28. Chapter 28
Chapter 28
VIVIAN
R oman has nestled himself up against me as he loses himself in TV. I, on the other hand, am hyper aware of every noise and shadow. My heart is racing, I can hear the blood pounding in my ears, and I hope Roman can’t hear it.
The last sound that I heard was two loud cars, but it’s been silent now for a few minutes. As time stretches on, I wonder if I should just go ahead and get Roman out of here. But where would I take him? I guess I could go to a neighbor’s, maybe have them call the police.
A creaking sound brings me back to my surveillance. Then the doorknob starts to rattle, followed by a loud banging. Declan would not need to bang on the door, I realize—he’d have a key. Roman stiffens beside me and looks up to my face.
“Roman, let’s go to the bathroom,” I tell him, ready to put my escape plan into action.
The poor kid is frozen in place, so I lift him off the couch, and once he is on his feet I gently push at his back as the door is kicked in. I am immediately rooted in place and shove Roman behind me as a lethal-looking man with long hair and a matching beard forces his way in with a gun pointed at me.
“Who the fuck are you?” he demands.
“Fuck you!” I shout back, thinking if I move, they may shoot me, but Roman can still get out of here.
“Where is he?” the man growls at me. “Where is Roman?”
I feel Roman move behind me at the mention of his name. “Axel!” he shouts and moves quickly around me to the maniac in front of me who embraces him with one arm but keeps the gun trained on me.
“Who the fuck are you?” the thug named Axel demands again.
“This is Declan’s girlfriend, Vivian!” Roman announces.
Another man appears from behind Axel. “It’s the girl!” the dirty blond man says, grinning, his eyes sparkling.
“Yeah, Dad was totally right, Slade,” Roman says to the grinning man.
Slade reaches around and pushes down Axel’s arm and the gun, never breaking eyes with Roman. “Of course he was. Dad knows Declan the best.”
“Well, he’s known him the longest,” Roman offers, and the Slade guy and Roman exchange a nod.
I stand fixed in place, watching the entire scene before me. Axel, Slade, Roman—these are Declan’s brothers. Axel studies me, looking a little less threatening now that he knows his little brother is safe and they have figured out who I am.
Declan bursts into the room and assesses the scene and comes straight to me, pushing his brothers aside. “What the fuck, Axel?” he barks at his brother once he sees the broken door and his drawn gun. Declan’s eyes look me over, then he takes me in his arms. He presses a kiss to the side of my head, then leans back to look at me. “Are you okay?” he asks me, and all I can do is look at him like he is crazy.
Meanwhile Roman grabs Slade’s hands, and they exchange an oh-my-God look at Declan’s behavior and hop a little like teenage girls.
Declan turns back to his brothers. “Take Roman home and help Dad get him to bed. I’ll be over to help clean up in a minute.”
“Shouldn’t you leave it for the police to see?” I ask him in complete confusion. “Won’t they want to see the damage for evidence?”
All of the brothers before me freeze, and I replay what I said, wondering what made them react that way. It’s Slade who breaks the silence. “Come on, Roman. It’s a school night, you little dork,” he says and ushers him out.
Axel remains behind, still looking at me.
“What, Axel?” Declan says to him hotly.
“I like you,” he says to me, and then turns and walks out like that’s the most normal thing in the world to say to someone after you’ve pulled a gun on them.
I look from the place where Axel just was to Declan. “Axel’s been through some shit,” Declan mutters in explanation.
I nod absentmindedly. “Declan, you are going to call the police, aren’t you?” I ask him, searching his face.
“There’s nothing they can do, Vivian,” he says with a sigh, cupping my face.
“What do you mean? Declan, someone broke into your dad’s house. The police should be notified. I mean, what if there’s a burglar in the area?”
“We’ll take care of it,” he assures me.
Confusion floods me. “I don’t understand,” I tell him. “Why don’t you want the police involved?”
A look of wavering indecision covers Declan’s face before he replies to me. “It most likely has to do with business,” he finally says.
“What business?”
“Our business, my family’s business,” he explains.
“I thought you said you guys own bars and rental properties,” I say slowly.
“We do,” he says. Declan hesitates before he goes on. “But we also do some stuff that isn’t on what you’d call the right side of legal,” he finally admits.
I go stiff in his arms, and then push him away. “You lied to me,” I say to him, backing up to put more space between us.
“No, I just didn’t tell you all the details. I didn’t want you—”
“What? To be an accomplice? To know you are a criminal?”
“I’m not a criminal, Vivian,” he says patiently.
I point a finger at him. “You just said that you do things that are not legal,” I say, refreshing his memory. “That means that you are breaking the law, and that’s what criminals do!” I shout.
