Chapter Forty-Three Larissa #2
“Truth.” His confidence wavers, his Adam’s apple bobbing as he continues to pin me, eyes softening as he shifts.
“If I regret all of it, then I regret how good it felt to be with someone so intimately again. I feel it now, buzzing on my fingertips and everywhere on your skin. I’d trade any good memory of my life to get that feeling back.
So, while I’ve damned myself, I can’t regret it.
You made those babies with the man standing in front of you, even if you don’t know entirely who he is.
Tell you a secret?” He scans me, scorching everything in his wake.
“He doesn’t exactly know who he is anymore.
But he wants so badly to be a father, and a man worthy of a conversation with you.
” His scent filters through my nose as my body grows taut, coiling with a lethal mix of desire and fury.
It’s then I feel his restraint start to snap as our chests meet with our fast inhales. “More than that, he wants more.”
Within a stunted breath, I’m pressed against the stucco by the weight of his body as his lush lips move, his lashes fluttering with his inhale.
“I’m just as weak. I want you so fucking much,” he murmurs, cupping my face and searching my eyes earnestly.
“God damn me for what I’ve done, and I feel damned, am damned.
I know there are no magic words that will ever fix this, only time, and I’ll only ask for that tonight.
But if you want my touch, if you want to punish me, consider this a start.
I’m so fucking hard for you right now, every part of me is on fire with the memory of what we feel like.
I can still so clearly picture the look in your eyes in that firelight.
That doesn’t just go away,” he releases, sweeping his thumbs up and down my hips the way he did when we were in that shower.
It’s the memory of his deceitful touch, the same look in his eyes, that has my fury boiling over.
“Get the fuck away from me, Marine. Right now.”
He instantly releases me and stumbles back a step as if I struck him before palming his knees, his chest heaving as his eyes widen slightly. Shaking his head disbelievingly, he stares over at me before shame riddles his eyes.
“Jesus Christ, I’m sorry. I should have never fucking made this physical, but with you, it’s always been fucking impossible.
Fuck, I know I don’t have any right to you, it’s just”—he palms his jaw—“just knowing you were going to him. The idea of him touching you—” He rakes his lip with his teeth and shakes his head furiously.
“I’m sorry, please, tell me how to fix this.
” He searches me desperately as I turn, taking long strides back toward my villa.
Fury lights every step at his victory. Shame cloaking me for what I was about to do to escape the memory of the man on my heels.
My heart growing heavier with the betrayal I know Alonzo would have felt had I shown up at his door with another man on my mind and who had heated my skin.
Hate for the man shadowing me begins to fester as every bit of rage I’ve kept at bay starts to unravel, collecting more strength as he pleads at my back.
“Goddamn it, Larissa. We can’t leave it like this. Don’t walk away!”
Rage clouds my vision as I slam open my villa door, clicking on the light before whipping my focus back to him just as he reaches the doorway.
“Do you know why I named our children the way I did?” I hiss.
He stops instantly, going ramrod straight as if bracing himself, as my knuckles whiten around my clutched keys.
“Do you know what Alexander and Macey truly mean to me? Deceit.”
His eyes instantly start to search for a miscalculation, the way they did in those woods, as rage overshadows reason.
“Because your personal hero, clever as he was, lived his life believing he was right and just. To so many, he was a fucking hero, revered and respected. But those who truly knew him knew that even the most sacred of bonds weren’t sacred to him.
That, like all ambitious manipulative fucks, he married for station.
So, no, Marine. I didn’t name them to honor you or because of some lingering fucking affection.
I named them the way I did to remind myself that their father announced he would use me for his pleasure.
Their father told me he would fuck me, but that I never would, or could, mean anything to him before he proved it.
So you can run your lying, manipulative, deceitful fucking tongue and continue to tell me I won some fictional battle you declared on me after the fact.
But in truth, I didn’t win anything against the man I battled, because I came for his heart, and he used me so he could feel like a man again.
” I take a menacing step forward, lifting my chin.
“Tell me, hero, do you feel like a fucking man?”
Every well-placed dagger I just threw lands as he stumbles back, gaping at me.
