Chapter Thirty-Nine Denny
Chapter Thirty-Nine
DENNY
STANDING INSIDE A pitched tent in the courtyard of the massive villa, I palm the top of an iron chair at a two-seater table, which sits among a sea of others.
Decorations hanging limply above us, abandoned due to our interruption.
The event staff fled just after the first shots rang out.
My guess is, not a peep of this incident will make it past the property line because those who fled won’t utter a word for fear of losing their tongues.
As I scan what remains of what was supposed to be an after-party, I look over to Tula, who stands nearby, looking ready to order mass executions. Tobias’s own murderous gaze fixed on me as Tula speaks.
“Whatever issues you have with each other, deal with it in your own fucking home,” she snaps. “You’ve already interrupted my day enough with your idiocy.”
“Tula,” Tobias starts, “I sincerely apologize. We’re only here to try and—”
“Tobias”—she turns, glaring openly—“while we are similar in some respects, it’s obvious we are not in others. So I’ll try not to take the flare of your fucking nostrils during an apology as an insult … or should I?”
“It’s my irritation with the situation,” he counters. “My apology is sincere.”
The lethal look he’s giving me lets me know I’m the situation he’s most irritated with.
Truth be known, had I been let in on this secret and utter shit show, I would have stopped it from spiraling to this point long before now.
My reason for coming clean to Sean about this not long ago was due to lingering fear of this exact fucking situation.
But in Tobias’s condemning eyes, I see their collective protection and locked jaws have cost more than I can live with, especially with so much of my expense now paid by Tyler.
Sadly, after all that’s transpired, it’s my future Tobias is worried about at present.
The telling look he’s gifting me, letting me know today ends with an imminent swing at me.
That’s if we make it out of this in one piece. To that concern, Tobias speaks.
“Tula, please know we didn’t harm one of your men, and I’ll happily pay for any damages—”
“Yes, you fucking will,” she counters, glancing around, “and the replacement party,” she adds before her features smooth slightly with her inquiry. “Were any of your men hurt?”
“One of ours caught a bullet in the thigh,” Tobias relays, and I know it’s because Russell just fed him that intel over our collective wire. “It wasn’t fatal.”
“Then we will remain at a ceasefire unless Larissa decides otherwise.”
“Tula, she’s emotional,” Tobias spews, and I flinch as both women whip their heads in his direction. “I simply meant—” he backtracks as Tula steps toward him, hell in her eyes.
“You are making no case against my loss of faith in your intelligence, King.”
Tobias has the good sense to relent, palms up, as I size up my own opponent, a woman burning holes through me.
A woman who, aside from my wife, I can begrudgingly admit is one of the most beautiful I’ve ever laid eyes on.
Even if, in her light brown glare, I can see my impending death.
Thankfully, it’s mixed with curiosity, which might delay it.
“This is their conversation,” Tula informs Tobias.
“I’m not leaving him with her,” Tobias refutes instantly.
“Then you’ll be buried alongside him if he dies today,” Tula drops casually.
“He’s got a daughter,” Tobias pleads for Lily, who adores him.
“And you’ll orphan all future children you could make with your disrespectful girlfriend if you continue to press me,” she snaps back. “He’s here to confess his crime against her—let him.”
“Denny,” Tobias snaps as I stare off with Larissa, who I’m positive is starting to come down from shock.
Feeling more helpless than I ever fucking have in my life, I caught damned near every bit of her exchange with Tyler.
Within it, I saw my brother shed every trace of the soldier who’s bred and led me since the day we met, before crumbling before her a man in love, whether he’s aware of it or not.
Facts are, he risked his death to face her today and owned his crimes against her, which spoke volumes, especially with the vengeance and indecision in her posture.
“I’m fine, man. Go, before you piss her off any more than we already have.”
“Tula—” Tobias objects as I shoot him my death glare.
“You and I have much to discuss, so leave them, you jackass, or I’ll shoot you myself,” she warns.
Truth is, these two women currently have all of us by the balls.
With all our manpower—including the ability to wipe out the orchard—we decided that if we truly want to save Tyler, and any chance he might have, we couldn’t do it with brute force.
This being a birds-only mission, we crept in behind our newly mercurial brother, allowing him to take the lead.
Only intervening when it turned critical.
