18. Chapter Eighteen— Cassiel
Chapter Eighteen— Cassiel
Placing Carlotta in the passenger seat of the blacked-out SUV we drove to one of the Folonari family’s many warehouses, I round the front and hop in the driver’s seat.
The engine rumbles to life beneath me as I turn the key in the ignition, thumbing the control panel to turn up the heated leather seats and reach behind myself for my seatbelt.
When I chance a glance at Carlotta, it’s to find she hasn’t moved an inch; vacant eyes still staring out of the window, seeing nothing and everything all at the same time. I know that stare. I recognize it from looking in the mirror at myself as an eleven-year-old boy.
It’s the look of total despair, of self-loathing, of hatred.
My gut clenches uncomfortably with each passing heartbeat.
I hate seeing that look on her pretty face.
And for a second, I hate Rome and his three fucking steps ahead plans for being the one to put it there.
Reaching over the center console, I wrap my fingers around Lottie’s much smaller hand.
“You’re freezing,” I utter quietly, using my other hand to dial up the heater so I don’t have to withdraw my touch from her smooth skin.
I couldn’t even if I wanted to. I need to be touching her at all times; it’s the only way I can remind myself that she’s here, alive, even if not okay.
My heart picks up speed in my chest when Carlotta doesn’t respond to my touch. She doesn’t shrug me off, but neither does she bat a lid at my calloused skin sliding back and forth along the ridges and valleys of her knuckles.
Her skin is so soft, unmarred and unblemished—unlike mine.
My primal hindbrain practically purrs in response, because I like it that. A lot.
I like her skin buttery soft and vulnerable, while mine show years of wear and tear.
I want Lottie to stay that way; mine to protect. I want her to know that I’ll use my hands to protect her over and over again, no matter the cost.
Just like I did tonight.
“Lottie—I—”
“Please, Cass.” The fear and sheer exhaustion in her voice makes my heart physically hurt. “Please, just drive.”
“Where to?”
Finally, Carlotta turns to look at me, her pretty face splattered with now dried blood, eyes wet and watery. She squeezes my hand once but doesn’t let go. “Anywhere far away from here. Please.”
Her sweet little plea breaks me.
Still holding her hand, I lean over to grab her seatbelt, strapping her in safely before I punch my foot on the gas.
I glance in the rearview mirror before I pull out into the road, force of habit even though it’s almost three in the morning and traffic is nowhere near as thick as usual. Still, they don’t call New York the city that never sleeps for a reason.
If Carlotta sees him, she doesn’t let on, but I don’t miss the sight of Rome standing on the sidewalk, watching us leave him in the dust. Good, I think, even if the thought does make my stomach flip.
I love him and he’s saved my life more times than I care to admit, but he deserves to be burning in the fire right now.
His plan, the way he executed it, everything; it was all wrong and he needs to learn the dangerous consequences of his actions.
Don’t get me wrong, I knew Carlotta’s initiation task wasn’t going to be easy, if it was then we’d be overrun with members unskilled and inexperienced members of The Thirteen.
But Rome promised me Carlotta would be fine.
“She’s a Mafia Princess for god’s sakes,” he’d said to me when I voiced my worries. “She’ll know how to hold a gun. Cristiano was shooting by the age of seven, I see no reason as to why Carlotta wouldn’t be the same.”
“But—” I’d protested.
“Her father wouldn’t have let his only daughter grow up without knowing how to defend herself and if that means murdering a few people, then so be it.
That’s the world we live in. You have to understand that I have to make it look believable for the others, but we’ll speak in the mother tongue of Italian, so she understands what’s happening beneath the blindfold.
I’m giving her every advantage I can think of, Cass. She’ll be fine, I promise.”
Only she isn’t fine—not by a fucking long shot.
Rome didn’t see her freak out, trapped in the basement chamber with the prisoner I’d captured a week or so ago. We’d been tracing him for months, keeping tabs on the number of young girls hired in his accountant’s firm only to mysteriously disappear from records weeks later.
When I’d hacked into the firm’s computer filing system, I’d found a number of written complaints regarding Alex Reid’s predatory and uncomfortable behavior in the workplace.
These included, inappropriate name calling, touching, fondling, and unwanted sexual advances.
All of the complaints had the same thing in common.
They were all written and signed by women.
