Chapter 24
Chapter Twenty-Four
J ames
My hand flies through my hair for the hundredth time as my car whips around the block, racing down the street faster than the legal limit. “Cecilia,” I growl into the phone, knowing I wouldn’t hear her response because she hasn’t responded the first fifty times I’ve called her name. All I knew was that she was in trouble. I sensed it the minute her name popped up on my phone, knowing there was logically nothing else she’d ever call me for. The silence, followed by her loud, shaken voice speaking to someone else, was my second clue, and by then, I was already on my feet and barreling out of my house.
I white knuckled the steering wheel as other revelations carried through the phone, like the fact that she was with Hodge and the fact that he’s a bigger scumbag than I thought and owed money to some dangerous people. I nearly break a molar, grinding my teeth together, when I hear a scuffle and the sound of Cecilia screaming in pain. It feels like I’m swallowing burning embers at the noise and how she’s still trying to speak through it all and give me clues as to where she was and who she was dealing with. She was so smart, even now. I hated how scared she sounded despite trying to keep it together. It made me want to rip a chasm open into the earth and let everyone fall into the fiery pits beneath it, if only to save her from the world's evils.
My blood practically runs cold when I hear the man's voice introducing himself as Dante Amato. Hodge was a fucking idiot to get involved with him. Dante Amato was part of a lower-ranking family in the Cosa Nostra, and it wasn’t without a lack of trying. They were one of the worst families, keeping themselves wrapped up in bad business that Stef and his close relatives liked to avoid. They were untrustworthy and tried to undermine the Luccio’s every chance they could get. Stef and Dante were always competitive, but as they grew older, the rivalry grew more vicious and deadly as Stef and his family gained more power over the city. Dante has gone as far as wrecking some of Luccio’s deals in his gun-running business, but even more so, he is dirtying the city with his drug and sex trafficking rings, which Stef personally has no hand in. Stef has been at war with him for a while, and he can count himself at war with me now that Cecilia has set foot into his world.
I press harder on the gas as I zip through the active night streets. The only thing sticking out to me is that she said she was at Alexander’s. It was a higher-end restaurant on the outskirts of Boston and well known for being the kind of place that fuckheads like Hodge or Dante and his men would hang around. I was praying to God that she was still there and in one piece, or I was seriously going to fuck someone up.
I pull up out front, tucking my gun into the back waist of my slacks under my jacket before walking to the entrance. A man standing at the door puts a hand on my chest, stopping me from going inside. He’s saying something, but I don’t hear him. All I can see and feel is his hand touching me, and I don’t hesitate to grab it, twisting it along with his arm at a speed he couldn’t anticipate. He’s on his knees now, grunting in pain, and then he’s out like a light once my knee connects with his nose. I straighten my jacket once more before entering the building.
My gaze roams over the scene in front of me. Dante and one other man towering over Hodge, beating the hell out of him, then Cecilia, who is being held against her will in a chair by a man who has both of her hands behind her back at what seems to be a painful angle. He has her hands balled into his one giant fist while his other hand falls to her knee and begins rising up her thigh as she squirms, trying to keep him off of her. I’ve seen way worse scenes in my time, but seeing her like this, her heart pounding hard enough to be physically seen on her chest, the way the sick look on the man's face promises her the absolute worst outcome every woman fears in their life, creates a rage in me so visceral, I feel slightly panicked at the uncontrolled feeling of it all.
Her eyes, full of dread, find mine, and they widen into hope, and the sight nearly kills me where I stand, but then she whimpers my name, and I—See—Red.
I barrel towards him, ripping my gun out from behind me, and place it at the side of his head, pulling the trigger without a second thought. I hardly register the heavy spray of blood on me or the brain matter that coats the walls and floor. All I can see and focus on is the shock in Cecilia’s face as she watches the man fall to the ground. She starts panting, clearly freaking out, but I don’t have any time to comfort her because the other two men are pulling their guns out now and aiming them at us.
I spin toward them, aiming mine at them, my eyes connecting with Dante. “You don’t want to do that,” I say calmly.
“James Kingston. What brings you here?” he gleams as if he were thrilled by my unexpected presence.
“I’m here to collect what’s mine,” I say, gesturing to Cecilia. “She has no part in this, so if you don’t want to end up like your friend here, you’ll let her leave.”
“No one is going anywhere until we get paid, and I surely don’t take orders from Stefano’s charity case.”
