Chapter Thirty-Three Larissa #2
“His thugs have guns pointed at the heads of all my captains!” Ciro shouts, tablet screen in hand, voice cracking in desperation. “Do something!”
Tyler’s blistering metal gaze sears me with disgust as I force my eyes away, the pain and judgment in his threatening to eviscerate me. Gathering myself, I steady my voice.
“I know, Papa,” I chime evenly, “and he did so by my order,” I drop casually, and my father’s eyes widen in shock before becoming murderous. A look that becomes meaningless in comparison to the metal sluicing its way across my chest. “Come on now, you really thought I was here to save you?”
Ciro pales as I shake my head ironically. “Newsflash, Papa, no one is coming for either of us,” I state, lifting my eyes to the man who has now solidified that truth. But as I gaze at him, I can’t help the words that spill from my lips.
“I only did it because you gave me no choice.” I shake my head, knowing my excuse rings as hollow as it did when I watched Peter’s blood start to pool around him.
Even so, I stalk toward him with the truth on my lips, but his chin jerks in denial, refusal, halting me with the cock of his gun. One he fully plans on using.
“Point your gun at me, Larissa,” the Marine orders, utterly void of the man I handed my heart freely to, long before last night.
“If you don’t kill her, I will. Worthless whore, just like her mother,” Ciro spews dismissively, more so suggestively.
Swallowing, I hold the gaze of the only man currently holding any power over me, beseeching him for a sliver of that hope.
“You were always incredible at twisting a situation, Ciro,” I grant, while holding wrath-filled penny eyes.
“By far the best manipulator I’ve ever known.
But I can attest that this man, this man can’t be manipulated or bent to anyone’s will.
Trust me, I tried my very best to convince him of my side of the story, but he still believes me as much a villain as you.
Though I’m sure the captains with barrels pointed to their temples will gladly testify that blindly following a madman’s orders was a mistake. ”
Tyler’s eyes continue to call my bluff, and I shake my head at the irony of his condemnation as he speaks it. “Train your fucking gun on your enemy,” he commands.
Obeying orders, I lift my gun to Ciro’s head. “I am, Marine. Jesus, he’s telling you with his anger right now”—I press the barrel into Ciro’s skull—“and still you don’t believe me!”
Tyler remains stoic, chiseled, and unflinching as I free Ciro momentarily and take a step toward Tyler, whispering my barely audible plea for him, knowing he can hear it. “Please don’t leave me—”
“I was never fucking with you,” he clips out just as softly as he stands …
in wait. Frowning at his lack of movement, I then realize what he’s waiting for and that he is giving me a designated part to play today.
This scenario freshly calculated. Not a packaged gift for me, but a test to see how far I’ll go.
Seizing his offering—for however long I have it—I will myself to see it through, turning back to step behind Ciro and view the screen.
Inside the lineup of tiny squares sit Ciro’s captains.
Some of their expressions are granite, while others are filled with terror.
Their individual reactions to their imminent deaths are a testament to their beliefs about themselves and inner power.
Others showcase the fear I’ve been trying to master for moments such as these.
Glancing back up to Tyler, I make my stance on his first test known, my proceeding compliment for him.
“Well done,” I commend the Marine, seething feet away, then address the men on-screen. “Gentlemen, I’m assuming you’re getting the memo that your services are no longer needed.” Winking at Tyler, I nod. “By all means, please—do it.”
“Do it—” Tyler orders as I do. Mixed explosions sound through the speaker of the screen as Ciro witnesses the dismantling of his army.
When he drops the screen from his bound hands, roaring in defeat, I instantly pluck it from the ground.
Turning it slowly in my hands, I absorb my father’s agony apathetically as I power the tablet down with my thumb.
“He killed them,” Ciro wails, “you stupid fucking whore! That was your family!”
“You and I have very different definitions of family, Papa. Always have,” I say, dropping my gaze to the monster who’s terrorized both my waking hours and my dreams. Whose embedded fear followed me from that house to Barga, and into these very woods as I faced off with the last of it.
As I scrutinize him for who he truly is now, that fear ashes to nothing.
The victory of seeing him so distraught diminishes in comparison to what I feel for the man standing opposite me, with hate for me ripe in his heart.