“You’re the same cunning, manipulative, selfish bastard I left in the woods, which is why allowing you here was a fucking mistake!” I shout before slamming the door in his face just as he explodes behind it.
“NO! Larissa! That’s not who I am!”
“That’s exactly who you fucking are! Go home, Marine!” I slam my palms against the door.
“No! LARISSA! NO!” he booms.
“Leave me the fuck alone!” I screech. “I don’t want to know you!”
“You know the man you came for!” he roars as he slaps the door from the other side. “You knew the lengths I would go to protect them! You knew I could never turn my back on them! Please don’t hate me for it! I-I didn’t fucking know!”
“Yes, you did!” I slap my palms against the wood again and again, my own wrath pouring from me. “Yes, you fucking did!”
When a thundering crack sounds between us, I jump back. Another crack, this one twice as hard as his voice cracks behind it.
“I’m s-sorry! Jesus Christ, I’m so sorry! I’ll be anything you want me to be!”
I don’t get a chance to reply as his fists start to splinter the wood, and I step back, feeling every bit of pain in the crack of it, in him, from the other side.
“I’ll f-fucking trade it all f-for you, for our babies!”
Sobering at the truth of what I’ve just done, just aided in and unleashed, I go to speak as his shouts reach me.
“I’ll turn my back on everything I know! I’ll clip my wings and give it all up! I was already going to before I came to you! Please d-don’t give up on me!”
Stunned by his words, his pleas, I freeze, unable to recognize any part of the man shouting behind the door.
Thwack! Thwack! Thwack!
“Our b-babies are my h-home! … I-I c-can’t, I missed the fucking door … Please don’t take them from me!” he booms as I stand helplessly on the other side of the implosion happening inches away.
Thwack! Thwack! Thwack!
“I c-can’t keep fucking living like this! Please d-don’t make me!”
Flinching with every blow of his raw fist against the door, when the doorframe cracks from the strength of his pain, I realize what I truly saw in his expression after I entered the villa—fear.
Too filled with residual heartbreak and resentment to read it for what it was as he held his son protectively in his arm.
Aiming his gun at whatever threatened the peace he’s recently found.
A man who finally recognized a semblance of his long-lost bubble after aimless years without it.
And while I wasn’t what he was searching for, it’s evident he’s retrieved some semblance of it in our son and daughter.
“I’m s-sorry I came on to you! I’m s-sorry!” he sobs as the wood cracks again under the weight of his fists, as real fear of what I’ve just done starts to shroud me. “I’m sorry! Please, don’t take them from me!”
It’s out of that fear that I speak up, knowing it’s way too late.
“I won’t! Tyler, stop!” I shout as his fists continue to drill into the wood, my words going completely unheard as he loses himself in his fear. In his eyes right now, I’m the barrier, the enemy. A toxicity we create that he’s ramming himself into now in an attempt to get past me to them.
“Tyler, STOP!” I shout, my fear of what I’ve done driving my own cries out as he continues to hammer his raw fist against the wood, against the knife I just drove into him.
An image of the man who spoke so softly to his son today fills my vision as shame swallows me.
It’s then that I vow never to hurt their father like this again as he splinters himself against my broken heart’s wrath—which doesn’t make us even and has only distanced me from the woman and mother I want to be.
Sinking in that failure, I shout to try to reason with him again.
“Tyler—”
“Tyler!” A roar erupts with fast footfalls on the other side of the door just before a pained grunt sounds …
and a scuffle ensues. Terrified, I open the door in time to see Tobias tackle Tyler into the grass of the courtyard.
Expression strained, Tobias pins him to the grass before shouting in his face.
“Tyler, stop! Goddamnit! Stop!” Tobias yells as he struggles to keep Tyler restrained.
“Stop, brother, you are scaring the mother of your children. Think of Alexander and Macey! Brother, stop!”
Agonizing seconds pass until Tobias’s words fully penetrate and Tyler’s bloodied fists drop lifelessly to his sides.
Collective chests heaving, Tobias stares down at Tyler in disbelief for long seconds before slowly releasing him.
