Chapter Thirty-Eight Tyler
Chapter Thirty-Eight
TYLER
PRESSING ON THE brakes as the other two catering trucks preceding me are searched, I hit ‘call’ on my cell, thankful when he answers on the second ring.
“Hey, Dad.”
“Hey, son,” I greet, evening out my breathing as Zach chuckles over the line.
“Oh, lord, I know this tone.”
“Yeah?” I ask. “What tone is it?”
“It’s the fatherly tone. Tell me, Father,” he drawls, “what words of wisdom do you plan on imparting today?”
“None. You’re everything I could ever want in a son, you know that? You’ve schooled me so much in the last few years, it’s embarrassing. Made me a bet—” I pause to stifle my emotion, enough to make it seem like breath-work. “—better man.”
Ache slides down my jaw as the truck in front of me gets greeted by a guard holding a clipboard, while another pushes a broomstick mirror beneath the truck’s bed. As I pull farther up to the top of the hillside, I scour the breathtaking view stretching before me, deciding it’s the perfect place.
“Dad? You there? What’s wrong?”
Fuck.
I go for the safe option. “I’m just sentimental today. Miss you. Hold up a second.”
“Okay.”
Pulling the brim of my service hat down as the guard knocks on my window, I mute the phone and hit the button, answering his fast inquiry in Italian. The second I’m waved in, I take the phone off mute.
“I’m back,” I say, utilizing the precious seconds I have left as Zach speaks up.
“If you’re missing me, I can come see you,” he states, his concern ramping. He’s too fucking smart.
“Not home right now, but hoping I will be soon. Can you come then?” I ask, a little above a whisper, enough to be convincing as my composure slips farther from reach.
“Dad, what’s wrong?”
“Told you,” I answer instantly. “I’m sentimental today.”
“Why—Oh shit,” he sighs, “her anniversary was last week. Fuck, Dad, I didn’t call, I’m sorry,” he releases mournfully, and I latch onto the excuse, hating myself for taking the out.
“No, no, it’s fine. I’ve been keeping busy.”
“I’m sorry, it’s just, to be honest, the day got away from me.”
“It’s okay, Zach, it’s not exactly a day I want you to commemorate every year. It’s painful.”
“She was the only mother I’ll claim, so we get to share that. And she’s worth commemorating, right?”
My eyes fill as he speaks up when I can’t.
“Hey, when you get back, why don’t we say ‘fuck it,’ and I mean everything, meet at the farm and cast our poles. It’s been too long.”
Slapping at my cheeks, I nod half a dozen times before I speak up. “That sounds fucking perfect. I’m picturing it now—can’t wait.”
“You picturing yourself buying the beer, and me getting the bait?” he jokes.
“Cheap-ass. Did I teach you that?”
“I prefer to think of it as manipulative money management,” he chuckles as I choke on the knot in my throat before managing to speak through it.
“You’re brilliant, you know that? But no need to manipulate, I’ll buy all the beer you want.”
A voice sounds somewhere nearby just before he speaks up, and my heart seizes. “Shit, Dad, I have to go, but I can—”
“No, no, go, go—I have to go too. I love you, son,” I state as evenly as I can.
“Love you too, I’ll see you at hom—”
Clipping the phone closed in an effort to shield him, I shatter in my seat, allowing the bloodletting for a few cursory seconds before clearing my eyes and lifting my head. She deserves this effort, at a minimum, and I can’t live another fucking second without giving it to her.
Hand on the steering wheel, and armed to the teeth, I drop the Mack truck into drive and dust half the rubber, securing enough speed and catching a few rogue snaps at my tail.
My only fear now is that I won’t make it.
The surprise in the pattern of sporadic gunfire making it apparent Tobias didn’t make the phone call.
Or if he did, it didn’t do shit to dissuade Tula from her stance.
Loyalty and fear have me second-guessing my decision to see this through, because, for the first time ever, I’m endangering my birds with possible retaliation.
Adding in the real possibility that if I’m taken down, my birds will dissolve all traces of her existence.
My only hope is that when Tula realizes I acted alone, she won’t carry out her threat.
Pushing all rogue thoughts away, I speed past the sprawling, U-shaped villa to my left and straight into the surrounding olive grove, landing so hard it jars me before I begin bouncing on the unpaved road.