I grind my teeth as I pull out my wallet and hastily toss ten grand his way, letting the wad fall at his feet. If Cecilia weren’t here, I would make this place a blood bath but going against a family head wasn’t a smart move right now. Especially when Stef isn’t here.
“If any of you ever lay another finger on her again, I will hunt down every single one of you until your family is completely fucking eradicated,” I promise. “You don’t want your problems to be with me, Dante. I think we both know that would cause some very big complications for you.”
Dante grimaces, knowing Stef and I are the stronger outlier, and stomps to the spot where the cash lies on the floor and snatches it, handing it to his guy to count. When he nods, Dante faces me again. “I’m sure this won’t be the last time we’ll see each other, James, but for now, I’ll let this mishap slide.”
“Pleasure doing business with you,” I grumble, turning back to Cecilia, who is still staring wide-eyed at the man lying face down on the floor. “Come on, babe,” I murmur to her as I slip my hand around her waist and lift her to her feet. I slowly walk her out of the restaurant, leaving Hodge to whatever consequences he meets because I could give a fuck less, and if he manages to make it out of there alive, then he had to deal with me next for endangering her in the first place.
Cecilia’s hand grips my jacket tightly as she walks out with me, and I gently ease her into my car before coming around to get in on the other side. She seems less still and catatonic when I get inside, and I watch her for a moment before starting the car.
“Are you alright?”
“No,” she answers quickly, then meets my gaze with her teary one. “But you came.” She says it like she’s surprised and thankful all at once, and it makes me want to go back inside and kill every single person in that room for making her so scared.
“Nothing could have kept me away,” I assure her.
She nods, a faint smile lining her mouth as a tear falls down her cheek. “I had a feeling,” she whispers. I lean in, using my thumb to wipe her tears, reveling in her skin's warm touch against mine.
I begrudgingly drive her back to her apartment when it’s the last place I want her to be. I wanted her in my home, my room, and safe in my presence. But I couldn’t do that cause her damn brother was staying with me, and we were too busy going over a new protection plan with Marco for Cecilia over the coming weeks when all hell broke loose, and she got herself deeper into this mess.
I don’t have him watching her for only an hour, and she goes and gets kidnapped. I don’t think I’ll ever not be on guard when it comes to her.
We drive in silence most of the way, and it’s when we’re nearly to her place that I’m finally getting pissed off. I think she can sense it because she keeps side-eyeing me from her seat like she’s waiting for me to explode any minute.
I park outside her building and exit the car, going around to open her door and help her out. “You don’t have to do that,” she says, taking my hand as I lift her from the car.
“Oh, I do. It seems I need to keep you in my grasp constantly, or you go out and do stupid shit,” I gripe as I follow her up the steps to her building.
“Please, do we have to do this now?” she asks tiredly, unlocking the door leading to a hallway and a staircase to the left. I follow her inside and up the stairs.
“Yes, we’re doing this now. I don’t think you realize how serious that could have been, Cecilia. Those men could have killed you.”
“I think I realize, James. You murdered a man right in front of my eyes,” she whispers in a shouting manner so that no one hears. I can’t help but smirk as she does, and she narrows her eyes on me. “Do you think this is funny? I am scarred for life after tonight.”
“He had it coming. His hands were all over you,” I say darkly, remembering the way he held her hands behind her as he touched her against her will. The memory was still too fresh and made me want to go back there and light his body on fire.
Her eyes seem to soften as she looks back at me, and then she shakes her head, walking to a door down the hall on the fifth floor. I look from her door to the one across hers with matching orange floral wreaths hanging on them. “A friend?” I ask, looking back at her.
“That’s Lance’s apartment,” she mentions casually as she unlocks her door and heads inside.
I follow her inside and shut and lock the door behind me. “He lives across from you?”
“Yes, that’s what I meant when I said that’s his apartment,” she responds coyly.
Annoyance surges through me as I think about him being so close to her all the damn time, at work and home. I wasn’t sure if I could compete with someone so close to her, but I had a feeling I would have to. I saw how he looked at her and knew he had feelings for her. I just didn’t know what she felt for him. I knew how her body reacted to mine, but her feelings were a whole other ball game.
