Chapter 17
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
Tristan
Waiting to go into the house is killing me.
We’re waiting on a layout of it so we’re not totally blind going in.
I thought I understood when Levi said having this family made his life better.
But now I truly get it. If I had been here alone, I would’ve needed to wait for Grayson to get here or to send back up for me.
And who knows how long that would’ve taken or what would’ve happened in that time.
“You have a gun on you? And is it registered to you?” Enea asks me.
“I do. And yes.”
Lorenzo comes over to us and hands me a gun.
“But—”
“Give me your gun and take this one. Trust me.”
I nod and hand him my gun. I take the one he gives me, look it over and put it in the band of my pants.
It takes another thirty minutes for us to go over the house plans.
We had to contact the owner to let them know that there could be damage to the property.
They were understanding, but I could hear the worry in their voice about their house.
“Tristan, I know you want to be the first one in there. But you can’t be.
I need you to stay behind Celestino. No one shoots unless we need to.
As of now, Salvatore has kept the police away.
But if we start shooting, we can’t stop that.
Our goal is to take both men back to the clubhouse.
We will deal with them there.” Giacomo says to everyone.
I’m pretty sure that the two men that took Lily and Giovanna won’t come out of this alive. The look on Enea’s face is telling me that. And I can’t say I’m against that.
“Holy fuck.” Sebastiano frowns. “I know who took Lily and Gia.”
“Who?” I ask.
Sebastiano flips the computer screen and there’s two pictures on a split screen.
“Carson Masters.”
“But those two pictures look different.” Eros says as he looks.
“Look at his eyes. You can change lots of things but not the eyes.” Sebastiano says.
“Holy shit, you’re right. So that fucker’s alive? Why would he take Lily?” I ask.
“I don’t know. But we’re going to find out today. Are you all ready?” Enea looks at everyone.
We all get ready.
We’re coming, Lily. I love you.
Lily
I watch Carson get undressed as my panic starts to rise.
“Why are you doing this? We were together for nine years. I loved you. Even when you left me, I still loved you.”
“That’s because you’re pathetic.”
“Are you telling me you didn’t love me at all? That you spent nine years with me for nothing?”
“At the beginning I did. But then I realized that you had no ambition. You were content being a lowly journalist. And then I found out you were going to do the ghost writing gig. That’s when I figured you could make me money.
It’s not like you were exciting in bed. If you had been, maybe I would’ve stayed. ”
He walks over to me and rips my bra and underwear off.
“At least you have a nice body. It definitely helps.” He says as he strokes himself.
Could I really have been so wrong about him? What if I’m wrong about Tristan? No! Snap out of it, Lily! Tristan is nothing like Carson and I need to survive this to be with him. I can do this.
“Fuck you, Carson. You’ll never break me. I have someone who’s everything I dreamed of. So no matter what you do to me, I know that he’s waiting for me.”
Carson laughs. “You really are a dumb bitch. Tristan Langford. You think he’s the one for you? That’s a fucking joke. I know all about him and he’s playing you. You think he loves you? You’re just stupid. Now you have one chance to tell me what I want to know or I’ll force you to tell me.”
Time to play dumb.
“Tell you what?”
Carson slaps me, then he strokes himself. It’s like he’s getting off by hitting me. He stays close to me.
“Fine. If you won’t talk to me? Then I’ll give you a reason not to talk.”
He lines his cock up with my mouth. Before he can shove it in, the door bursts open. I see Eros, he heads straight for Carson and takes him down.
“She’s in here!” Ares yells as he helps Eros tie Carson up.
The next person I see is Tristan. I start sobbing as he gets the restraints off me and covers me with the comforter.
“I’ve got you, baby. I love you.” He whispers as he holds me.
“Fuck you!” Carson screams at the brothers.
“Get him the fuck out of here.” I hear another voice say.
I look at Tristan.
“Is Giovanna okay? Is she hurt?” I sob.
“No. She’s okay. We’re going to get you to the hospital.” He says as he picks me up.
I nod as I hold onto him.
“I knew you’d come.”
Tristan carries me outside and into one of the cars. He holds me the entire way to the hospital. All I can do is hold onto him and cry.
Tristan
“I need a fucking shower.” Ares grumbles as he drives.
“Yeah, me too. His micro penis touched me. I’m pretty sure I’m having an allergic reaction to it.” Eros says as he looks at his arm.
“We should get it looked at when we get to Lucciola Memorial.”
I laugh at them as I hold my girl.
“They’re crazy.” Lily says softly. “But I love them for trying to make me smile.”
“Well we’re family and this is what we do. You’re safe now, Lily. Carson won’t touch you again.”
“How did you know it was Carson?” she asks.
“We got a picture from the surveillance cameras. And Sebastiano realized that his eyes were the same. But what I don’t understand is how he made himself look different. Because seeing him today? He looked like himself.”
“He was wearing a mask. Well kind of a mask. He pulled it off his face.” She stutters when she’s talking and it’s making me angrier.
When we get to the hospital, they run tests and document her bruises.
Because this is our Lake Renegade hospital, they don’t ask too many questions.
Lily said she wasn’t raped. But that won’t make me go any easier on Carson later.
The cuts and bruises on her…no one touches my girl and gets away with it.
