Shaking my head, I press my lips together, afraid of what might slip out if given the slightest opportunity. A sob tickles the back of my throat, and no matter how many times I try to push it down, it refuses, lodging itself there like agony demanding my attention.
Whoever said the stages of grief don’t just apply to death was onto something.
Turning on my heel, I sidestep my chair and head back into the house, passing through the kitchen. I swipe my purse and coat from the sofa in the living room, almost making it to the front door before a hand grabs my wrist, yanking me backward.
“Don’t you dare leave this house without talking to me,” Kal snaps, turning me around so I’m facing him. “We don’t do that shit.”
Trying to twist out of his grip, I snarl, “We don’t do anything. Don’t tell me to open up about how I’m feeling when you’ve been lying to me the entire time I’ve known you.”
“When would have been a good time to bring it up? I couldn’t very well be buried in your pussy and casually dredge up the fact that I’ve seen your mother in a similar state.”
The sentence burns as it slaps across my face, worse than if he’d just killed me on the spot. At least the pain would likely be over soon. “Well, lucky for you, she cut out the middleman and did it for you. Solved that dilemma real quick, didn’t it?”
My free hand claws at the front door, turning the knob and wrenching it open. Yanking on my arm again, I glare up at him.
“Let go of me.”
His gaze sears straight through me, skipping my heart altogether and igniting my soul on fire. But not the good kind of fire, that grazes your skin and fills you with warmth. It’s the kind that singes and steals, destruction in the form of flames.
“I can’t,” he grits, although his fingers retract at the same time, reaching up to card through his hair. “Jesus, Elena, just give me five minutes.”
Part of me wants to; aches to stay back and hear what he has to say, but the anger pulsing through me takes precedence, wanting him to suffer.
“I can’t,” I repeat. Ari floats down the staircase, half her face decorated in sparkly foundation and gold makeup, completely oblivious to everything that’s just happened. I catch her as she starts to slip out the other side of the door, raising an eyebrow. “Are you going to the recital already?”
She nods. “We always rehearse a few of the trickier numbers before the show.” Peering up at Kal, she purses her lips, then looks back to me. “Want to come with?”
Nodding, I follow her out to the car sitting idle at the curb, Lorenzo behind the wheel. And when I climb in the back, chancing a single glance over my shoulder, I see Kal still standing in the doorway, frozen in place like a statue.
When we drive away, I let my sobs choke free; Ari scoots closer, letting me cry on her shoulder even though she doesn’t seem to know what’s going on.
I always wondered what would happen if I bled wide open, and he wasn’t there to blot it up with his tongue or fingers or first aid kit.
Guess now I have my answer.
Chapter 34
I have half a mind to chase after her.
Do for Elena what no other has ever done for me.
But it’s all for naught if I don’t figure my shit out here first.
So, even though it feels like returning to Hell when I walk out to the courtyard, I push through the anger bleating against my skull and walk to my end of the table. Palming the back of the padded chair, I stare down for a moment at the uneaten pasta, the glass Elena left behind, smudged with pink lip gloss.
Rafe’s disappeared, probably off to light another cigar, leaving just me and his wife. Carmen slurps at her wine, clearly beyond incapacitated, and giggles. “Trouble in paradise, amore mio?”
Clenching my jaw, I raise my eyes, zeroing in on the suckling sound, letting it fan the flames inside of me, stretching them beyond belief, until I can feel my skin buzzing with the need for violence.
“Give me one reason why I shouldn’t gut you right here, right now,” I say in a low voice, careful not to reveal just how angry she’s made me. If they know you’re bothered, they use it against you.
Which makes all of this my fucking fault.
“Dio mio, you never were any good at flirting.” She sets her glass down, reaching to adjust the strap of her red dress when it slips down her shoulder. Her fingers curl around it, then pause, and she drops her hand as if suddenly thinking better of it.
Bedroom eyes turn up at mine, and she shifts, tilting her bronzed shoulder as if she’s trying to entice me.
