14. A Little Back Story, Please
14
A Little Back Story, Please
Antonio
If I thought keeping Tony and Darius in check was going to be easy, I quickly find out I’m wrong.
No sooner have Lilith and Antoinette disappeared down the hallway than I’m scurrying across the room, putting myself between Darius and the basement.
He attempts to go through me, but a sharp punch to the chest at least draws his attention to me. “You heard the woman, Darius. Whatever you think you’re gonna do is gonna have to wait.”
“Get the fuck out of my way,” he snaps.
I place both of my hands on his chest and push, looking at Tony to grumble, “A little fucking help here.”
Tony steps back entirely, crossing his arms over his chest as he says, “Sorry, man. I’m with the big guy here.”
I roll my eyes, annoyed by the fact I might need to actually stab the motherfucker, but then Agatha is there, shoving me back, as she stands in front of Darius and shouts, “Hey.”
He glares down at her, his hands moving to her shoulders as if he’s going to push her out of the way, then her hand comes up, and she snags his earlobe and twists viciously. “Don’t think you’re gonna play that fucking game with me.”
Her hand immediately moves from his ear to his shoulder, and I see her thumbs digging into a pressure point that has him backing up immediately. She releases him but follows so she’s still standing directly in front of him, and once she’s sure she has his full attention, she snarls, “I fully understand what it is you want to do. But get fucking control of yourself.”
Tony moves toward her as if he’s going to say something and she puts a hand up, effectively stopping him. But her focus is still on Darius’s face as she whispers, “Assuming that motherfucker is still alive, whatever happens to him next is entirely up to Antoinette.”
Darius scowls at her, and Tony, still standing there like he was going to say something, immediately steps back. She glances at Tony and then back at Darius as she says, “It’s likely that she’ll probably tell you two to tend to it, but you don’t get to take that decision from her. She’s already had too much taken from her.”
Darius stares back at her but then nods, both hands coming up in surrender.
She waits a few moments until she’s confident that the two knuckleheads truly understand what she’s saying, then she turns back to Darius, holds her hand out, and says, “Give me your shirt.”
Darius blinks at her and then says, “My shirt?”
She makes a frustrated sound in her throat and waves her hand at him impatiently. “Yes. Give me your fucking shirt.”
He looks at me where I’m still standing behind her, and I raise my brows at him, giving him an impatient look that has him shedding his jacket. He unbuttons his dress shirt, stripping it from his body and handing it to her. She grabs it, tossing it on the floor as she says, “The other one.”
He looks down at his undershirt, frowning, and after a moment’s pause, yanks it from where it’s tucked into his pants and pulls it over his head. He holds it out to her, and she doesn’t immediately take it from him. She, like the rest of us, is too focused on one side of his bare chest.
Having never seen Darius unclothed, I can only assume from their wide-eyed, shocked responses that what I’m seeing there must be new.
He shakes his shirt in Agatha’s direction, and she blinks and then takes it from him. She wads it in a ball and then, still staring at him, asks quietly, “What the fuck happened to you?”
Darius raises a brow at her in confusion and then looks at Tony, who is also still staring at him. His eyes move, so he’s looking down at himself, and then he laughs as he replies, “I died.”
Agatha’s eyes move from his chest to his face, and a minute later, she nods. “Well, I’m glad you weren’t dead dead.”
Without saying anything further, she grips the shirt in her hands and then rushes by him, quickly walking out of the room.
Then we stand there silently, Tony still staring at Darius’s scarred chest, and then from behind me, Matt says, “No, really. What the fuck happened to you?”
Darius sighs heavily and shakes his head as he puts his arms back on his white shirt, leaving it hanging open. “It’s a long fucking story.”
“Pretty sure we’ve got fucking time,” Tony retorts. “But first, we probably should have you get cleaned up.”
At Tony’s words, I take a closer look at Darius and see quite a bit of the blood from Antoinette is now streaked along his skin and clothing. Darius nods, but then a ping has him pulling his phone from his jacket pocket. He glances at the screen and says, “Well, perfect timing.”
Tony asks, “Perfect timing?”
Darius ignores his question, pockets his phone, and turns to walk down the hallway, with all of us following behind helplessly. He opens the front door, revealing a youngish-looking man standing there with his hand raised as if he was about to knock on it.
From just behind me, Matt questions, “Ivan?”
The hand that Ivan was still holding in the air turns into a wave. Darius steps back, and with a sheepish expression, this Ivan steps into the room. Since I seem to be the only person who doesn’t know who Ivan is, I step back, figuring the truth will be revealed in good time. He glances around the room and then focuses on Darius. “Did you find her?”