Before we went into the house, I asked Enea if I could be there when they talked to Carson and he agreed.
Lily chose not to stay over night and I don’t blame her. We plan to stay at my house on the property. Lily’s parents wanted her to come home with them. But she told them no, that she needed to stay with me. They had dinner with all of us before heading back home.
“I need to go to the clubhouse. You can come with me, but you have to stay upstairs with the other women.” I say as I hold her.
“Okay. You’re going to take care of Carson?” she asks.
“Yes.”
I don’t know what else to say to her. Because I refuse to lie to her. We make our way to the Cimaruta clubhouse. Lily runs to Giovanna and holds her.
“Thank god you’re okay.” Lily sobs.
“I’m okay. That other guy didn’t touch me. He told me he was there to help Carson take you. Carson told him to do whatever he wanted with me. But thank god he knew who my papà was and he was too scared of him to touch me. The real question is, are you okay?”
“I will be. I told myself that I could deal with anything Carson did to me. As long as I could get back to Tristan.”
“You’re a strong woman and you’ll get past this.”
“They’re going to kill Carson, aren’t they?” she asks. She looks at Giovanna and then at me.
“Do you really want to know?” Giovanna asks.
“Yes.”
“He probably won’t make it out of the basement alive.”
I hug Lily.
“Are you okay with that?” I ask her.
“Yes. He told me that he created Carter James so that he could make money off me. And he said that I wrote something that was from his life. I still don’t know what he meant.”
“I’ll see if he’ll tell me.” I say as I kiss her.
I leave her with the other women and head downstairs. I find Eros and Ares scratching their arms.
“Rash?” I say as I point at them.
“Yep. Micro penis gave us a rash. Dirty fucker.” Ares frowns.
“Well I’m glad I didn’t touch him.” I chuckle.
I walk into the room that they have the guy that was working with Carson.
“His name is Carl and he says Carson paid him to help. And told him that he would have his turn with Lily after Carson was done with her. But then when they took Giovanna too, he told him he could have her. But when he took her into another room, she told him who she was and who I was. That made him back off.” Enea tells me as we look at Carl.
“Please. I didn’t touch either of them. I swear I won’t tell anyone and you’ll never see me again.” Carl says as he sits there and cries. From the looks of him, he’s been crying for a while.
We step back outside of the room.
“We’re going to let him go tomorrow. We just wanted to let you talk to him if you wanted to.”
“No. It doesn’t seem like he knows anything.” I say to Enea.
“I doubt he does and we’ll make sure he never talks or there will be consequences.”
“And Carson?”
“Oh he’s another story. That’s up to you.”
I nod and go into the next room. There’s plastic on the floor and Carson’s sitting in the middle of the room.
“Oh look it’s the dumb fuck who thinks Lily wants him. You realize she’s never gotten over me, right? She asked me to tie her up. I have to say I’m pissed that you interrupted us.”
I laugh at Carson.
“There’s only one thing I want to know. Why did you come after Lily now? Two years. You could’ve just stayed away and you wouldn’t be in this situation.”
“I’m not in any situation. Once you all figure out who I am, you’ll let me go.”
Enea laughs.
“Okay, I’ll humor you. Who the fuck are you?”
“I’m the sicario for the Márquez family.” Carson smiles proudly.
Enea leaves the room and comes back fifteen minutes later.
“Well I just talked to Augusto Márquez. And after explaining what you did to Tristan’s woman? He said we can do what we want with you.”
I finally see some fear flash across his face.
“H-he’d never say that.”
Enea puts a phone down.
“Augusto, you’re on speaker. Carson is here and he’s using you as his way out of this situation.”
“Hello, Carson. I’m sorry, but I told you before that we would only protect you if it was family business. And what you did today was not family business.”
“Augusto, please. I was trying to get my girl back. She called me and asked me to come get her.”
Everyone in the room laughs.
“I’m sorry. But I will not jeopardize my alliance with the Mancini Mafia for you. Thank you for all you’ve done for the family. But you stepped over a line that can not be undone. Thank you for calling, Enea, we’ll talk soon.”
“Thank you, Augusto.” Enea says as he hangs up.
“So now we get to have fun, right? Because this asshole put his hands on my Lily. And if we hadn’t gone in when we did? We all know what would’ve happened.”
Ares hands me a plastic suit. Like the ones people wear at crime scenes. I put it on and turn to Carson. I make sure to make him feel every hit he gave to my Lily. And a few extra for good luck.
“Now tell me why you came after her.”
“That bitch found out what I did. Then she wrote about it. She was outing my woman and I couldn’t let that happen. So fuck you. I did what I had to.”
“Are you fucking kidding me? You did this because you thought that Lily knew about you and wrote it in your book? What the fuck?”
“She’s never gotten over me. I know because I’ve been watching her. I talk to her and I know her. She’s a bitch for writing what she did.”
I pull back and hit him one more time. Then I walk out of the room.
“We’ll take care of him for you.” Ares says to me.
“What kind of coward can’t kill the man who put his hands on his woman?”
“You’re not a coward. Killing someone isn’t a badge of honor. You defended Lily. Now you leave the rest to us. We got you.”
I nod and get the suit off. I listen to them talk to Carson, he never once admitted he was wrong. I walked away before they finished with him.