It’s an odd rush of emotion that flows through me. The fear and anxiety are most easily described, but there are others tangled in a knot in the pit of my stomach.
Carter made it all go away when he told me to touch myself. Submitting to him makes everything go away and the feeling lasts long after he hangs up the phone.
As I walk out of the bedroom, knowing I’m doing something he’d prefer I didn’t, the haze and comfort that comes from submitting to him dims. It’s a consequence I accept. Before he ended our conversation, he told me what I chose tonight is up to me. He’s giving me the choice, and I won’t waste it.
I want to be more than I have been all my life.
A touch of shame washes over me as I think, I want to be a woman who could stand by Carter’s side. It’s shameful because this isn’t for Carter. This meeting isn’t for my father.
This meeting with Nikolai isn’t even for him.
It’s for me.
My heart pounds in my chest, as does the adrenaline in my blood. Tonight, I’ll live up to my name. To be Aria Talvery, daughter of a ruthless crime lord. And a woman standing between two men waging war.
My father would have me stay willingly in my room. My lover would have me stay willingly locked in his house.
I’ll stay and stand where I want after tonight until I see my end. No matter if that means I’ll lose both men.
Even if the pleasure Carter gave me only an hour ago is still coursing through my veins.
I can hear Addison making something in the kitchen and I hesitate to go in to see her. I haven’t told her a damn thing and it feels like I’m lying to her by keeping these secrets from her.
As I step in to tell her I’m going out, the microwave beeps and the smell of chicken noodle soup fills my lungs. Comfort food, even though there’s no comfort here.
The air is easy between us, but I know it won’t last when she turns around and sees me. I’ve been struggling with whether or not I should tell her since I got the note. I want to lean on her, to confide in her, but I also want to save her from this awfulness that rages inside of me.
I don’t know what to do. I honestly have no idea what to do, but I know if she asks me, I’ll tell her about everything. And I’ll never lie to her.
“Dinner?” I ask her as she pulls the door open, not peeking back behind her to answer me. I wish she would. I wish I could get this part over with.
“You want some?” she asks softly, devoid of the cheeriness I anticipate from her. I watch as she sets the bowl down after removing the paper towel covering the top and trashing it. That’s when she finally looks up at me.
“Are you okay?” I ask her a question first, but she ignores it, asking her own instead.
“Where are you going?” Addison’s voice is thick with sleep. “Are you meeting Carter?” The deep crease in the center of her forehead is evidence enough of her concern, but she quickly fists her hands and places one on each hip as her chest rises. The act actually makes me smile and eases some of the nerves bubbling inside of my chest.
I love her and her protectiveness. I wish I could hide in it.
“I have a meeting with someone else,” I tell her and feel that unease rise up higher, into my throat and bringing true fear with it as she asks me, “Does Carter know?”
“Yes,” I answer her in a single unsteady breath.
Shifting her weight from one foot to the other, she doesn’t respond, and I watch as the fight in her subsides. I can read the questions on her face, but she chooses not to ask any of them. The biggest two being “who?” and “why?” I was so like her once in my life.
“I’ll be okay.” I can at least give her that to ease her worries, although it feels like I won’t be okay. It feels like I’m risking everything, and the consequences will be severe. I know it all already, I’ve weighed all the risks and thought of each outcome.
But I have to do this. “I have to try something to stop all of this.” I give her a little more, hinting at what I’m doing, but she doesn’t ask additional questions.
“You surprise me,” Addison admits, her lips turned down into a frown although I’m not sure why.
“What’s wrong?” I ask, ignoring the obvious and feeling my heart try to climb into my throat. I cautiously step closer, not wanting to hurt her or leave her feeling like she’s anything but my friend, my closest friend.
I have to clasp my hands together in front of me to keep from reaching out to her, but it doesn’t matter, because she reaches out to me first. Brushing her hand against my forearm, she gives me a hesitant smile.
“You handle it all so much better than I do, and I just…” As she trails off, her tone says it all. She feels weak.
I can’t stand her reaction and I squash her thoughts as quickly as I can. “I don’t handle it well; I barely handle it at all.” I try to joke with her, but it doesn’t work. She takes in a deep, unsteady breath and then looks back to the bowl of soup.
“Daniel asked me to forgive him yesterday.”
The sudden change in topic startles me and I don’t know if she’s upset with me or not. I ask in a near whisper, “What did you say?”