A man who, in many ways, delivered exactly as I hoped the man I sought out would.
Though that man would have spared me this final test.
“It’s ironic,” I say to Tyler, knowing he’ll never understand just how much, as I kneel in front of Ciro, who’s fighting his bound hands while idiotically thrashing himself toward me. “You’re the winner of a game I was never playing, Marine”—I glance up at Tyler—“and still the bigger fool.”
“How many of your father’s men are in love with you?” he clips, his question not new—one he asked before during our first conversation at his penthouse.
“How many of your father’s men are in love with you?”
“Ah, this to see if we have anyone we can use? Pointless. All would gladly put a bullet in my head if ordered.”
He was onto me, even then.
“You just lied to me for the first time since last night. Why?”
He hadn’t said which lie he detected, or when. But it’s his following words that give me pause.
“Where is your fiancé, Larissa?”
“Antony? I don’t know,” I state calmly, even as the threat of his question rattles me to my core. “How could I possibly know? I’ve been with you this whole time.”
My words die as I read in his expression he’s kept something vital from me, and I’m never going to know what it is now.
“But something tells me you don’t believe me about him, either.
I really have failed,” I sigh, tamping down my fear from whomever might still be listening.
Knowing that even though I’ve temporarily killed the feed, we aren’t alone.
“I warned you to watch him. I told you not to let him out of your sight.”
“Well, something tells me you might know more than you’re letting on.
Pretty convenient that Alonzo also isn’t here,” he states.
Putting a name to my cold blue shadow. Purposely tossing every damning omission he has in my face.
“Pop a bottle and keep it breathing,” he repeats my parting words to Daniello.
“Translation—have Alonzo get Ignacio out, now.”
I nod. “It was my only real deception. He was to get Ignacio safely out before you raided. That’s all he was supposed to do.”
“Let me guess, your first love?” Acid drips from his tone, but I don’t flatter myself that it’s jealousy.
“Yes, but it’s a little more complicated than that.
It ended before Italy.” Idiotically, I beseech him one last time.
“Read that truth in my face. In my eyes, Tyler. When I returned, it had been years, and I wasn’t sure I could trust him when I got back.
I also needed insurance for Ignacio. I didn’t know if I could trust you, either.
Peter was an accident, I didn’t know he was tailing me. None of this was supposed to happen—”
“Nah,” he drops casually as his lips twist smugly, “it played out exactly like it was meant to. Though I admit, the smoke was a bit dramatic.”
“Smoke,” I repeat, sinking where I stand as he confirms it all, damning us—me—even more. The smug confidence in his expression gasoline to the humiliation running through me.
“Right, the raid.” I nod as hellfire blazes through me.
Miraculously winning by not giving him the reaction he expects, I manage to wrinkle my nose and grin, even as he tears me apart.
“Yeah, the old bait and switch—put the damsel in distress,” I deliver just as casually, “so you can position yourself as her savior, yadda yadda, figured that one out days in … But make no mistake, I let you believe you were my savior, because I fucking wanted you to be.”
Because he had overdone it. The smoke was too thick.
And though I saw some shots clipping walls, I caught sight of not one gunman, and of zero bodies.
The only blood splatter on him. Convinced now that the bruises on his chin were given by another bird—after I blacked out—to make his ruse convincing.
Not only that, just before, he’d pulled me from my room, demanding my presence in the kitchen.
After I attacked him and we kissed, he ripped himself away.
Restraint—or surprise? Either way, he’d briefly forgotten himself before ordering me away from the front door.
Because he knew the door was about to blow.
All of it staged, and I let him have that win.
Playing ignorant to the deception as I played his game.
Though I was onto it, I’d foolishly hoped that wasn’t the truth of it, even as I swallow the bitter pill.
His expression doesn’t change as I shrug.
“Sorry, Marine, but you have to do better than that.”
“But I did do better, little mobster,” he fires back, expression sinister as he reaches into the pocket of his jeans, retrieving something small before tossing it at my booted foot. Eyeing him, I slowly bend and pluck it from the snow-littered ground before opening my palm.
A chill breeze kicks up as I recognize it’s a half-inch, sample-size bottle of Chanel perfume.