Chapter Thirteen Larissa
Chapter Thirteen
LARISSA
Humiliation from his latest berating stinging my face, I stalk out of Ciro’s office, stopping short when I see my father’s watchdog eyeing me. Standing faithfully at his post in one of the two gray suits he owns, he tracks my every move while keeping his expression granite.
“Does it make your cock hard when he speaks to me as less than human while you act as one of his fucking canines? Will you bark if he orders it, too?”
Chilled blue eyes peer back at me as I pass, shaking my head in disgust. I’m at the foot of the staircase when a low mock bark sounds at my back.
Whipping my head back in his direction, I gape at him, then grimace at the burn the movement caused.
In the years since Ciro summoned him from our stables and brought him into the house due to my father’s increasing paranoia, he’s rarely spoken a word to me.
He looks a far cry from the beaten and broken boy delivered to our doorstep in tattered clothes.
In his eyes now resides a confidence I’ve seen in few who serve my father.
That and an innate pride that can’t be taught.
Along with a twinkle of mischief that utterly surprises me as he fights a smile.
Unable to help it, I burst out laughing.
I slowly ascend the staircase, his eyes following as they always do, as his lips curl up just a fraction—enough for me to see. A smile I never thought him capable of.
It’s in remembering that tattered boy and the night we met that guilt for my lash-out settles beneath my skin as I climb.
He’s been more a victim of Ciro’s cruelty than anyone else who’s entered this house.
The jagged scar on his hand reminder enough of my father’s crimes against him.
Not much older than me, he’s already dealt with more horrors than anyone else I know.
Pausing at my bedroom door, I walk over to the mezzanine, uttering a low apology to him just as Ciro snaps his name in summons.
Just as I reach the railing, unsure if he heard me, he disappears from sight.
Shame covers me as I retreat, my steps becoming heavier as I go, remembering the first time I stared into those chilled blue eyes.
That night, they were anything but cold.
Their temperature changing just after his creation.
From the second the cut was made and blood was spilled, he became my cold blue shadow.
Always watching, even when he doesn’t have to.
Opening my eyes to clear the surfacing memory, I glance over, knowing the sleeping bag next to me is empty.
This morning, just as dawn broke, I heard Tyler’s breathing escalate to the point it seemed like he was hyperventilating.
When I opened my mouth and shifted in my sleeping bag to do something—either speak or wake him—he shot up and out of the tent and didn’t return.
It’s clear to me that I’m not the only one who suffers in their sleep, but the man is so prideful that I doubt he would ever share a hint of weakness.
Even last night, as I thought he was giving me something, it turned out to be just another warning.
It was the message within his admission that rang clear.
I’ll remain suspect for as long as this goes on, but what more could he want?
Handing over the DiCicco family isn’t enough?
Is it not enough that I’m entirely at his mercy?
The truth about that is, I can’t just disappear, no matter how good Ravens are at being covert.
I have to make him understand that, and soon.
Preferably, in a way, I don’t compromise myself in his eyes any further.
Walking outside the tent, I catch his gaze briefly before he pokes at something cooking in a cast-iron pot. A pot being licked by flames where it hangs in a new, impressively constructed fire pit.
“Please tell me that’s real meat.” I run my hands over my arms to ward off the morning chill.
The slight lift of his lips is hard-won, and I can’t help but admire the dimple that accompanies it. “Real enough.”
“We’re eating rations, right?”
“Sorry, with the bullets whizzing over our heads, I didn’t have time to grab the olive oil,” he snarks.
Dressed in light camo pants and a thick cream hoodie, he again looks freshly bathed, though still unshaven.
The start of a beard is already apparent—and distracting.
So much so that I briefly forget myself as I watch him before picking up our conversation.
“A large number of American foods are loaded with tasty, addictive preservatives, so why should the armed forces be denied the same?”
“So that we live longer, obviously,” he counters, pocketing his knife.
“This food is a tragedy,” I utter, dreading the first bite. “You should speak to your boss about it.”
“Maybe I will, between his daily fights to stave off the bloodhounds demanding he bend to their will,” he mutters derisively before serving me up a plate. Immediately, I begin to scarf it down and glance up to find him watching me.