Genuine fear in his expression, as if he is staring down at someone unrecognizable.
An icy breeze kicks up in the courtyard as the church bell tolls.
The familiar chime, which typically brings comfort, sounds condemning as it echoes throughout the villa.
The last chime rings out as Tyler’s head lolls to the side, his eyes settling on mine as silent tears glide down his face.
His eyes flickering from bronze to the darkest brown and back.
Filled with the same sheen they’ve held since the night we collided—war.
At the sight and state of him, the urge for retribution in my heart evaporates as the truth that resides beneath surfaces—the truth that he was bankrupt of all belief when I knocked on his door.
Shame covers me as he slowly stands, fists bleeding freely at his sides as he eyes the door behind me before searching me frantically for any harm.
It’s then that Tobias turns to me, utterly perplexed.
“Are you okay?”
“I’m fine,” I assure, shaking in a way I never have, the pain radiating throughout the yard too visceral to place exactly whose it is. “He didn’t touch me.”
“He wouldn’t,” Tobias utters, eyeing Tyler as though he’s not sure he believes his own words. It’s within that loss of faith that Tyler hangs his head, swallowing repeatedly. Within another few inhales, I watch as he reels in the control that he lost. Control I helped him lose.
“Do you want me to call Tula?” Tobias offers, sensing the unease in me as I do my best to calm myself, shame surrounding me as I shake my head and summon the strength to speak.
“Sadly, passionate fights are pretty common around here.” I swallow.
“There’s a reason not a single light came on.
” I wrap my arms around myself as Tyler’s eyes remain locked to mine.
The two of us on opposite sides of another fruitless battle as his eyes continually blaze down at me protectively, as if making sure I’m free of his harm.
“It’s fine … just go home, okay?” I whisper hoarsely, unable to help the sting in my eyes.
“Tyler,” Tobias snaps to keep him idle as Tyler holds a palm toward him, cracking out my name, which demands my eyes.
“W-w-what I’ve done to you”—his chest stutters with each word—“is fucking unforgivable. Y-you have every right to hate me, Larissa DiCicco.” He says my name so softly that my eyes water. “And you should, I fucking hate me.”
He lays a bloody hand on his chest with his plea.
“I’ll regret hurting you for the rest of my life.
I, I-I—” Every syllable comes out broken as he tries to collect himself to speak.
“I’ll d-do everything you asked of me. I’ll guard our secrets, our babies, with all th-that I am, and will never again betray any trust you give.
I vow to you now that they will never see this side of me, nor will you, ever again.
I s-swear this to you on all that I am”—his voice splinters with his beg—“but p-please don’t k-keep them from me. ”
“I won’t,” I answer instantly, and his eyes widen incredulously when my words finally penetrate.
In seeing the remorse in my expression, he takes a hopeful step toward me, and I shake my head in refusal.
“I won’t keep you from them, Tyler, I swear.
But … now, tonight, please just stay the fuck away from me. ”
“I’m sorry,” he croaks instantly, “you have to know now I would never hurt you.” More silent tears fall down his jaw, every word he speaks coming out in fast gasps.
“But you can’t t-trust that, can you? I’m sorry.
” His red-rimmed eyes scour me once more before he turns abruptly and stalks away.
Tobias watches him as I allow myself to sag against the door, blinking my tears free as I voice my confession.
“I instigated that,” I admit. “In a way, I’m just as guilty,” I emit as an involuntary shudder runs through me.
“We have a bad habit of bringing out the worst in each other.” I blow out a rushed breath.
“I can’t have that for Alexander and Macey—I won’t.
So take him home, but I won’t keep them from him,” I repeat, knowing that’s the fear keeping him idle.
Tyler’s unwavering love and loyalty to his brothers have always been what appealed to me most. Something I sought for myself as all remaining hope for it evaporates.
Feeling Tobias’s eyes on me, I keep my own lowered.
Knowing that pain is all too obvious, I’m relieved when Tobias mercifully turns without a word and stalks in the direction Tyler fled.
Stepping back into my villa, I close the worthless door as every bit of what happened on either side of it devours me as I flick off the light, welcoming the numbing dark.