53. Caspian
CASPIAN
M ax followed us home. Obi and Ryuji argued about stopping him, but he already knew where we lived. He was outnumbered six to one. What was the harm in his coming with us?
Besides, everyone needed a debrief.
I still hadn’t decided how I felt about him, but what just happened with him and Leona…another mind fuck.
Leona was barely standing on her own by the time we made it back to the penthouse. As soon as we all got inside, I handed her off to Ciel. She’d curled around him, and he took her to our room with Wynn.
Obi and Ryuji looked like they were about to beat Max half to death to get answers, but that wouldn’t get us anywhere. Something told me Leona would lose her mind again if she woke up and found out we’d hurt him.
Yeah. Mind fuck.
“Let me talk to him,” I said to Obi. “I don’t think he’ll talk to all of us at once.”
“Who the fuck cares what he wants?” Ryuji said. “We’ll make him talk. ”
I sighed. “That won’t work. He’s a stubborn fuck. He’d just sit there and stare at you.”
“Find out why he’s here, and then get him out,” Obi said. “I want peace when she wakes up.”
I nodded and turned back around. Max waited patiently in the kitchen, sitting at the island with his hands in his pockets.
“Come with me,” I said, leading him outside to the balcony. It was just big enough for a few people to stand and overlook the city. He followed without complaint. Obi and Ryuji watched from the living room, their arms crossed over their chests.
“What the fuck was that?” I asked when the door shut behind us. I leaned my forearms on the railing, and he did the same beside me. It felt suspiciously like our old lives, looking over the patio at the Vero estate, and it unsettled the shit out of me.
“It appeared to be a panic attack,” Max answered, needing no other context.
“No shit.” I rubbed my eyes. I’d never seen her so terrified. Her face had been so pale, her breaths so short. As soon as Max sat down with her, she got a handle on it. I couldn’t decide if I wanted to hug him or strangle him. “Why did you help with that?”
He looked at his hands. “On the ship with the Albanians, after they’d beaten her, the only way I got her to calm down was to talk about our mothers. Our childhood. I’m guessing the cages triggered the memories again.”
The cages . Hollow cracks splintered down my chest. She still hadn’t told us any of this. We’d seen her bloody handprint near the room with the cage on the boat, but hearing him say it…I was going to be sick.
Was it only the cages?
Or had something else she saw triggered her?
“What happened on the ship?”
He gave me a sideways glance, like he was surprised I didn’t know. His lips pursed slightly. “It’s not my place to tell. But you know they hurt her. They would have hurt her even worse if she didn’t have that knife or recognize the signal jammer.”
I clenched my eyes shut, trying to keep my emotions in check. I had to talk to the guys about this. I wasn’t sure how much longer we could wait for her to bring it up. Something told me she’d clam up even more after tonight.
Whatever happened to her was festering inside her.
“She won’t tell us.”
His jaw clenched. “All I will say is I wish I could have done more.”
“ Fuck , Max.” Why wouldn’t she tell us? Why did it piss me off that he knew the truth and we didn’t? And why did it make me feel so much better that at least she hadn’t gone through it alone? I dragged my hand down my face. “Tonight was good, but we can’t let up. We have to destroy them.”
We must have made a huge dent in their organization, but with Armir and Arion Vokshi alive, they would just keep coming back. They were like a weed, an infection. They had to be pulled out by the roots.
“What do you think I’m trying to do, Cas?” It was hardly a question with how exhausted he sounded.
“I have no clue,” I responded. “You stopped telling me shit years ago.”
His mask cracked, and a sliver of pain emerged. He leaned his head on the railing. “I will not apologize for my choices.”
“Did I fucking ask you to?” I snapped back. “It doesn’t matter. We’re here now, and all I care about is her. Helping her. Fixing her. Giving her everything she’s ever wanted. She deserves it all, and more.”
He sighed. “You were her bodyguard. You were supposed to keep her safe.”
I faced him, anger crackling down my nerves. “I do not need you to tell me that. Not when you were the one putting her life in jeopardy.” I smacked his chest with the back of my hand. “Not when you were the one who tried to kill her multiple times.”
“I’ve made three mistakes in my life, and going after her is one of them,” he replied while planting his feet. He clenched his jaw, like he expected me to punch him in the face.
I wouldn’t. I wouldn’t give him the satisfaction of pain right now.
“Yet you still won’t apologize,” I scoffed, turning back to look out over the city. As if an apology would fix all the hurt he caused us both. “Piece of shit.”
He didn’t argue. He scowled at the skyline instead.
“You could have had everything,” I said. “She could have been yours.”
I couldn’t even say I was mad he rejected her. I probably never would have had the chance to hold her, love her, cherish her, had he not made his mistakes .