Gripping the chair until my fingernails start to split from the pressure, I resist the urge to laugh in the bitch’s face, knowing that’ll only feed her antics.
“One reason, Carmen.” Reaching for the waistband of my pants, I slide my hand around, dislodging the gun tucked in the back. Smoothing my fingers over the cool metal barrel, I unlock the safety and cock it, pointing at her with the mouth. “Doesn’t even have to be a good one, necessarily. But you’d better think real fucking fast before I make the decision for you.”
She doesn’t even flinch, as if unaware that none of my threats are ever hollow. Fixing her strap with a sharp snap against her skin, she sits up straighter, giving me a bland look.
“You’re not going to kill me, Kallum. If you were, you would’ve done it the second you found me in bed with someone else.”
My side throbs spastically, like my flesh is being carved open all over again after finding myself on the other end of an ambush. In my own home.
It was a rival family member, someone from Southie; if I’d been expecting either one of them to be in my bed, he wouldn’t have had the upper hand.
But you don’t expect the people you care about to betray you right under your nose.
I remember the searing pain where the knife went in, thinking that would be the end of it; at that point, I hadn’t been doing lethal hits all that long, and torture certainly wasn’t something I even thought of when doing Ricci jobs, so when the knife went in, stayed in, and began to move, I remember the shock absorbing the brunt of the initial torment.
I remember waking up mid-surgery; I’d been flown to a nearby hospital after an anonymous tip alerted the cops to my state, and they’d been so concerned with the loss of blood and possible abrasions to my liver and spleen, that no one bothered to clean the wound or try to free some of the broken muscle that would eventually produce the mass of scar tissue on my side.
I remember the pain after the surgery; they called it phantom pains. Said I’d probably feel them the rest of my life, long after everything else healed.
They said I was lucky. That a guardian angel must have been watching over me, because the damage to my spleen had been pretty significant, but they’d managed to repair the rupture.
It was my nineteenth birthday.
I never felt lucky.
Not one time in my life, even with the countless brushes with death, did I feel lucky.
Until Elena.
The chair creaks beneath the weight of my grip, the wood hidden beneath the soft fabric bending at my whim. I school my features, gritting my teeth against the fury building like a cyclone in my chest, spiraling out of control.
Raising my arm, I point the pistol right at her forehead. “We can remedy that mistake now. I certainly don’t want to make the same one twice.”
She swallows, watching me with those glassy eyes. “Elena will never forgive you for killing her mother. She’s hurt now, but she knows who’s always been there for her. She’ll always choose this family over a stranger.”
Releasing my hold on the chair, I begin to slowly creep around the table, keeping the gun trained on her. “You took her away from me, so that little fear tactic doesn’t really apply anymore, does it? What do I care if she forgives me, if she’s not going to be warming my bed and cock at night?”
Carmen scoffs, disgust flooding her features. “As crude and vile as ever, I see.”
I move
closer, brushing my index finger over the trigger. “You know what’s crude? The number of times I’ve told your daughter to get on her knees and watched her choke on me. How I’ve broken her skin and lapped at her blood so many times, the flavor is practically embedded into my tastebuds.”
Pausing right beside her, I lift the gun to her forehead, pressing the mouth to her temple. “She gets off on it, you know. The pain. Never looks at me like I’m sick, or deranged, or some kind of monster. I bet, if I got her pregnant right now, she wouldn’t eliminate the problem. She might even beg me to breed her, and do you know why, Carmen? Do you get why I chose her?”
Carmen’s tongue swipes quickly across her lips, beads of sweat popping up where the gun is flush with her skin.
“It’s because she’s as fucked up as me.”
“You can’t talk about my daughter this way—”
The sound of a dull pop cracks against the air like a whip, and Carmen shrieks loudly, jolting in her seat. Even long after the realization sets in that a blank was fired, she still screams, the ear-piercing sounds quickly becoming an irritant to my already frayed nerves.
