Chapter 11
11
ACE
Touch the dial and die.
Volume is for losers.
I can hear the TV from my room downstairs; it’s loud enough to wake the neighbors, and I need to be listening for more intruders.
I’m still confused how they got by my security unless they knew how to get in or had an inside person.
More mysteries.
Couldn’t wait.
I wondered how much caffeine I’d need in order to put up with this for the foreseeable future.
People would always be out to hunt the five families—but this felt different, this felt like a threat from the inside, and why her of all people?
They could have attempted to attack anyone.
Dante might be a powerful boss, but going after him meant going after the entire Alfero and Abandonato family, not to mention the rest.
We knew we had a few plants within the families—but we allowed it so that those who thought they were smarter only got the intel they thought they needed.
Then we used that same information against them.
It worked for us, and it was always smarter to keep some of the more intense enemies closer.
I didn’t want to complain and ask how long I would be on this assignment, but I guessed it didn’t really matter whether I died protecting her or died protecting the families themselves.
It was really my only future now, the only thing I truly focused on was doing my job and doing it well.
Putting hope or stock in other things only set people up for failure, and I wasn’t sure my soul could handle more of that.
At least not after what I had gone through.
I put on a pair of gray sweats and took the stairs two at a time.
There were three stairs left, I took two more and stepped over the last.
I really did hate odd numbers.
She was propped up like a queen in the middle of the bed, three pillows stacked behind her—purple and silk, of course.
The light from the TV flickered across her pretty face.
Her bone structure was something sculpted out of a fairy tale, her jaw was firm yet just feminine enough when she smiled that it was sometimes hard to breathe.
Her lips were full and swollen like she’d been chewing them, and her hair was pulled back into a messy bun on her head.
As if the TV could get any louder, a tire commercial came on making the walls shake.
“By all means, add the surround sound, I think you forgot it.”
She looked around expectantly.
“Shit, we have surround sound in this room?”
“I was kidding.”
"I like noise. I can’t sleep without it.”
"And here I thought your own snoring would do the trick,” I teased, leaning against the doorframe.
“I’m serious, you need to rest.”
“No.” She waved the remote at me.
“What I need is to not be attacked in my own house on campus while my bodyguard plays with his yellow ducky in the shower.”
I rolled my eyes.
“It’s purple and it’s a soap container.”
“Still a duck.”
“You done?”
“No.” She yawned.
Her eyes darted from the TV to me then back to the TV.
“You know you can stay.” I could hear it in her voice, the subtle tremor—she didn’t want to admit it, but things felt real and she was shaken up.
Maybe I was being an asshole, but I wanted her to genuinely ask.
“What part of I can’t fall asleep to noise and TV did you not get?”
She swallowed and looked down at her lap.
It wasn’t a suggestion.
I fought hard enough for air just standing next to her let alone having to lay next to her in a bed and share an intimate space with her.
I had boundaries, and it seemed like she wanted to jump over every single one of them.
"Fine,” I barked out. “I’ll lay on this side.” I pointed to the right of her. “It’s closest to the door.” I pulled out my gun and placed it on the night stand then started peeling off my shirt.
I didn’t realize what I was doing until it was too late.
I wasn’t the type of guy who made mistakes, but I was currently half naked in front of her, just hesitating. Do I put the shirt back on and apologize, or do I just commit and take it off?
Putting it back on meant I was hiding something, so I roughly peeled the rest of it over my head and tossed it onto the floor only to pick it up, fold it neatly and set it on a chair and crawl into bed. “I sleep naked, so this will have to do. I get hot. No touching. No heavy breathing. And if your foot as much as points itself in my direction—either one of them—I’ll start cutting off toes until you wake up.”
She snorted out a laugh. “Wow, and kids are scared of the boogie man. I think I’d take a monster under my bed any day of the week.”
"You mean you don't like the one in it?”
Her eyes flickered to my chest. “That’s a lot of knife wounds for a living breathing monster. You sure you aren’t a ghost?”
I ran a hand over the rigid scars. “I’m sure the person who gave them to me wishes I were.”
“Who gave them to you?” She asked.
"It’s not a bedtime story, Raven.”
"It’s still a story,” she pointed out. Her eyes were so expectant, so large. How the hell was she born into this family? She deserved so much more than the bloody future she had.