Knowing all our fates currently rest on me, I man up and wave Tobias off. “Go, brother,” I state, never taking my eyes from Larissa, who regards me more curiously.
“I take her gun with me,” Tobias demands.
“Her decision.” Tula nods toward Larissa.
An instant later, Larissa tosses her gun near Tobias’s feet before turning back to me. “I could have killed him already, and I can kill him any time after today if I change my mind.”
Face rippling with fury, Tobias glances at Tula, who gives him a nod.
It’s a miracle no one just died, and I pray for another as he reluctantly trails her into the villa.
Left opposite Larissa at the iron table, I gaze back at her in wait.
I always knew killing Craig would catch up with me.
I just never knew when. Now that the question is answered, the weight of this secret lifts, though I’m unsure of the consequences.
Especially when she cuts straight to it with her first prompt. “Why?”
“He was hurting the woman who is now my wife, the mother of my daughter,” I reply quickly, “and had been abusing her on and off for years before his addiction got the best of him.”
Disappointment litters her features as she takes a seat and begins tracing the iron pattern of the table with her finger. Taking her cue, I continue.
“Layla—that’s my wife—well, to keep it brief but honest, I loved her the minute I laid eyes on her.
I kept my distance out of respect for her and your brother.
When I became a recruit, I was warned they’d been together on and off for years.
I knew she genuinely loved him. Even so, I couldn’t help but memorize everything about her.
So when I first noticed the bruises, I lost my fucking mind.
I had to be talked off the ledge a few times to keep from acting.
Even then, I hoped he would turn his shit around.
If only for her. She wanted to be with him, Larissa.
And I think he genuinely loved her in the only way he knew how.
Enough to try and change, but he couldn’t.
And when he hurt her in a way I couldn’t live with, I ended him for it. ”
“How?”
“I found her damn near unconscious next to one of her shampoo bowls at her beauty shop. When I confronted him about it, he got flippant, and I shot him point-blank.”
Her eyes flare at my easy admission, but I don’t back down.
“I didn’t kill him as competition, Larissa. He was seriously hurting her. She was bleeding and fucking broken when I found her, and I couldn’t live with that.”
She swallows, eyes cast down as long, loaded minutes pass.
“My brother was lost to us before he left home,” she finally utters. “When I saw Tyler, after following him to Triple Falls a few times and starting to realize who you all really were, I knew that Roc—Craig took your ink in an effort to escape Ciro’s shadow.”
“I’m guessing Roc is Craig in Italian?”
She nods. “That’s the symbolism and what my mother declared him when he was young—the strength that bound us.
Which was true for a while.” She shakes her head.
“Before he became a victim of Ciro. Before he left home, he’d hurt a girl the same way you described, maybe worse …
but honestly, I denied it to myself. Though, a few times when we fought, he rushed me.
Even then, I never wanted to believe the brother who protected me from my father would truly hurt me, but deep down—I knew.
If I’m honest, he scared me. I watched his descent, felt it, before he left home and disappeared,” she relays on exhale.
“It was only after I got here, to Barga, that I realized his fate. I saw it in other men here with the same disposition, in their inevitable implosions and deaths. In watching them, I just knew … Roc had lost his battle and accepted it.”
“So … you don’t blame me?”
“Are you fucking lying to me?” she fires.
“No,” I exhale. “No. I’m not.”
“Then I believe you because it’s exactly what I suspected. Though he was selfish for leaving me and Iggy, I think he knew he couldn’t save us without saving himself first. I’m assuming what change I saw in him before he left was because of you all, and Layla.”
I stiffen at her name, hating the mention, and Larissa instantly reads my contempt.
“Wow, you don’t even want me saying her name.”
“I’m overprotective, and it’s a flaw I’m only apologetic about to my wife and daughter. But no, if I’m honest, no, I fucking don’t.”
Her lips lift slightly before she mutes her expression. “So, am I to assume you want to go back to your wife and daughter without consequence?”
“I came here expecting to die,” I admit point-blank, chest burning at my last ingrained vision of Lily and Layla, hand in hand, feet bare in our back yard, the sun setting behind them as they waved me off.
“If you hadn’t come, I would have never known. So why confess?”
“You know why, and I will answer, but before I do, I need to know … Did you pull that trigger?”