Slowing my speed, I narrowly begin creeping through the breadth of endless olive trees, dodging fire I’m not returning.
My slim opening today had come by way of one of Tula’s grandchildren’s christenings and the pedestrian traffic I knew it would bring.
Which means maximum security but less risk of heavy fire.
But the farther I get from the villa and civilians, the more the bullets start to fly as I frantically scan the grounds in search of her.
Panic rising, time already ticking out, it’s when I catch the faint sight of a profile, along the swish of a skirt, that I stand on the brakes and opt for boots in the dirt.
Dodging a bullet, which lodges in my driver door as I open it, I shoot up a quick prayer it’s not a sniper as I exit the truck.
An instant later, I’m identified and hear Tula’s distant order to ceasefire, which lets me know I’ve bought a little time.
That my instincts were right that I’d find Larissa here, barricaded behind the protection of the mafia and the only place she considers home.
Getting within an inch of her was an impossibility unless I was actively seeking death.
Knowing I have minutes left to live, if that, I quickly start to run the length of every row. Eyes sharp and focused, and technically on enemy land, I eagerly search for her and the exchange I came for before I’m taken down.
As a minute passes, moving toward another rank of trees, I feel the threat of them closing in, and my heart begins to sink in the knowledge that I may not get the chance before I’m erased from her completely.
It’s when I catch movement in my periphery that I make my leap, stopping a few rows over to spot her standing just on the other side of a large tree, peering back at me through the branches.
The only obstacle now standing between us as I eagerly soak in what I can.
“Please, let me see you,” I utter as traces of the connection I foolishly ignored one too many times vibrate between us, along with her anger from where she stands feet away.
“You’re a fool, Marine,” she hisses in response as my chest tightens unbearably. “A fool about to die.”
“Worth it just to see your face again, little mobster—or will you deny me that?” I ask, hearing the desperation in my voice as images of her flit through my mind—the sight of her smile, both the smug version that called to me and the other, which lit up the world on the other side of my grave.
The look in her eyes when I fucked her gently in that firelight.
The last image, one I would give fucking anything to erase, of that Chanel bottle rolling in her palm, and her devastation at the sight of it.
Without reply, she resumes her walk through the trees that separate us.
Her pace leisurely, I soak in what I can between the damning partition—the silky black locks cascading over the straps of a worn pink sundress.
Which I instantly recognize as her favorite.
As shouts echo in the distance, I draw closer while making peace that it’s enough.
It has to be. Unable to see the men closing in, intent on taking in what I can of her, I rush through my useless words.
“I’m already out of time, and have no right to ask, but I’m asking—please let me see you,” I release shakily as my voice bottoms out.
Every bit of the pain I’ve successfully managed to stave off in the last six days crashing into me.
In those resignation-filled seconds, the whole path of my life begins to play out as I visit some of my favorite memories.
A walk as an ambitious boy, hand in hand with my dad, along the apple trees.
The smile Dom flashed over his shoulder on his bike the day we met.
Sean going sideways in his Nova just after he painted it.
Mom setting down her ‘special plates’ for Christmas dinner, and the accompanying sparkle in her eyes.
Zach, glancing over at me, face colored in camo, eyes alight with surprise after he shot his first buck.
His approach in uniform after graduation.
And even deeper, silver eyes scorching my soul the very first time we saw one another.
The sight of Delphine clutching the watering can on our porch.
The heaven we created there. Where she still exists, every memory intact.
Witnessing Tobias and Cecelia’s first kiss surfaces last, which jars me, yet enlivens me.
A memory I know I drew upon solely for the purpose of sparking some hope.
Their start just as volatile as ours. Though not quite as damned because Tobias wasn’t half the bastard I’ve become.
I live each moment out as it arises, not forcing one.
All of them created by me, exact and purposeful to be drawn at my disposal.
The last shuttering in of the beauty of the snowfall the day she left me.
That one surprises me, but it shouldn’t.
It’s all a part of it. The most painful moments making the recollections all so bittersweet.
But that’s all life is, a collection of moments, some awkward, many uncomfortable, some healing, some tethering, some altering in a way you’re never the same.
But it’s the knowledge that my favorite moment with Larissa hasn’t even happened—or had a chance to—because I lost all faith.
Purposefully stopping any more collection of moments altogether because of it.