“I said that I didn’t know how I could. That when I fell in love with him, he was a different man.”
“I’m sorry,” I tell her as I grab her hand.
She’s choked up and I find it contagious as she looks up toward the tallest cabinet and speaks to it, rather than me to keep from crying. “He said I’m good at lying to myself but that it’s okay and that he still loves me.” She sniffles, wiping under her eyes even though the tears haven’t fallen yet. “Can you believe the balls he has?” Her lips twitch up into a sad smirk, but it doesn’t stay long as she gives in to the tears.
“I miss him,” she cries softly into my shoulder and clings to me. I’m quick to hold her tightly, hugging her as she breaks down. It fucking hurts seeing her like this. If I could go back, I’d keep her from learning the truth. I wish she’d never seen what happened. I wish she’d never peeked into this world I can’t escape.
She pulls away after only a few seconds, shaking out her hands and walking away, but then comes right back. Her unease shows as she paces like I do but in much smaller circles.
“I feel crazy,” she mutters and sniffles again.
“The Cross boys are good at making the women they love go crazy,” I answer her in a deadpan tone with a weak smile. It takes a minute for her to look me in the eyes, and when she does, she doesn’t accept the humor in my response.
“I swear I didn’t know the things they do. But he told me he’s always been a bad man and that it never stopped him from loving me. Or me from loving him before.”
I rub her arm, feeling like it’s all my fault and hating myself for it. I wish I could go back. If only I could. There’s so much I would change.
“I want to leave with him, but he won’t leave his brothers and I don’t think I could ever ask him to do that, but together they will live like this… rule like this.”
“He’s not a bad man, Addie.” I don’t know where she’s going with this, but I refuse to let her focus on something that will never change. “And what they do… they do because they have to.” I swallow down the pain of the words, knowing I’ve had to choke on that excuse for as long as I’ve lived.
“How can we live like this, knowing what they do? What they’re capable of?”
“We remember why they are the way they are. And we give them the love they need, so long as they give it back to us.” I stare into her eyes, meaning every word.
“I know they need love. They desperately need to be loved.” Tears prick at my own eyes as she looks away from me, but I see from her expression that she knows it’s true. There’s nothing in the world that would deny that truth.
Addison wipes under her eyes with the sleeves of her pajama shirt. She’s dressed for bed, exhausted and dealing with the weight of loving a man from the world I grew up in. Part of me is jealous of her, a very small part, but it’s there. “He loves you, Addie,” I whisper to her, squeezing her hand.
She squeezes mine back and then lets her hand drop to her side. “I know, but if I accept it, I’m no better than he is. And I’ll never be okay with what Carter did to you. I don’t care if you are.”
“Carter and Daniel are different men.” My answer comes out harsher than I wanted, and I attempt to soften it by adding, “And I know Carter’s reason, Addie.” I try to tell her more, but the words won’t come out. I can’t tell her about what my father did and what Carter thinks he heard. If I told her that, the next logical thing to say would be that it wasn’t me he heard. The voice he heard that gave him the strength to keep living didn’t belong to me.
My heart plummets painfully in my chest at the thought of my secret, making me feel sick once again.
“When are you leaving me?” Addie asks, changing the subject again and moving back to the counter to grab a spoon from the drawer. The metal clinks against the ceramic as she stirs her soup. “A secret meeting in the middle of the night?” She tries to add a sense of playfulness into the chide, but it doesn’t come out strong enough.
As I answer her, she lifts the spoon to her lips, blowing on the soup and then swallowing it.
“Not so secret, and I’ll be back soon.”
“Should I ask what it’s about?”
I don’t know what to tell her, and I remember all the times I was curious but too afraid to ask. I wish someone had taken my fear away from me and told me more about the world I was living in. That’s what fuels me to tell her, “I’m meeting a friend I grew up with who’s one of my father’s men.”
Her face pales as she peeks toward the doorway to the kitchen. Maybe she expects to find Eli there, I don’t know, but then she whispers, “Should you be doing that?”
Her eyes plead with me to be truthful and so I answer her honestly, putting a hand on her shoulder and not daring to take my gaze away from hers as I say, “I should have done it sooner.”
“What if he tries to take you back?” The raw note of fear in her voice means more to me than I could ever tell her.
I shake my head. “Eli is coming with me, and Carter knows about it. I’m not leaving you, Addison. I promise. He wouldn’t let it happen.”
“So, you two…?” She doesn’t finish the question.
