37. Carter
H opefully, we can make it home before the bloodshed starts. I don’t want to travel with a dead body.
The tension between Tennant and Cristian is thick enough to choke on, and I wish I could have ridden with Roman and the others. But, not only is it not safe logistics-wise, the death grip Cristian has on my hand wouldn’t let me leave.
Sitting next to my husband, as he faces off with his best friend, is… Uncomfortable is not a strong enough word.
“I think,” Tennant says slowly, his voice void of all emotion, even the conversational tone he likes to use when he’s fucking with someone. “You need to tell us what happened in your office this morning.”
Cristian sighs, an exasperated sound, like he’s already tired of Ten’s shit.
“We…connected. You know how difficult things have been for me since returning. The…panic, the nightmares, the dread that something is going to happen to him. When he showed up this morning, it was to support me. Things…escalated, and we kissed.”
Tennant’s ice blue eyes narrow. “That doesn’t explain why he thinks he can just claim you like that. He has no right, Cris. None.”
“What do you want me to say, Ten? Something happened when we were locked in that cell. We connected on a level I cannot explain, and it’s been building ever since. I didn’t expect it. I haven’t even looked at another man in the past eleven years, but there’s something about him…”
I squeeze my husband’s hand and he looks at me, his dark eyes full of pain and need, and…something I’d rather not think about yet. Not with Il Padrone’s taste still on my lips, and the feel of his body against mine…
“I’m sorry, Caro,” Cris says, his tone softening as he reaches for my face with his free hand. He caresses my scar and I sigh, closing my eyes.
“There’s nothing to be sorry about, Honey. I just want you to be okay, and if Il Padrone makes you happy then?—”
“Then nothing!” Tennant exclaims. “You can’t really be considering this, Carter? Considering him ?”
“I believe this is between me and my husband, Ten,” Cristian says in a cold tone, one I never thought I’d hear directed at Tennant.
“Mi hai promesso per sempre. When I killed for you. When you saved me. It’s been you and me for over thirty years, Cris.
When you had Roman, we raised him together.
When you fell in love, I was there, keeping this Family together when the truth came out…
When I claimed Hollis, and later Roman and Jude, you were there keeping the monster at bay so I could be with them.
“Il Padrone…he is not like us. He doesn’t understand. You saw what happened today. He wants to take you away from me.” Tennant’s icy eyes glow as the emotions he claims he doesn’t have burn him from the inside out.
A lump forms in my throat as I empathize with him. For someone so closed off with his emotions, who doesn’t trust easily… this is going to kill him.
Cristian lets go of my hand and, heedless of the moving vehicle, changes seats, sitting next to Tennant.
“What we have will never change, Ten,” he says. “Nothing and no one will ever be able to get between us. We’ve been through too much for that. But…I need you to work with me here. You took what wasn’t yours. You claimed Benjamin in a manner you never should have touched.”
Tennant grimaces. “He’s mine. He wants to be mine. No matter what Ignacio or Il Padrone say or do, that will never change.”
“If you want him, you have to live by their rules…”
“And I’ve accepted that!” he shouts.
I flinch, as never, in all my years of knowing Ten, have I ever heard him raise his voice before.
“But I will not let that asshole think that just because you want to bend over for him, it means he can own you. You are not his. And even if you were, you will still always be mine.”
“Do not,” Cristian says lowly. He reaches out, moving faster than most, and grabs Ten by the throat.
Tennant moves as well, sliding his knife up between them, the blade easily cutting through Cristian’s shirt and pressing against his skin.
“What I do with my husband, and with Allesandro, has nothing to do with you. Maybe, if you didn’t take what wasn’t yours, he wouldn’t goad you so much.”
“He’s a fucking asshole,” Tennant growls. His arm flexes, and though I can’t see it from this angle, I imagine the tip of his blade has pierced Cristian’s flesh.
“So are you, which probably says a lot about me and my choices, hmm?”
“I will never be okay with him thinking he owns you.”
Cristian’s face softens, though he doesn’t release his grip on Tennant.
“I know. I wish I could say I’d talk to him about it, but we both know he’s going to do what he wants…
I like his dominance, Ten. The control he has…
and the softness he pretends he doesn’t have.
I don’t expect you to understand, but please, I need you to respect the choices I’ve made. ”
“I want Benjamin.”
“Tennant,” Cristian sighs.
“No, Cris.” His voice is firm. “After this punishment, that’s it. If he feels the need to touch my Topolino, then he can have me.”
“They use sex to stay close?—”
“I’m not talking about that,” Tennant snaps.
“I don’t care about sex. You know I never have.
I don’t want Benjamin touching Ignacio again—unless he tells me he wants to, that he changed his mind.
It’ll be a struggle, but I’ll respect his choice.
But…after this fucking punishment, I want all the others.
Anything that Il Padrone deems as unacceptable… he can take it out on me.”
Cristian shakes his head and releases Tennant’s throat, sitting back. “I can’t promise that. He runs his Family in a very specific way.”
“Those are my conditions, Cristian. That asshole wants to touch you? He wants to goad me and have me not stick a fucking knife up his ass? That’s what I’m asking for in return.”
Cristian looks down at his ruined shirt, lifting the hem to wipe the blood that spilled on his skin from Tennant’s knife. “I won’t promise anything, Ten. This is between you and Il Padrone.”
“I’m not scared of him.” Tennant smiles—a twisted, vicious thing that promises nothing but pain. “But he should be afraid of me, if he doesn’t give me what I want.”
For the second time in my life, I am afraid of Tennant, and by the way his eyes glow when he meets my gaze, he knows it. I hope Il Padrone knows what he’s getting himself into…
“Caro?” Cristian’s soft tone has me looking over at him. I smile when he does, some of the tension easing from me as our eyes lock. “How do you feel about what happened?”
Taking a deep breath, I lick my lips, savoring the phantom taste of Il Padrone on them.
“I…I want you to be happy, Cris. I didn’t expect him to want me , too…
but, if it’s what you want, then…” I shrug.
“He’s a good looking man, smart, ruthless.
Everything I admire in you, I can see in him.
I don’t know him like you do, but if you don’t have a problem with it, I’d like to spend some time with him. ”
Tennant grumbles as he twirls his knife in his hand, but we both ignore him.
“I love you, Carter. I have since the first time your lips touched mine in my office after you bought my son ice cream. Maybe even before that, I don’t know.
But, whatever happens between Allesandro and I, or you and him, it has nothing to do with the two of us.
You’re my husband, the one I want to raise another child with, my light in the darkness. ”
My throat thickens with emotion, and I take a stuttering breath. “I love you, too. I can’t wait to have a baby with you…and to see how your relationship with Il Padrone grows.”
Cristian’s smile is soft, and despite the tension between him and Tennant, and the shitstorm that’s brewing between us and those after our Family, through all the confusion and uncertainty of where the loyalties lie within the two Families, I know one thing for certain: My husband loves me, and that will never change.
No matter how many people he invites into our bed.