Chapter 17
ALONZO
Her words are daggers to my heart. Pain is sharp, consuming, and I nearly bow over as it spreads.
I have no one to blame for it but myself.
I did this. I said those things. I was too much of a coward to admit what I was really thinking, feeling.
I fell back on what I knew, hiding behind the lies I twisted around in my head.
I want to beg her to listen to me, to let me explain. Let me fix it. Show her that I was an ass, totally wrong, and I didn’t mean a single damn word of it.
Her words, foreshadowing what she’s sure to be her death, fill me with a manic need to prove her wrong. To show her that she’ll never have to worry or fear such a thing happening. I’ll stand in the way. I will protect her. I won’t lose her. Not yet. Not ever.
I stare at her cold expression. There is no regret, hurt, or anger. She looks every bit the assassin she was trained to be. I hate it. This isn’t her. This version of her was who she was, not who she became, who she forged herself into in all the years away from this bullshit.
I want my Rori back. The Rori who laughed and joked with me and shared things that I was sure that at the time she hadn’t even told Sienna. She trusted me, and I stomped on it. I don’t know what I have to do to fix this, but I’ll do whatever I have to.
I swallow hard, the words bubbling up but not able to pass my lips.
Finally, she blinks, and the coldness is gone.
In its place is apathy. “Look, Alonzo, I’ll thank you for the thought of coming after me if you were trying to help, but you are not part of this.
If you want to live to find someone else and have the family you’ve always wanted, then this is your chance to leave. ”
I wince at the reference of the conversation where I let my walls down. Where I shared things that I held close to the chest, even with my own family. It’s a low blow, but one I deserve. “No, I’m not leaving you, Rori.”
“If you’re staying because you think I’ll forgive you—”
“I’m staying because I am not going to leave you to fight this alone.
Do I want you to forgive me? Of course I fucking do.
I was…I was a fucking idiot, Rori. I want to make this right.
Make things right with us. But I also don’t want you to face all this bullshit alone.
You’ve done everything else alone in your life, and this time, you need to have someone in your corner that you can trust to have your back.
Take out all the other stuff, you know I’ll have your back.
We’ve been doing it for weeks, and even if it pissed me off, I knew that you were going to be alright. ”
“This isn’t like that, Alonzo,” she snaps, exasperated. “You really can’t get that through your head, can you?”
“Maybe the situations aren’t the same, but I am fucking good at what I do, and you know it.”
“I don’t fucking care what you’re good at!
” she shouts, some of that apathetic mask finally slipping.
Her eyes blaze, her body vibrating with it.
Hades lets out a low whine of worry, but she quiets him with a gentle pat on his head when he moves close and presses into her side.
“I do not want you to be here, Alonzo. So go.”
“I can’t. Tat…umpphhhh.” I land on the floor with a thud, my head slamming off the floor with a loud crack.
I see stars, pain bursting, and I try to blink them away quickly.
Especially when Rori’s hand slaps hard over my mouth with such force that it makes my face sting. Her mouth is by my ear in an instant.
“Are you trying to get yourself fucking killed, you absolute moron?” she hisses furiously, but careful to keep her voice low.
“Do not even dare to utter their fucking name or gender. This entire place is lined with cameras and bugs. Possibly some of theirs. I mean it, Alonzo. The way things are going, it’ll be me snapping your fucking neck at their order for it, and as much as I really don’t like you right now, I don’t want you dead. ”
Wait, she doesn’t want me to die? That’s progress.
I give a sharp nod. Yeah, that was a fucking rookie mistake. “Sorry,” I mouth against her palm.
Her face lifts, looking down at me. “Be quiet.” She mouths, but her expression is warning, and I quickly nod again.
She moves away, climbing to her feet and heading for the bed.
I clamber to my feet, stilling when I see the armful of devices in her arms. She looks around shrewdly before she finally decides on the bathroom.
I follow her, watching in fascination as she dumps them all in the bathtub and turns on the faucet.
Neither of us speaks, watching the tub fill.
Finally, satisfied, she flicks off the faucet and turns back to me. “Go back to your room, Alonzo. And tell your men to start searching their rooms with a fine-toothed comb. If you think you found them all, look again.”
“There is no way they had time to set all this up before we got here,” I mutter, looking at the tub again.
A pitying stare. “This is a Russian Pakhan, Alonzo. They trust no one. Ever. This entire place is wired with any kind of device you can think of.”
Shit. I really am fucking this all up. I should know this. Should expect it. I’m allowing myself to get distracted by Rori. In making sure she’s alright.
One thing I won’t compromise on with her is leaving her to face this alone. Everything else, fine, she can call me out on, but not that. “I’m not leaving, Rori. Romanov and Belov can think and do what they want, but I’m staying. For you. Only for you.”
Her lashes flutter. A small trickle of hope. Is she affected by my words?
“Then it’s your own funeral, Alonzo, and I hope your father and Pietro know that when you get sent home in pieces if this blows up.”
Well, that’s certainly blunt. She’s back to looking detached, but I refuse to believe it. Those steel walls she’s erected can be scaled. Good thing I’m a strong climber.
“If I die helping you, Aurora O’Brien, then I’ll have done something right. If that’s what it takes for you to forgive me, then that’s what I’ll do.”
That finally gets a reaction. She gives an incredulous scoff.
“You’ll die just so I’ll forgive you? You know what, this is getting ridiculous now, Alonzo.
Is that all it will take to make you go home or leave me the hell alone to forgive you?
Fine, I forgive you. I forgive you for being an arrogant son of a bitch, for hurting me, and for showing me what I could have only to rip it all out from under me by being cruel.
Consider yourself absolved and go be happy. Far away from here. Away from me.”
She really thinks that it’s going to be that easy? She’s delusional.
Unwilling to prevail the distance between us, I stalk toward her.
She doesn’t back away, but I see her body stiffen.
Her lips pinch, and her eyes narrow. “You think I want lip service from you either, Rori?” I ask her softly, staring down at her, not touching her, but crowding her.
“I want your forgiveness, yes, but I also want you. I want everything from you. I want the woman who was in my life before this. Before she finally told her secrets. The ones she didn’t trust me with.
Maybe at the time, that was for the best, but deep down, you know that you could have trusted me.
I would have understood. We could have worked to fix all of this before we got to this point. We—”
“Trust you? You wanted me to trust you?” A sharp, sarcastic laugh fills the room.
“I think I slammed your head a little too hard into the floor if you think I was ever going to trust you with shit, Alonzo. You let me know just how much I couldn’t trust you.
Couldn’t trust any of you. The only person I could have trusted was Sienna, but telling her anything about who I am, what I am, would have put her in danger.
I couldn’t risk that. It would have put you in danger too, and I didn’t want to do that either. ”
That stings. “Fine, you have a point. Still, if you had been honest when the Chameleon was brought up instead of trying to handle it on your own, a lot of this could have been avoided.”
“No, it wouldn’t have. Nico was never going to be okay with me saying I was a trained assassin and hiding out under an alias.
That I know one of the deadliest assassins in the world.
He’d have locked me in the dungeon, tortured me, and eventually killed me when he realized he’d get nothing out of me. ”
“I’d have never let that happen. I stuck up for you, Rori.
They questioned you all the fucking time, and I told Nico to cut it the fuck out.
That we could trust you. That you were on our side.
” My own anger and hurt flames. “I have put my ass on the line for you every fucking time, even when you were pissed, when I hurt you. Yet you act like you will never trust me again. I made a mistake. A horrible mistake that I will apologize for the rest of my life if I have to, but just like then, I’m not going to walk away.
I’m going to be here when you finally realize you’ve always had someone in your corner. ”