“Are… speaking, but still not okay,” I answer slowly.
“Why go then?” she asks, and I know she’ll understand my reasoning.
“He’s my friend, and he’s going to die or he’s going to help kill the man I love.” Tears brim, but I hold them back. It’s the painful truth, and I know I need to change it. “If I don’t do something, those are the only two outcomes.”
“Are you…” Addie looks anywhere but at me, until she gathers her thoughts and finally asks a question I don’t know the answer to. “Whatever you tell him, or ask of him… will he listen to you?”
Cason comes into view from the very doorway she was just looking toward. “I don’t know,” I answer her with a weak smile, although I stare back at Cason. Something thuds hard within my chest knowing Nikolai has always tried to keep things from me. He thinks it protects me, but I know now that he’s wrong.
Addison’s gaze follows mine and the clinking of her spoon against the bowl as she places her dishes in the sink marks the finality of our discussion. “Be safe,” she tells me quietly as she leaves.
“You too,” I tell her and listen to the sound of her retreating down the hall to the bedrooms as Cason steps into the kitchen. His jeans are dirty, covered in mud from the knees down.
He was doing something… and I can only imagine it involved a shovel and shallow grave.
“I heard you might be going out.” Cason starts talking the moment Addie’s out of the kitchen. I wonder if she stopped in the hall, holding her breath and staying as still as she can so she can listen.
I’ve done that more times than I can count.
“I am.” My answer is hard as I look Cason in the eye. “Right now, actually.”
“Are you sure you want to do that?” he questions me. The man’s nearly a foot taller than me, with broad shoulders and arms that are a dead giveaway he spends too much time in the gym.
“You’re the muscle.” I ignore his question and ask him my own. “Aren’t you?”
He tilts his head, considering me.
“You guys have a certain look to you,” I explain as I walk through the kitchen and head to the living room. It’s a modern house with an open concept floor plan, so he has no problem viewing me as he crosses his arms and leans against the wall.
“The scar on your chin, the tattoos across your knuckles, probably where they’re scarred too,” I speak to him as the vision of men my father referred to as the muscle, invades my memory. They’d come to the house every once in a while, with big envelopes stuffed full of cash they’d leave for him. As polite as they were to me, I knew what they did.
They beat the shit out of men who didn’t pay up. My gaze drifts to the mud on Cason’s shins… and they buried the men who didn’t learn the lesson fast enough.
Slipping on my shoes, leather ballet flats, I peek up at Cason and ask him, “Do you have bullet hole scars too?”
His eyes are still assessing me as the silence drags on. It doesn’t even look like he’s breathing as I stand tall and make my way back to him. There’s a matte black earpiece in his right ear, and I wonder if Carter’s listening. I wonder if Carter’s asking him to stop me because he doesn’t have the balls to do it himself.
Fed up with Cason forcing me to talk to myself, I tell him, “It’s three blocks down, and Eli is accompanying me. Thank you for your concern.”
As I walk toward the stairway, glancing at the clock on the stove to make sure I’m on schedule, Cason decides to walk in front of me, his large chest becoming as unyielding and firm as a brick wall.
“I urge you to reconsider,” he tells me with a voice that comes from deep in his throat. Towering over me, he’s a man who creates fear. And it stirs in my blood, warning me to back down and simply survive the encounter. I look him in the eyes and tell him calmly with a hint of a smile and a narrowed glare, “See, I knew you were the muscle.” Inwardly, I feel like I’m about to choke on a spiked ball of panic.
I stare into his dark eyes, meeting his gaze and refusing to back down. Not this second, and not the next. Never.
“I’m going,” I tell him with finality and strength I don’t feel anywhere else.
“As you wish.” His answer is accompanied by a look of disappointment. Clenching his jaw, he moves his gaze back to the kitchen.
My body sags and I heave in a breath when Cason turns his back to me to go down the stairs first. The sinking feeling that chills every inch of my skin is something I’ve felt before and I hate it. It will always come. Those who are bigger, scarier, and hold an air of darkness around them will always bring out my survival instinct to run. But they die just like the rest of us.
I only peek up to Cason’s back when I hear him as he grabs his ear. I can hear the bellowing that’s coming from it from where I stand.
“Aria,” Cason starts speaking before he’s fully turned to me. “Please forgive me for trying to intimidate you.” He chokes on his words as if terrified of getting them wrong and the look in his eyes couldn’t be further from the look that gave me goosebumps only moments ago.