Her hands come down, clamping around the arms of her chair, and she presses her back as far from me as she can manage.
Which, all things considered, isn’t far. But I appreciate the effort.
Makes it feel a little less like a conquest.
“I’ll talk about my wife any way I please. Because you know what was really vile here tonight, Carmen?” I wait, though she still doesn’t answer. “What you did was vile, and if I didn’t care so much about your fucking daughter, you’d be drifting to the bottom of the Charles right now for fucking everything up so spectacularly.”
“I’m sorry,” she sobs, crumbling under the slightest bit of pressure, just like she used to. It’s a wonder Elena has any backbone at all. “It wasn’t...” She blows out a breath, trying to collect herself. “I was in love with you, Kal. I just didn’t know how to... navigate it. You scared me.”
Her words float to the recesses of my brain, the secret places dormant in the years since our relationship. Part of me expects them to ignite the old feelings, the young and immature sense of accomplishment I used to feel when showered with her affection.
Now, all I feel is empty.
And as I let that feeling take root in my heart, spreading outward, I realize something else.
She may have loved me, but I never loved her.
Losing her never felt like being dismembered, or having the blood drained right from your body, creating a loneliness unlike anything I’ve ever known.
It never felt like spending your life as a sinner and finally getting a taste of Heaven, only to have it ripped right out from beneath your fingertips.
But it takes a woman like Elena to elicit feelings like that. It requires kindness, and warmth, not the kind of fires lit just for the hell of it, but the kind of flames that flourish with passion and understanding and just a touch of darkness.
It’s her innate goodness that makes the loss fucking unbearable.
Without her, I feel like one half of a soul, existing aimlessly, waiting for the earth to reclaim me the way I have so many others.
Months ago, when I forced her hand, I hadn’t even realized anything in my life was missing. Didn’t realize I wanted someone there to balance me out, to peel back the curtains and shed a little light, so long as I also got to paint her in shadows.
She’s only been gone for minutes, and all I can focus on is her absence.
Anguish claws a path up my spine, leaving behind bloody, gaping wounds that only deepen with each passing second I spend not chasing after her.
Carmen’s still sobbing, fake tears staining her cheeks, and I drop the gun slightly, shaking my head. “It’s a nice sentiment, but it’s an entire decade too late. And frankly, I don’t want your explanation. The only one who deserves it is Elena, because she’s the one who cares about you.”
Flicking my wrist back, I whip it forward, lashing the barrel of the gun against her cheekbone, reveling in that familiar crack that resounds at the impact. She screams, her hands flying to her face as she chokes on her saliva.
“Let that be your fucking lesson here,” I say, stepping away. “You get to live, because I don’t care enough to kill you.”
As she continues screaming, I drag a hand through my hair and leave her there, heading inside, my chest somehow lighter than ever despite everything else going on.
Rafael leans against the staircase when I pass through the kitchen, smoke billowing up around his head. “You didn’t mean to fire a warning shot, did you.”
He doesn’t ask, just states his sentence as though it’s the most obvious thing in the world.
I stuff my hands in my pockets, lifting a shoulder. “Sounds like you already know the answer to that.”
Grunting, he takes another puff, watching me. “I’ll kill the kidnapping story, if you pay what you owe me.”
Blinking, I almost laugh, tucking my pistol into the back of my pants. “I don’t owe you anything. I don’t even think anyone is interested in your fabricated story anymore.”
“That contract you fucked me out of with Bollente cost me a quarter million. I shut down the Montaltos in King’s Trace and sold what product we had there, but if the Riccis have any chance at withstanding all this, the blackmail, the debt collectors, the feds snooping when they realize I’m not paying the local police to turn a blind eye anymore... I need financial support, Kal. Don’t fucking think you’re screwing me out of this, too.”
Smirking, I start toward the front door again, brushing past even as he reaches an arm out, trying to stop me; he’s considerably shorter than me, so I just lift my arm, dodging his grip.
