Chapter Sixteen Larissa #2
“Fuck you!” The guttural roar rips from my throat, my outrage that he threw the humiliation in my face clear.
I manage to step in front of the rigid barrier between us as Roc turns his back and stalks upstairs.
It’s the gentle palm that lands on my lower back that has me stopping and flinching at the reassuring contact.
Glancing back, I see an entirely different look in the glacial eyes I’ve met at least a hundred times or more.
Never for longer than a few seconds. Eyes that hold mine now while wordlessly begging me not to escalate this situation any further.
If I do, chances are, he’s the one who won’t survive it.
A physical altercation with any child of a boss could not only have him removed from his station but, if Ciro saw fit, have him executed without a chance to plead his case.
It’s that cutthroat in this fucking family.
But it’s not fear for himself that I see reflected back at me now.
The ask in his eyes having nothing to do with himself, but with his ability to continue to watch over me.
In seeing his concern—for the first time in years—I allow my own eyes to water in front of another person.
“If I don’t tell Ciro,” I whisper coolly, “I get beat twice as hard, but depending on his mood, he’ll beat me even harder for snitching. I pay no matter what, so maybe remember that next time you give one of your little reports.”
Just as I go to take another step up, I’m halted by the typically wordless boy.
“Don’t” is all he says, his whisper low but pleading.
His concern for me is apparent, which has my unwanted tears blinding me.
Seeming stunned by them, he watches the weakness glide down my cheeks.
Roc’s door slams as I continue to stare into the boy’s eyes, confused by what I see.
Too angry to believe the sincerity in the actions of any man under this roof, I lash out instead.
“Yes, because if I do, your ambitions will be shot, right? Or you will.”
Though I can tell he wants to say more—to argue—he doesn’t.
Breaking the connection, I stalk back up toward my room and meet Ignacio at my door, thankful that his headphones are still on.
Turning him, I usher him into the room and don’t look back, forever feeling the watchful gaze on me as I retreat.
But this time, this time, it feels different.
“I told you to stay in bed,” I say after lifting his headphones to scold him.
“I sorwy,” Ignacio whispers as he hastily jumps back into my bed.
“You’ve got to listen, Ignacio,” I utter, regathering him in my arms. It’s the sound of Ciro’s whip slicing through my ears that has panic speaking for the little boy trembling in my hold. To try and get through to him. “Iggy, you can’t disobey. You can’t. You have to listen. Please.”
“Okay, I sorwy!” Ignacio agrees easily. Too easily.
Just as he resumes watching his cartoon, music starts to blast through the wall of our adjoining rooms. As I listen to the rage-littered lyrics, I only become more certain Mom’s first suicide attempt started the unraveling of the suffocating string now filling up every room, every wall, every square inch of this house.
The first glimmer of light I’ve seen since revealed in the most unexpected of places—a typically turbulent, glassy sea of the lightest blue.
Inside a boy who should hate us, all of us, but that’s not at all what I saw.
Just after the music stops and the house goes quiet, my curiosity gets the best of me. After tucking Ignacio in, I exit my room to seek the boy out. I find him exactly where I expected him to be, and instead of breezing past him like I typically do, I stop directly in front of him.
Confusion mars his face as our eyes connect, the way they did the first time all those years ago.
When he was just a boy, delivered to our doorstep in tattered clothes.
Beaten half to death after unsuccessfully defending his brother, he was ripped from his family as payment for a debt.
Something I learned years later from Roc.
Initially, I thought him mute with his refusal to speak a word to me or anyone when he arrived, but I quickly realized that wasn’t the case.
His first week in the house still haunts me to this day.
Which I’m positive is the reason he hasn’t fully met my eyes in the years since, until tonight.
Before that night, his eyes were distant and cold.
After, they were those of a caged animal.
Which is precisely what he became. It’s those same eyes—which stare back at me now—that convey so much.
As I look him over, I realize he’s grown more into himself, his worn suit now ill-fitting.
Feeling as though I’m seeing him for the first time, I can’t help my wandering eyes as I take him in.
Not only has he grown in size, but … he’s more beautiful than any boy has a right to be.
Far more than any boy at my school or any other I’ve met.
“What are you doing?” he asks, his tone barely above a whisper as I curiously stare back at him, remembering his comforting, protective touch on the stairs—along with his desperate plea.