They all stated that Alex had an issue with the word ‘no’ and they we’re all wiped from the official database by Alex himself.
Who knew the ratty looking man had it in him to even know how to hack into the computer system, but one thing was for certain—he had to fucking go.
I just didn’t know Rome would be using him as the bait for Carlotta’s initiation task.
I push away the replay of Carlotta’s screams, high pitched and piercing, as I merge into the right hand lane.
But it’s impossible to ignore the mental replay of her hunched over in fear, vomiting her insides out, or pushing me out of the way and punching the steel door, yelling at Rome with pure, undiluted fear in her voice.
I shiver just thinking about it, gooseflesh breaking out over the tops of my arms even with the car heater on full blast.
I don’t know how long I drive for, nothing but the quiet sound of my breathing and the noise of my thoughts to fill the silence. I glance out of the corner of my eye at Carlotta every chance I can—at every stop light, at every crossing, at every heartbeat.
She sits as I left her, holding my hand, which rests on her upper thigh, her eyes fixed out in front of her.
Although, I have a sneaking suspicion she’s not really seeing anything out in front of her.
No, the glassy look of her irises tells me she’s replaying tonight in her head just as much as I am.
I blame that on the reason I jump in my skin when her voice finally cracks through the stifling silence we’re contained within.
“I killed a man tonight.”
My throat thickens with her statement. It doesn’t matter that she wasn’t the one to actually hold the gun and shoot, she was still there. An accomplice. And if that means she feels as responsible as I do, then…
It’s all I can do but no. There’s no reason to sugar coat things or pretend they aren’t what they seem.
It’s true.
She killed a man tonight.
So, did I. But this isn’t my first rodeo, nor will it be my last. I can’t help it; it’s simply in my blood. As it is Rome’s.
This is the world we live.
“Her father wouldn’t have let his only daughter grow up without knowing how to defend herself and if that means murdering a few people, then so be it.”
Rome’s words echo in my head. I believed him, why wouldn’t I? He had no reason to lie.
But now… I’m not so sure.
Why would Carlotta Bellucci—Mafia Princess and heir to the Bellucci diamond fortune—be forced to vomit, twice and have a mind altering panic attack, out of pure fear of killing someone, if she’d done it before?
“You killed a man for me.”
I meet Lottie’s eyes. “Yes, I did, and I’d do it again in a heartbeat.”
“Why? Why would you do that for me?”
I flick my gaze to the empty stretch of road before I look back at her.
“There’s a thousand reasons why I did it.”
I hear the air leave her lungs with a whoosh. “Any you’re willing to share with me?”
“Maybe because I like you more than I should and… it nearly killed me to see you so afraid. Maybe because nobody should be made to feel that way, like they don’t have a choice or—”
A small sarcastic laugh escapes Lottie. “Well, I didn’t, did I? Rome made sure of that.”
I dip my chin, once again darting my eyes to check the road and my rearview mirrors. Honestly, I’m surprised to find we’re one of the very few cars still on the road and certainly the only one driving in the lane towards west… I thought for sure Rome would be on our tail by now, but maybe not.
“And I’m going to make sure he doesn’t forget that he was in the wrong for putting you through that.”
Silence stretches, thick and cloying, from one end of the SUV to the other and I convince myself Lottie isn’t going to reply to my promise, until she finally whispers, “Thank you, Cass. For everything.”
The delicate pad of her thumb traces a particular gnarly scar on the back of my hand, the skin, pearly white with age, visible even through the thickly inked lines of my tattoo depicting a rose and it’s thorns, raised up and uneven in places, twisted from the poorly done stitches courtesy of foster dad #5 and his less than steady hand.
After you’ve bounced through as many foster homes as I have, faces and names simply begin to blur together, but #5 sticks in my head only for the fact that he stars in most of my night terrors.
Even after all these years, it’s impossible to completely forget the horrors he put me through. Including, the scar on the back of my hand.
I’d come home from school, dripping blood all over the place, my face a beaten-up, bruised mess.
It wasn’t my fault I’d been jumped, but I wasn’t exactly an innocent party either, especially when things behind the bike shed began to turn nasty with small, sharp pen knives being pulled from back pockets.
One of the tallest boys had gotten me good and he probably would have continued to get me if I hadn’t had ran off, leaping over a garden fence and sprinting for the bus stop.