“I forgive you,” I answer him slowly, questioning my own response and wanting to know what the fuck just happened. The question lingers in my words as they reach his ear. Or rather, the earpiece that’s still filled with the yells of someone on the other end. An enraged Carter, naturally. My lips threaten to tug into a smile as I hear his voice, but I contain it as Cason continues.
“Your decisions are your own and I have absolutely no right to interfere. I’m only here to protect you.”
It’s as if he’s speaking an oath. His gaze is genuinely full of remorse and I wonder what he really thinks of me. I haven’t thought of that at all until this moment.
“I’ll never turn my back on you again,” he tells me with both of his hands clasped in front of him apologetically. He even lowers his head some, hunching his shoulders to meet my gaze at eye level. “Would you like me to take you to Eli?”
“No need.” Eli’s voice startles me and I’m ashamed I jump backward. Eli’s smile is wicked like he’s proud he got to me. With my hand on my chest and my back against the wall, he passes me a white jean jacket.
“You scared me,” I tell him in the same breath I exhale. My heart still feels like it’s about to leap out of my chest.
“I know,” he says, grinning like a Cheshire cat before resuming his normal dominating stance.
“Carter wanted me to give this to you, in case you’d be needing it,” he tells me, and I snatch it from him. It matches my outfit, which I do and don’t like about this situation. I want to ask where the cameras are. I want to question both men and demand they tell me everything Carter tells them, but I don’t want to give away how little I know. Not to them.
“Asshole,” I mutter as I right myself and steady my breath. Cason lets out a snort of a laugh and the tension between the three of us eases some. But only for a moment.
“I’m sorry, Aria,” Cason tells me as I drape the jacket over my forearm. “I have strong opinions and I know I need to keep them to myself and I’m sorry,” he rambles slightly, but his tone is genuine, and his green eyes shine with remorse.
“I get it,” I tell him. “I know what war means and what this means.” I look him in the eyes as I answer and neither of us wavers, not until Eli speaks up.
“Are you ready to meet with the enemy?” Eli asks me, and I can’t look at either of them as I answer, “I already have.”
From the corner of my eye, I see the smile wane on his face, but Eli nudges me with his shoulder before walking out in front.
“Be smart, Aria,” Cason warns as my small footsteps echo in the foyer. My quickened pulse increases even more and I have to walk a little quicker to keep up with Eli.
It didn’t feel real until just now.
The crickets are out tonight, and the sky is lit with so many stars. More stars than I’ve ever seen in Fallbrook.
“How long until we’re there?” I ask Eli, breathing in the crisp air of the cool summer night and ignoring the roiling in the pit of my stomach. The anxiety numbs my hands and I clench and unclench them before deciding to shrug on the jacket and slip my hands into my pockets.
Taking a look around to my left and right, this street is nothing but houses. I barely remember that from the drive up. The next street is where the houses are grouped closer together and there’s something on the corner, a church or a liquor store, maybe both. I don’t remember.
“Not long, he’s already waiting,” Eli tells me, but the playfulness, the easiness from the stairwell are all but forgotten.
He glances at me as I keep my pace steady with his, taking strides more often since he’s taller than me. The sound of a car driving up the next street over makes him pause and he holds his arm out, stopping me from moving out into the street and pushing me closer to the brick fence of the house to my left. A moment passes, and the sound of the car diminishes. The voices from the same earpiece Cason was wearing make me stare at Eli. I can’t hear what they’re saying, but I know he’s getting information about something.
Dread and panic mix together, making my legs feel weak. Eli glances up at the house, to the second floor and waits, then a sound creeps into his ear and he nods.
The nod wasn’t for me and as Eli looks down at me and smiles politely, both of us know it.
“It’s clear, Miss…” He stops and clears his throat then says, “Aria.”
The dread’s still there, making my hands clammy and causing my throat to tighten.
“I was hoping you wouldn’t do this,” Eli tells me and continues to stare straight ahead even as I look up at him, willing him to look me in the eyes.
Since he doesn’t look back at me, I stare straight ahead as well. “If you thought I’d lie down and let this go on without trying to stop it, you were wrong.”
“There’s no way to stop this.”
“I stood by before and did nothing while I watched family die,” I speak quietly and swallow the knot that forms in my throat as I think of my mother. After taking a moment to compose myself, I tell Eli with finality, “I won’t do it again.”