I look around her apartment, seeing traces of her everywhere and committing it to memory. She had a small shelf next to her bright yellow couch full of books that looked like those old vintage ones that people don’t buy anymore and have hearts carved into the wood. Her TV was one of those box ones that looked like it was from the nineties, and she had a lot of knick- knacks on every surface you could think of. It was all cutesy stuff like teddy bear figurines or figurines of regal women in big fancy dresses. Fancy colorful vases and candle sticks. It was like an organized thrift store in here.
“Nice place,” I mention, feeling extremely out of my comfort zone. My home here in Boston is cozier and more furnished than my city apartment, but it’s not as nearly lived in as hers.
“Seriously?” she squeaks incredulously. “You’re just going to say nice place like you didn’t just kill someone?”
“What else do you want me to say?”
“I’m freaking out here, James,” she shouts, wrapping her arms around herself. “What is going to happen now? Are we going to go to prison for killing that guy?”
I move closer to her, wanting to comfort her. “No. I already have everything handled, so I don’t want you to worry.”
“How can I not worry? What happened tonight was not okay.”
I meet her gaze, steeling myself for a moment. “Do you hate me even more now after what I did tonight?”
She stares back at me quietly, blinking once as she looks to the floor. “No,” she whispers. “I think that’s what’s bothering me the most. I’m…I’m thankful you came to my rescue. His hands were all over me, like a snake that I couldn’t get off, and there was nothing I could do. I just kept thinking, stop, stop, stop, in my head over and over again, praying that you would find me. And you did,” she says, her eyes filling with tears. “And you made it stop.”
I swallow hard, my ice-cold heart feeling like it was melting at the fact she didn’t hate me or look at me in a worse way than before because it fucking mattered to me. She mattered to me—a lot.
“What were you doing with Hodge, Cecilia?” I finally asked, although I already knew the truth. I was just curious if she’d tell me.
“Nothing I should have been doing,” she answers.
I gently smile. “Were you conspiring against me?”
She looks up at me now. “Would you hate me even more if I was?”
“No, little owl,” I say, stepping closer to her, feeling my chest dip at the nearness. “I wouldn’t.”
Tension crackles between us as she looks at me; this time, it feels like it’s in a new light. It gives me this strange feeling of wanting to prove that I could be something different…something better for her. I reach for her hand, but a knocking at the door stops me, both our heads turning toward it.
She starts to walk to the door when I place an arm in front of her and go ahead of her. I doubted anyone followed us home, but I needed to make sure. I look through the peephole, seeing a shady-looking older man who didn’t look too well either. My hackles rise as I open the door, staring dead at him. “Who are you, and what do you want?”
“Uh… I’m looking for my daughter. Is she home?” the man asks breathlessly, and it’s then I feel Cecilia at my back and shoving me aggressively to the side.
“Dad,” she says warmly, pulling him into a hug. I don’t miss how her face drops as she embraces him, and her gaze roams over him when he releases her.
“What…what’s happened?” he asks, alarmed, spotting the blood splatters on both our clothes. I clench my jaw, using all my strength not to intervene, as she shoots me a glare and then looks back at her dad.
“It’s nothing. It’s paint…actually…if you can believe it. We got a little carried away with a…art project…I’m making for the library,” she lies, following it with an enthusiastic laugh. I’m a little impressed and unnerved by the way she lies to him because she sucks at it with me. It makes me wonder if trying to prove she was fine to her family was normal for her.
“Oh,” her dad murmurs, seeming unsure but going with it anyway, which pissed me off because we so obviously weren’t painting. Especially in the clothes we were wearing. I felt like even he suspected that but didn’t care enough, which pissed me off even more. “Okay. Well, I was stopping by to check on you, and…I wanted to say sorry for the other day. I should have never?—”
“I appreciate that,” she says, cutting him off as he struggles to speak.
“I love you and your brother, and I’m…proud of who you’ve become. I’m going to be better for you both. I’m going to try. Right now, I just need something to get by.”
Her expression fell, and I watched from by the door as she went to her kitchen and pulled a fifty-dollar bill off her fridge from under a magnet. She strides back to the door, handing it to him with a warm smile—an obviously fake one. “Here you go. I’m sorry, I don’t have any extra groceries right now. Maybe you can use that to get some.”
Her dad looks at me skeptically and then back at her. “That’s okay. You know I’m grateful for whatever.”
“Come back next week, and I’ll have more for you,” she tells him.
He nods. “I will. I love you, honey.”
Her smile is so raw and forced that it breaks my heart. “I love you too, Dad.” She shuts the door as he leaves and does her best not to meet my gaze.
