the envelope from his back pocket. My teeth grind against one another. Hundreds of thousands of dollars in trades and a war between drug lords are on the line over whatever the fuck the Romanos are offering us.
And it’s only a thin envelope, folded and creased down the center.
Our fingers brush as he hands it to me, but he doesn’t let it go.
With my arm outstretched I look back at my brother, waiting for what he has to say, but nothing comes. A second ticks by and he releases it, sitting back in his chair but still not saying a word.
“What’s gotten into you?” I ask him. Ever since Tyler died, Daniel’s been a shell of who he once was. Until recently. Until she came back and brought him with her. I have too for reasons no one knows, but I’m damn good at hiding it.
“She reminds you of Tyler?” he asks me.
“She reminds me of what you were like when he died,” I answer him without thinking. And it’s true. “You were on the edge of going one way or the other back then, but it looks like you’ve come back around.”
“What do you mean?”
“I thought you were going to take care of her back then.” I bite my tongue, wondering if I should tell him what Jase told me when Addison broke up with Tyler. When she said her goodbyes, she could hardly even look at Tyler. Instead she kept looking upstairs toward Daniel’s room.
Everyone knew how Daniel felt about her. She was only seventeen and we had bigger and better shit to concern ourselves with. But that day it was more than obvious why she was leaving.
It was only the three of them who were blind to it.
Daniel shakes his head as if what I’m saying is ridiculous. Even after all these years he can’t admit it.
“It doesn’t matter. You’re back, and she’s with you. I don’t care about anything else and neither does anyone else.”
It’s quiet for a long moment and Daniel runs his hand down his face, letting his head fall back and looking at the ceiling before he breathes in deep. The memory of Tyler and the pathetic look on Daniel’s face forces a vice to tighten around my heart. I fucking hate it. I hate the pain of our past more than anything else.
“Do you think he’d ever forgive me?” he asks me.
“Tyler forgave everyone,” I answer him quickly, ready to rid this anxious feeling coursing in my blood. He was the only good one of us. Of course he’s the one who died young. “And Tyler wanted her to have a home. To have a family.”
He nods his head, although it takes him a long moment before he looks back at me.
“It feels too good to be true,” he says softly and I know why.
“Did you tell her the truth?”
“The truth?” he asks as if I don’t know.
It only takes me glancing at his side where he was shot for him to understand my question.
“She has no idea. She thinks it was random. A coincidence.”
“Is it Marcus?” I have a bad feeling in my gut, but he’s the only person that this leads to.
“Yeah.” His answer is quick and met with a simmering anger that I recognize from him. There’s the brother I know and love. “I told him about her. I needed his help.”
“You told Marcus. Who else?”
“He’s the only one I told. It had to be him or someone he told.”
“Why did you tell him anything?” I keep the accusations out of my tone. Daniel’s been reckless for Addison. He always was but this …
“I had her license plate and nothing else.”
My thumb rubs in circular motions over my pointer finger as I take it all in.
He adds, “I couldn’t lose her again.” I know he could have told Jase. Jase could have looked up her information. But I don’t remind him of that. He holds on to guilt too much and I’ve only just gotten him back. I need him here… especially knowing what’s coming.
I have nothing but silence as I think of any reason that Marcus would come for us. He’s not a man I want as an enemy, but I’m also not certain it’s him.
“It wasn’t supposed to happen like that. It will never happen again.” He strengthens his resolve and leans forward, daring me to object. But I do.
“And what if she leaves you again?” I ask him and he stares back at me, his chest rising and falling with determination. “What if she finds out something she shouldn’t?”
He doesn’t say what I expect him to, that she won’t. Instead he merely answers, “Then I’ll follow her.”
My breath leaves me slowly, words failing me.
“She’s mine,” he says as if nothing else matters. And maybe it doesn’t.
I nod my head once, ending the conversation.
The hands of the clock in the office are all I can hear as I run my thumbnail under the flap of the envelope and stare back at my brother. “She’s changed you.”
“How’s that?” he asks me. Again he’s on the defensive, and it makes me smile. I like to see him showing something that’s real.
“It’s hard to pretend when you’d do anything for someone you love.”
His gaze flickers to the envelope in my hand and he stares at it as he says, “I didn’t come here for a heart to heart, Carter.”
“You didn’t open it?” Although the words come out with disbelief, the corners of my lips kick up with amusement. He’s so consumed with Addison he didn’t give a fuck about the one thing I’ve been losing sleep over for weeks.
�
�Marcus said it was a message of what’s to come,” he tells me as I finally open it. The paper tears easily and inside I’m surprised to find only a one-by-one-inch square photo. It falls into my palm facedown and I toss the crumpled envelope onto the desk, then flip the small piece of photo paper over.
“I went through all that shit for that?” Daniel asks, but I ignore him, too drawn to the picture.
I trace the curve of her porcelain face. I let the rough pad of my thumb run along the edge of the photo as I note her beautiful smile and the way her dark hair is lit with the sunshine in the image.
My heart pounds hard and I can’t hear what Daniel’s saying. I can’t hear anything but the conversation I had with Tony Romano in the basement cellar months ago. The man who I’ve been avoiding, and the man who reached out to Marcus to deliver the message rather than tell me himself.
The dimly lit, cold and dark room was as unforgiving and unmoving as I was when he made his case and I turned him down.
Then he started bartering with things that didn’t belong to him.
With women the Talverys were shipping off. His enemies. He wanted me to help him in a war against the Talverys and he was offering their property as payment. There was no way I’d ever accept.
“What is it?” Daniel presses, barely interrupting my memory.
“The gift from the Romanos.” I don’t know how the words come out strong as I gently place the photo onto the desk. “They want us on their side of this war they’re starting.”
I remember the way the heavy knife felt in my hand as I picked it up from his desk and stabbed it down onto the splintered wood in front of him. The sharp tip struck the paper in front of him.
The photo of the enemy family.
“If you give me any woman to start a war, it better be this one,” I sneered in his face. I remember the stale stench of whiskey and cigars as I turned my back on him, leaving the knife where it was. With the tip of it stabbing the shoulder of the enemy’s daughter. The shoulder her father’s large hand was clenched around tightly.
His pride and joy, and one and only heir.