“The problem with your appeal, dear Rafael, is that I don’t give a fuck if Ricci Inc. burns to the ground. If it doesn’t, fine. If it does, good riddance.” Yanking open the door, I give him a half salute with my middle finger. “You’ve taken enough of my life at this point as it is. It’s time for me to repay the favor.”
Chapter 35
The theater listed on the ticket for Ariana’s recital is a half-hour drive across town, and I hop in the rental SUV the second I walk out of the Riccis’ house and head there immediately.
It’s an ornate building with massive Greco-Roman columns framing the front, and stained glass skylights obscuring the night sky. After handing an usher my ticket, I’m sent in the direction of the appropriate auditorium, but spend a few extra minutes pacing outside, just in case Elena hasn’t gone in yet.
Fifteen minutes pass, and she doesn’t show up, so I go inside and find my seat.
We’re in a private box, apparently, only accessible through a separate set of stairs, guarded by an usher with braces, who smiles brightly at me when I flash my barcode.
“Mr. Anderson, seat 11B.” She glances around, then hands my ticket back. “Will the rest of your party be joining soon?”
“My party?”
Pulling out a clipboard, she flips through a small stack of papers, nodding as she apparently finds the information she’s looking for. “Yes, we have a private box reserved for Mr. and Mrs. Anderson, and the adjoining box, number twelve, booked for a Mr. and Mrs. Ricci, and two guests.”
Shaking my head, I stuff my ticket into my suit pocket, sidestepping her. “I have no clue if they’re coming or not. Can you make sure Mrs. Anderson and I aren’t disturbed?”
The kid frowns, her blush visible even in the dim lighting. “Sir, I must inform you that explicit relations are strictly prohibited on the premises, resulting in fines of up to one-thousand dollars.”
Tapping my foot impatiently, I reach into my pants for my wallet, pulling a wad of cash from the flap. “Consider this a down payment.”
I don’t wait for her to accept it, shoving it into her fist and pushing past, stepping over the velvet rope barring the staircase. Bounding up the flight, I try to calm my racing heart, preparing myself for the possibility that sh
e isn’t up here.
Still, when I shove aside the curtain to our box, my heart beats so fast it feels like it might explode; her silhouette is lit up by the stage below as she leans forward in her chair, slumped over the balcony railing. I step down into the box, quietly approaching, my hand reaching out to grasp her shoulder, when she speaks.
“Don’t.”
It’s one word, long enough to drive through my chest and pierce the organ beating just for her. She doesn’t even glance over her shoulder or move a muscle, her body so in tune with mine at this point it seems to just know when I’m around.
Or maybe she knew I’d come. Maybe that’s what she wanted all along.
My hand falls to my side, that familiar fucking ache pulsing in the pit of my stomach.
“Elena, I—”
“If you came here to apologize, you can save it.”
Her attitude catches me slightly off guard, considering the last time I saw her, she’d looked as miserable as I felt. Crushed, like the revelation of my past bore any consequence on our future.
Devastated, like I’d chosen secrets over her.
Taking the seat next to hers, I stretch my legs out, pushing my feet against the balcony’s footboard, and fold my hands in my lap. If she’s not giving me the silent treatment, perhaps she’s had time to sit and reflect on what she’s learned tonight, and she’s decided to move on.
“I didn’t come to apologize,” I say softly, leaning up to whisper in her ear. “Although I am sorry. But really, I came to make sure you were all right.”
She doesn’t say anything for a while, silently staring out as stagehands begin setting up props, rushing from one end of the stage to the other, racing against the clock to be ready in time for the show.
Sighing, Elena shakes her head. “I’m not. Not even a little bit, Kal. And I really don’t want to talk about any of it with you.”
Squeezing the seat rests, I lean my head back, trying not to let my frustration show. “You’re my wife, little one. We have to talk about it.”
Promises and Pomegranates: A Dark Contemporary Romance (Monsters & Muses Book 1) Page 24