“So that’s your father?” I ask, following her back to her living room, where she sits on the couch.
“Yup.”
“Is he sick or something?” I already had a clue, but I was trying to be polite.
“You could say that,” she mumbles.
I sit beside her, keeping my eyes locked on her, hoping she’d meet them with hers. “Babe,” I relent, and she finally looks at me, a wall of tears built over her eyes.
“He just needs help sometimes, you know? If I don’t help him, I won’t see him as much. I need to know he’s taken care of.”
Sadness and anger slice through me so quickly, and I feel a moment of resentment toward her because I didn’t feel these things before her. I didn’t like feeling so off balance with things like emotions because it made the days that already felt hard nearly impossible. But again, I can’t even think about myself in this situation. I could only think about her and her father, who has failed her so many times and has made her take care of him when it should be the other way around.
“And what about you?” I bite out. “Who’s caring for you when you’re out here taking care of your dad and trying to rescue your brother?”
Her eyes fall from mine, and she balls her hands into fists as she tugs on her sweater. “I guess Lance does sometimes.”
More anger whips me straight in the chest, but I exhale sharply, trying to remain calm. “Does he really help you? Do you feel taken care of?”
She still doesn’t look at me. “Sometimes. I guess I just…feel lost in all my responsibilities, and I feel like Lance doesn’t understand how heavy it can all be. He comes from a picture-perfect family, so it’s not his fault.”
I think about her predicament, wondering what it’s like to care for people so much that you’d set aside your own needs to be there for them. It was how she started to make me feel, so I tried my best to see it all from her standpoint. “So, what would make you not feel lost anymore?”
Her eyes become heavier with unshed tears. “I just want my family back. Don’t you understand that’s why I did what I did for my brother? It’s been years since I’ve had him in my life and even longer since we’ve had my dad. I just want my brother back, near me, and then we can work on getting my dad back, too.”
“And you’ll just let yourself go in the process? Not worrying about what the ramifications or the disappointment will do to you?”
“Why do I have to be disappointed?” Her voice becomes more spiteful as she glares at me, the tip of her nose turning red from her warring emotions. “Why do you always make everything so negative?”
“Because that’s life, Cecilia. People disappoint you. You can’t always get what you want and how you want it. Your brother is in the best position of his life, but it’s still not enough for you. Your father is comfortable enough to take advantage of you weekly to support his habit. You need to let go of your little rescue missions and realize that maybe you’re the one that needs saving here.”
She stands up, her flaming eyes on me like daggers. It’s the darkest I’d ever seen them, like grey storms over a raging sea. “Get out,” she snaps. “You know nothing about me and my family.”
I follow, looking down at her. “Don’t pretend I’m not the only one who can see you for who you truly are. You know it, and that’s why you’re so upset.”
“Get out,” she seethes again.
“You can bark orders all you want, babe, but it won’t make me leave. Stomp off to your bedroom if you’d like, but I’ll be sleeping here tonight,” I say, pointing to her sun-colored couch. “I want to ensure you won’t get any more unexpected visitors.”
She bites down on her lip before releasing it in frustration. “Then I’ll just have Lance come over. He can watch out for me.”
I laugh, although it feels like poison fills my stomach with the idea of him being her protector. “Your little friend looks like he barely knows how to handle you, let alone a man with a gun. I think I’ll stay instead.”
She sighs irritably and whips around the couch, walking to her bedroom and slamming the door behind her. I chuckle as I sit back on her couch, leaning back into it and breathing deeply. My phone buzzes in my pocket, and I answer it.
“James,” I hear Stef on the other end.
“I take it you’ve heard,” I guess.
“Oh, I heard,” Stef confirms. I swear shit gets around those families quicker than a high school full of gossiping teenagers. “You let me deal with Dante from here on out.”
“You’re not leaving me out of this one,” I tell him. “He knew Cecilia’s name. Maybe it was because Hodge told him or...”
“They’re working together,” Stef guesses.
“It’s hard to tell. I don’t see the exact motive there, but stranger things have happened,” I remark as I take in the feminine scenery around me.
“So you’re in on this one?” Stef asks.
“Cecilia’s involved now. I’m in on this one.”
“Looking forward to working with you again, brother,” he muses. “I also look forward to hearing about your new girlfriend.”
“She’s not my girlfriend,” I snap.”
He laughs. “Whatever you say.”