Darius nods but then motions over toward us. “They need an update, and I’m going to leave it to you.” He then points to his bare chest and adds, “You’ll know more about this than I would, so tell them whatever they want to know.”
At Ivan’s nod, Darius turns back to us. “I’m going to get cleaned up. I’ll answer any additional questions later.”
He doesn’t wait for us to respond. He takes off in the opposite direction, which Antoinette would have gone in, likely wanting to put some distance between them while he processes what’s happened.
We watch him disappear down the hallway, and then Tony and Matt immediately head toward the living room. I motion for Ivan to proceed me and then follow along behind him. It only takes a few moments for all of us to be situated, and then Ivan sighs and asks, “What do you want to know?”
Tony leans forward in the chair, resting his forearms on his knees, his expression serious. “How is this even possible? We saw him disappear. We searched and searched with no sign at all.”
Ivan presses his lips together, and just as he goes to respond, Matt interrupts, “Yeah, how were you even there? The last I saw of you, you were taking Seamus off for safekeeping.”
Ivan grins and then replies, “Camilla’s car was blocked in, so I did the only thing I could think of at the time. I stole a boat.”
Matt shakes his head. “But I didn’t see you anywhere out there.”
“You wouldn’t have. If you’re gonna steal a boat in a busy harbor, you do it inconspicuously. Right?”
Matt expels a laugh in a rush. “So, just a case of being in the right place at the right time. Is that what you’re saying?”
Ivan nods, leaning back in his seat as he stares off into space. “I saw people falling off the container. I couldn’t see who was who, but it turned out Darius practically fell into my lap. I managed to fish him out, even though I was almost certain he was dead, and then I got the hell out of there.”
“Why didn’t you wait around?”
Ivan stares at Tony like he’s the biggest idiot in the world. “When you find yourself in a stolen boat with what could possibly be two dead bodies, the last thing you do is stick around.”
Tony frowns, and then, after a moment, his eyebrows raise, and he nods. “Well, that makes sense.”
“Believe me, it was touch and go there for a while. I had the remains of a dead man at my feet already. And I could tell, with a few glances, that Darius wasn’t dead, but since I couldn’t drive the boat and tend to him at the same time, he was getting closer and closer to it with every moment. And that pissed me off because I quite literally risked my life saving him shortly before that, and then, I found myself stuck between a rock and a hard place and had to escape while also saving him again.”
“Then how did you manage it?” I ask.
He turns his eyes to me, a short laugh falling from his lips before he replies, “I drove straight out of the harbor as fast as I could, and as soon as I figured I was far enough from the lights, I stopped. But I knew I couldn’t wait too long, so I sent out some messages to get someone to meet me down the coast. Then I used whatever clothing I could find to try and slow the bleeding.”
Matt interrupts, “How did you manage to stop the bleeding when you still had to drive the boat?”
Ivan points to his middle as he replies. “Belt. I’ll tell you right now: I’ll never leave my house without a belt again. And I don’t cut the excess off anymore, either. I had to attach two belts together to secure them around his chest. It was just dumb luck that the two bullet wounds were close enough I didn’t have to choose which one to do. And then I used the third belt lower down, but I just about gave myself a hernia trying to manhandle his dead weight.”
Matt frowns. “Where the fuck did you get a third belt?”
Ivan looks at him with his eyebrows raised, and then he says, “I had Seamus, remember?”
“You poor bastard,” Tony mutters. “You would have been in your rights to dump the two of them overboard and go about your life.”
Ivan waves his hand and retorts, “I ain’t smart enough to do that.”
“Oh, I totally get that.”
He falls silent for a few moments, but then Tony speaks up again, “Who did you call to meet you?”
Ivan’s expression suddenly turns serious. “I’m not at liberty to disclose that.”
Tony stares at him with his eyebrows raised. “Seriously?”
Ivan nods and says nothing further on the matter, and Tony looks to Matt, who shrugs, and then Tony says, “I swear to fucking Christ, Matt, if you knew about this.”
He doesn’t elaborate on what he might do, and Matt laughs, putting both his hands up. “I had not a fucking clue. I’m really good at deflection and keeping secrets, but at the end of the day, I’m not a great actor. If nothing else, you should know that about me.”
The two men stare at each other, and after a rather long, awkward pause, I interject, “Seems kind of irrelevant at this point. Ivan did what had to be done, and at the end of the day, the man lived.”