Wondering if I imagined it. Because in those few seconds, I felt something that I haven’t in years—cared for, safe, and truly protected.
“I’m looking at you,” I answer simply.
“Why?”
“Returning the favor,” I snark, which earns me no smile. “Don’t you ever get tired just standing here?”
When he finally dips his chin in response, it becomes the longest conversation we’ve ever had.
“Are you hungry?”
When I grab his hand and tug, he hesitates at the contact, searching my face for sincerity before gazing down at the fingers I have loosely threaded between his.
It’s when I look down that I see the jagged cut on his hand.
Shame fills his expression as I gently rub my thumb along it, and he lifts searching eyes to mine.
“You don’t hate me?” I ask, barely above a whisper.
Silence lingers between us, his eyes seeming to ask the same question before he speaks a low “no.”
“You are nothing like him,” I decide as a flicker of something crosses his features—relief?
It’s the indecision that remains in his eyes, his posture as he weighs my invitation.
Though it seems simple enough, this choice is anything but simple.
Obey my father—who holds his life in his palm—or me.
I decide to make it easy for him and release my hold just as he grips my fingers tightly before lacing them together with his.
With his hand firmly clutching mine, I stalk toward the kitchen, fighting my smile the whole way.
“Larissa,” Tyler barks, jarring me out of the space between the trees I’d been staring into.
His unforgiving iron eyes commanding as he peers down at me, where I sit in his camping chair.
Glancing down at the laptop, I weigh my decision on whether to trust him with what I have left to give.
I could buy more time, another day, maybe two.
But it’s my inclination to trust him like I did the blue-eyed boy so many years ago that has me dangling in indecision.
Though that trust is weathered and remains more fragile than ever.
In remembering that, I decide to take the same route I did all those years ago while keeping something for myself.
“This is everything on his captains and the rest of his personal detail,” I tell Tyler as I hand him the laptop. He takes it, giving me a slow, sharp nod.
“What now?” I ask.
“Now we do our part.” He looks over the list for several intense seconds, and I swear I see a hint of disappointment flit in his eyes before he slams the top closed and holds it out to me.
“What?” I ask, taking it from him before he has the chance to dump it into my lap. His answering glare tells me all I need to know.
“This is all you’re getting,” I state adamantly, “until you give me something.”
“Thorough is thorough.” He tilts his head, calculating and assessing.
“Just come right out and say it,” I demand.
“I don’t need to. Which is why you haven’t gotten—and won’t get—anything more from me.”
“You have your own secrets, details that you hold close to protect those you care about.”
When his eyes flare slightly in satisfaction, I know I’ve said too much.
Goddamn it, Larissa.
I search myself deep for a way out of the corner I’m slowly backing myself into as he pounces. Gripping the sides of my chair, he leans down so we’re practically nose to nose. I stare right back at him, not giving an inch.
“Ignacio lives,” I start to barter.
“No,” he clips in fast reply.
“My brother lives. Lock him up and throw away the key if you must, but do it in a mental care facility. He’s been through hell and needs help. He is only sixteen and deserves a chance for rehabilitation! My brother lives, Tyler. You all owe me that much.”
“No,” he replies again, utterly unaffected by my plea.
“Then no deal.” I lower my hand to the laptop, and he snatches it and tosses it behind him.
“Too late.”
I gawk at his idiocy as he keeps me bolted to his chair and under his unrelenting stare.
“Then I’ll take it up with Tobias,” I counter. “He knows what it’s like to lose a brother.” Tyler’s eyes harden to metallic, a warning that I ignore. “I’ll meet with him, and then I’ll leave.”
“Where will you go?” he scoffs. “No one wants you.”
“Fuck you.”
He lifts a perfect dark brow. “Hit a nerve, huh?”
“I’ll save you the trouble. You hit all of mine. I want out of here. By tomorrow, or I’m leaving.”
“You said yourself you don’t have a home with Tula or anywhere until you’re done with this,” he spits through thick lips.
“I can make an attempt. I can try.”
“Three weeks at most,” he sentences me. “At most.”
“You underestimate me,” I tell him. “And if you do your fucking job, I’ll have a lot longer.”
“You will wait until I say it’s over.”
“Or what?”