But I’d never been able to wrap my head around why.
“Why didn’t you take the chance when you had it?” I had stood in the great hall of the Vero mansion, watching Leona dance at her birthday party, and wondered a very similar question.
“I don’t love her. I never did.”
Fifteen years of friendship, and I still couldn’t tell if that was the truth or not. “You’re a fucking liar.”
“It would have ended in ruin and rot.”
“You don’t know that.”
“I do, Cas,” he answered, looking down at his open palm. His fingers curled in on themselves. “I’m sorry for what you’ve both been through, but I’m not sorry for what I had to do.”
“I don’t forgive you,” I said, facing the city again. “I will never forgive you for the pain you’ve caused her.”
“Not for the pain I’ve caused you?”
“I don’t give a fuck about me, and you know it. But her?” I shook my head. “She is the star that lights the night sky. She is my reason for breathing; she always has been.”
“I could tell how you felt from the moment we met. It was obvious every time you looked at her face. Every time you watched her from across the room. You were always meant to be with her, Cas.”
“Bullshit.”
He looked at me. “What?”
I glared. “That’s bullshit, and you know it. You ran. You hid, and you lied. Don’t blame your choices and their consequences on some bullshit platitude like I was ‘meant to be with her’ in your stead.”
“I don’t?—”
“Of course, I am meant to be with her,” I conceded before glancing at him sideways. “But you could have been, too.”
His jaw clenched. “She will kill me. She’s promised me time and time again.”
She had promised him again tonight at the same time she sighed while his fingers brushed through her hair. When it came down to it…would she?
If I had the opportunity, would I?
“And you’ll let her?” I asked with a frown. “You’ll just roll over and die?”
“If all goes according to plan, yes,” he whispered.
My eyes went wide. What the hell did that mean?
His plan was to die?
“Then why haven’t you just given up? Why force us through these hurdles and play this twisted game? You could have left us alone months ago. You could have let her be the solution to your problems.”
“It has to be this way.”
I gaped. “What the fuck does that mean?”
He dropped his face into his hands and scrubbed. “It doesn’t matter. ”
Frustration forced a huff from my lungs. What was the point of talking to him if he wouldn’t tell me the truth? “Fuck you, and fuck your secrets.”
“I know you hate me, Cas. So can you just leave me alone?”
“You’re in my home, asshole. You followed us here.”
He straightened. “You’re right. I should go.”
But he didn’t leave. He hung his head between his shoulders, staring at his feet. His face flickered from emotion to emotion, and it was actually a little bit of a relief. Without that passive mask, he looked more like the Max I’d grown up with. More like the man I thought I knew.
“I do hate you,” I said after a few more moments, coming to some sort of uneasy conclusion.
“But I don’t hate you hate you. I hate whatever is going on inside that fucking thick skull that’s made you believe you have to do whatever it is you’re doing.
I only hope that you wake up before it’s too late and realize you don’t have to face it alone.
You could have had us helping you the whole time. ”
Max inhaled deeply, then reached inside one pocket of his cargo combat pants. He pulled out a notebook. “I wasn’t sure if I wanted to give you this.”
“What is it?”
It was leather bound with a cracked spine and thick, crinkled pages. It looked like a well-read book. The kind that carried damage, but also love from countless reads. He handed it to me. I read the gold script on the front.
“Massimo Volpe,” I breathed. “This is your father’s.”
“His journal. The last one he kept before he died.”
I frowned. “Why do you want me to have it?”
“Honestly?” He sighed. “I don’t know. Read it. Burn it. God knows I’m tired of holding onto it.”
I ran my fingers over his father’s name. Massimo had become a father to me in the years I’d known him, the only father I could really remember. I loved him as my own, and I was devastated when he died. It had hit the whole Family hard, but Max had never quite been the same since.
There were three men in my life that I truly loved: Max, the Don, and Massimo.
He was as good of a man as he could be in our world.
He kept to his own code and tried to teach Max and me to do the same.
He looked out for me along with Alessio.
Truth be told, I was jealous of the relationship Max and he had.
I wanted that, but at the time I didn’t believe I was good enough for it.
I’d always felt like I had to prove that I belonged among them.
Looking back, it was never Massimo that made me feel that way. Only the Don and my baggage.
By the time I looked up again, Max was at the door and pulling it open. “I just wanted to make sure she was okay. I’m leaving now.”
“Wait—”
He shook his head. “We both know I don’t belong here.”
I had nothing to say to that.
He left quietly, only giving a wave to Ryuji and Obi before he slipped out of the front door.
Part of me wanted to crawl into our bed and sleep next to Leona, Ciel, and Wynn, but the notebook was a heavy weight in my hand. I went to the library instead and started reading.