Darius appears in the doorway and then walks across the room, sporting a fresh suit and damp hair. He stops in front of a chair to my left, then shifts the furniture around until he’s at the perfect angle to see everyone, as well as the doorway that leads to where Antoinette is. He sits on the edge of the seat, hunched over in a similar fashion as Tony, with his arms on his knees, and looks at Ivan and asks, “What did you tell them?”
“Just the basics. Your military shower didn’t exactly give us time for a Q&A.”
Darius sits back, sprawling haphazardly on the chair. “Perfect. That’ll save you the hassle of answering unnecessary questions.”
“Unnecessary questions?” Matt says defensively. “You’ve been gone for months and months, and you think there’s such a thing as an unnecessary question?”
“Yes. You all are smart fucking people. You could answer most of the questions you would ask me pretty easily on your own. You’ve known me long enough to know the how and why behind everything I do. So, let’s not waste a bunch of fucking time on useless conversation.”
Tony is glaring daggers at him, and after a moment, he sneers, “Well, now I just want to punch you in the face repeatedly, but I’ll do my best to refrain.”
Darius grins at him, and the expression is such a sharp contrast to his typical demeanor, never mind the ongoing conversation, that I frown. But then Darius replies, “Just as soon as this bullshit is over, you’ll have every opportunity to punch me all that you want.”
Tony acts like he’s thinking it over, then smiles faintly and nods, as if they’ve made a gentleman’s agreement. The room falls silent, and the minutes go by as we’re all lost in our thoughts, except for the nervous energy in the air as Matt, Tony, and Darius all tap a finger on top of their leg, not even knowing that they’re doing it in unison.
Of course, I know what we’re all waiting for, and after some time, our attention is drawn to the doorway. First, it’s Agatha, and she glances at us before disappearing in the direction of the kitchen. She reappears quickly, sitting beside Ivan as she pats him on the leg almost affectionately.
I watch Matt and Tony staring at her, frowning at the exchange, and then they look at each other, and Tony curses loudly. They both turn their attention back to her, but she doesn’t allow them to say anything. “Now’s not the time. She’ll be here any moment, and she’s not going to walk into a pissing contest.”
Both men immediately stand down, but I see their anger simmering below the surface, and I can only assume it’s because they have an idea of who helped Ivan. Or, if nothing else, someone who will know who helped him.
A few moments later, Lilith appears in the doorway, looking over at us before turning back and holding her hand out. Slowly, Antoinette appears.
Darius immediately stands, and even though I can tell he wants nothing more than to rush toward her, he remains where he is. I push down my urge to stand, and we all remain seated as Lilith and Antoinette slowly make their way into the room.
The hostility that Antoinette had been carrying with her earlier is nonexistent. She appears tired yet peaceful, and when Lilith attempts to lead her across the room, she balks. Lilith turns back to her, and they have a brief, silent discussion, and then Lilith releases her hand and continues across the room to seat herself beside Agatha.
Lilith glances at me, giving me a short nod, and I turn my attention back to Antoinette, who’s standing just on the outskirts, wringing her hands nervously.
We all wait patiently, and I fear Darius may pass out from holding his breath when, finally, Antoinette straightens her shoulders and raises her head, not giving any one of us even a glance as she walks directly to Darius and stops in front of him.
She keeps some distance between them but takes one of his hands in hers as he looks her up and down. “Nice shirt.”
She smiles, a breathless laugh escaping, but then it’s cut off as she looks down where her hand is gripping his. Tentatively, he tugs her closer, and then, ever so slowly, the distance between them closes. Her arms wrap around his back, and he hunches over, his arms wrapping around her shoulders, his face hidden in her neck.
She’s whispering apologies, and he’s shaking his head as he does the same. I look away, my eyes going back to Lilith as I motion toward the door, but she shakes her head. “Just give them a minute.”
All of us turn away, and I can see from the expressions around me that no one will be leaving the room unaffected by their reunion. No one even attempts to hide the glassiness of their own eyes. Tony and Matt briefly squeeze each other’s hands before they both lean back in their seats with sighs that sound like they’ve been holding for years.
Soon, the quiet murmurings cease, and I turn back just as Antoinette motions for Darius to sit. He shifts around, urging her to join him, but she waves him off and, instead of sitting in his lap, sinks to sit on the floor between his legs.
She gets comfortable sitting cross-legged. Darius’s hands rest on her shoulders, and Lilith asks, “Do you want to tell us what happened?”
Antoinette nods and then says quietly, “It all started with a dream.”