His stony expression shutters over his face. “I’m sorry I didn’t tell you everything,” he finally says.
I study him, and I see the remorse in his eyes and his body, but my chest aches from his deception. “What are you involved in?”
“Vivian…”
“Drugs?” I demand. I need to know. I need him to tell me.
“No,” he says firmly, “we have some gambling rooms at some of our bars and restaurants, and we loan money from time to time.”
That’s not so bad, I think. It’s not like he’s hustling drugs, I reason, but then shake my head trying to regain some of my common sense. Law-breaking assholes are who gave me the life I’d had up until this point. It is the reason I had been in foster care for the majority of my life. This is why I was focused on the future, pushing myself through and away from my past. I have rules for myself, and not being associated with criminals is one of them.
“Say something,” Declan commands, and I meet his eyes. His tone is authoritative, but it’s uncertainty and desperation I see in his eyes.
“I don’t know what to say,” I admit. “Why are you taking business classes if you have illegal businesses? Why learn the right way?”
“My dad has never wanted us to do the illegal stuff. He’s really cleaned things up. He did it for my mom. No one sells drugs in our places, no prostitution. That stuff was rampant in all the bars back in the day. He wanted us to have legit stuff, but some of the things are hard to pull out of. Some of it just goes with the territory.”
I think about all the words he says and try to filter through them and match them up with everything he’s said to me before. “Have you ever killed anyone?” I ask him. I don’t know why it matters. It should be a hard no for me that he is involved in anything illegal, but for some reason I need to know the depth of it all.
“No,” he says firmly.
“Have you ever shot anyone?” I ask, and he just looks at me.
Declan strides over to me. “Vivian,” he says, taking my face in his hands, his eyes boring into mine, pleading with me. “I have done bad things to bad people. I give people money and they try to never pay it back, and I have hurt them until I get my money back. I have had people try to steal from my family by cheating at the table games and I’ve shot their knees. I could tell you details, but the truth is I am not ashamed of it. If I called the police every time someone took something from us, I would be penniless, broke because I would never see a cent of that money and it would cost a fortune to get lawyers. The law is crooked. It tries to do what it can, but the laws are made by crooked politicians with white-collar criminals in their pocket. I want more for my life and my family than running bars and illegal gaming halls, but right now this is all I have. That’s why I am in school—to make us something more than, something bigger. But for right now, this is my life, and I have to protect it. The people who come to my places, they aren’t afraid of the police. But they’re afraid of me. I scare them, and so do my brothers and my father. I will do whatever I need to do to protect what is mine—my family, my business, you,” he says.
I shouldn’t like his answer. It shouldn’t make my heart skip a beat to hear him lump me in with his family and that he wants to protect me, but it does. And I have to close my eyes away from his beautiful gaze to center myself. I like this guy. I really, really do. But is it enough? Are my feelings for Declan enough for me to abandon my moral compass and all of the promises I made to myself?
“Life isn’t black and white, Vivian. There are a whole bunch of different colors around it and in between,” Declan says softly to me. I open my eyes and look at his beautiful gray gaze. “I live in the gray area, Vivian. I’m not all bad, but I’m no angel either.”
I don’t want the tears to fall, but they find their way down my cheeks.
“Please don’t cry,” Declan pleads, a tone I didn’t think he was even capable of. It makes me cry more. He tries to wipe them away with his thumbs, but he can’t keep up with the flow of them.
I close my eyes. “I need to go,” I say, fully aware that I can’t form coherent thoughts around him. Being with him makes me want to be swayed and push my decisions to the border to make it right. But what will that do to me? I need to remember what I went through in the past with those close to me who did illegal things. I need to think about this and not let my heart blur the lines. And I can’t do that here.
“Viv, please,” Declan says, but I spin away from him and grab my jacket and bag, then make my way to the splintered doorway. “Let me take you home,” he says.
“No, Declan,” I say firmly, holding my hands up to keep him away. “I need to be on my own starting now,” I tell him.
His face becomes stern. “It’s not safe out there,” he reminds me.
I look at the clock behind his head. “There is a bus stop on the corner, and a bus should be around in the next five minutes,” I tell him, having memorized bus schedules all over the city for years. “You can watch me as I wait for it, and I will get off at my house.”
I watch his nostrils flare, but I turn and leave before he speaks or acts. I am in charge of my life, I remind myself. I can’t depend on others, and while for a moment it was nice to have that, the universe once again showed me why it’s best to only depend on myself.
The bus comes less than a minute after I get to the stop, and I don’t look to see if Declan has watched me. I don’t have to—I can feel his stare on me the entire time.
And I hate that it is comforting to me.