“I’m a fast learner,” I say. “You eat in a minute and a half, tops, and if I don’t keep up, and you’re in an extra bitchy mood, you rip my plate away. Once a sold—er, uh, Marine, always a Marine, right?”
He bites his lip, eyes drifting to nothing at his feet. His curled lashes are so long I briefly get distracted by them.
“It’s okay to smile, Tyler, I promise I won’t think you less of an asshole because of it.” I flash him all my teeth as I toss my newly emptied plate in the fire. “Keeping in the spirit of civility this morning, can I please somehow bathe?”
He surprises me by nodding, walking over to a bucket, and tossing a soap bar and a rolled towel into it while addressing my enthusiasm. “I’m warning you now that the river is a quarter mile away over rough fucking terrain—which we aren’t navigating around—and the water is freezing.”
“Perfect.” I snap to my feet from the camping chair and instantly regret it due to the lingering pain that burns at my side. “Let’s go.”
He nods and snuffs out the fire before locking up everything edible in airtight containers.
Bucket in hand, he doubles back and pulls a bomber jacket from one of the tubs before holding it out to me.
Without a word, I pull it on and instantaneously start to warm while simultaneously being tortured by his mouthwatering scent.
Instead of entertaining what the delicious mix consists of, I say a quick thank-you.
A thank-you he doesn’t bother to acknowledge as he starts our trek.
A trek that’s not at all a trail of any sort, as he fights his way through some thick brush instead of walking us around it.
Navigating behind him as best I can, I batter my own pride by taking his offered help when I don’t have a choice.
After far too many silent minutes, I chew on his words from last night before speaking up.
“My father strangled a man in front of me when I was five. It’s my first vivid memory.
” This earns me a short, sidelong glance.
“I was in the front seat when Ciro parked, met the man at the hood, and went red, screaming at him before he started choking him. The guy he was murdering in broad daylight caught my eyes through the windshield as I watched all life leave him. I’ll go to my own grave believing I saw pity in his eyes—for me—before they went distant.
Or maybe that’s how I want to remember it.
Makes the story more pathetic, right? You’re only the second person I’ve ever dared to confess this to.
” I trail him as he increases speed, my breaths coming faster.
“As you know, in my family, we, too, can keep secrets. Most of them to our graves.”
He glances back at me as I rake my teeth over my bottom lip, choosing my words carefully.
“Unlike you, I was too young to have started to form an idea of who I wanted to become before my innocence was stolen,” I admit uneasily.
“Though I’m certain, in some ways, I hoped to be like my mother.
Beautiful, joyful, full of life, and blissfully romantic.
Before her first suicide attempt, she was the light in our house of horrors, but Ciro made sure that no light could be sparked anywhere in that fucking house by the time I was seven years old. ”
On his heels, I hold my tongue from confessing anything further of Ciro’s evils while freeing others for the first time.
“Our home—that atmosphere—it was, in a word, violent. While some bosses and made men go through life shielding their wives and children, rarely revealing all of their true nature, Ciro never did. The torture began early. Many of those in constant rotation in and out of our house were subhuman. The wars were merciless and unending. Ironically resulting in us being sent here and there temporarily for protection, where we were surrounded by similar men. Men who treated their wives like garbage and their children as nuisances. My parents’ passionate fights almost always ended in him abusing her.
Over the years, I started to begrudge the women who put up with it.
I couldn’t understand them marrying into the life, bringing babies into it, but mostly for not taking up for themselves.
Until, sadly, I saw my own mother defeated by it. ”
I palm my ribs, matching his long strides as he easily eats up the broken terrain.
“The minute my mother lost the battle in her mind, Ciro’s true reign of terror began.
So my memories are made up of the stories I told you and worse.
Any good memories I have are too few and overshadowed by others, which rank far from good.
What I’m saying is, I have no point of reference for who I was before the darkness of my environment started to shape me.
I’m a product of DiCicco nature and nurture. ”
He doesn’t look back as I continually struggle to follow his lead, breaths becoming more labored.