Why the hell were they trying to kill her of all people?
She was hard to deal with, but she wasn’t a threat.
I mean, she’d been hard to tame and literally nobody wanted to guard her, but it was more or less her tongue that got her into trouble not her ability to take a man down.
It dawned on me in that instant.
Her mouth was dangerous.
Her tongue a sword.
Quick witted, intelligent, and always on the offensive.
Dangerous—but a good ally to have and nobody would argue with whomever she chose to align with because she was solid, trustworthy, brutal.
Even Dante.
She wouldn’t enter into an arranged marriage—unless it was over her dead body, but could she be seduced into one?
Fuck, is that what Louis did?
My past came slamming into the present.
Was I looking at a carbon copy?
Similar story, different main character?
"So?” She leaned in. “Who tried to kill you?” She tilted her head. “At least nineteen times. Wow, that’s a large number for a large knife.”
I slapped her hand away. “I don’t like touching, least of all from you.”
“Am I that dirty?"
"Tainted,” I whispered. “And off limits. Do you really think I want to give up parts of my body in the name of temptation?”
A small smile spread across her face, a small dimple on her right cheek making itself known. “Does that mean I tempt you? Finally?”
She had tempted me then, but she was young and I was stupid, so I left the country and then lost more brain cells, fell in love, was betrayed and nearly killed.
Maybe I should have given in to that dimple then.
Maybe if I had I could have it now.
"I’m not a monk.”
“Eunuch.” She nodded. “That’s how I’m supposed to think of you, right?”
My manhood could only take so many hits, but I nodded. “Exactly.”
"Mmmmkay, then you won’t mind if I get closer, now tell me my bedtime story, the one with the killing and the knives and you walking away or in your case limping away still breathing.”
She wouldn’t quit.
I knew her.
So I punched the pillow beneath me and began to talk. “A long time ago, in a land far, far away?—”
“Solid start.”
“I didn’t even practice.” I tried to suppress my smile and almost failed but managed to hold it in when she faced me again.
“Alright, so what happened in this far away land.”
"There was a monster who was taken in by a princess. All his life he was told he would never be anything but a monster, but she let him in on a little secret.”
“What was that?”
"The monster was born a prince, forced to live in the darkness in order to protect his bloodline.”
“Did he?”
“Did he what?”
“End up protecting it?”
My stomach lurched. “He almost lost it, but yes, it’s protected.”
“Good. I hate sad endings.”
"Then you’ll hate this story.”
She reached for me, and this time I let her run her fingertips over my chest. “Tell me anyway. Maybe it will help me deal with my sadness, maybe it will help you finally deal with yours.”
The arrow hit the mark.
How did she know?
How did she see it?
"Unresolved sadness,” she whispered, trailing her finger down my chest and up again, “masquerades as anger—it’s why you wanted me to yell at you, to react in the moment. I knew it even though I couldn’t compartmentalize anymore, even though I hated you for it—still hate you for it because I know you’ll keep doing it—but you have a lot of anger too—it’s hard trying to decide what box each emotion fits into.”
I ignored her. “The monster believed the lie; he stepped into the sun and embraced his future—with her.”
"Which hand?” Raven asked.
“Pardon?” I searched her eyes.
“The knife.” Raven whispered. “Which hand did she use, her right or her left?”
Frowning, I answered. “She’s right handed, but she used her left, why?”
Raven let out a rough exhale. “The truth might hurt.”
"I have no heart left to break.”
She smirked. “Okay.”
“Tell me.”
I was suddenly ravenous for her to keep speaking. Was this part of her charm? Part of her spell? Was I in over my head? Why the hell did I agree to even lie in bed with her when I’d clearly put up boundaries? When I even swore I wouldn’t touch another woman for the rest of my life?
Untrusting.
Cruel.
Liars.
Fuck, I wish I liked men.
No, that was just loneliness speaking.
“So?” I grabbed her hand and gently pushed her away from my scars. “What’s the verdict?”
She swallowed and gripped my hand. I let her, only out of curiosity. Her skin was soft. I felt nothing.
I lied to myself when my heart began to thud against my chest.
I just wanted to hear her version of the story.
"She was right handed, so in using her left, she wanted to hurt you, not kill you. Had she wanted to kill you, she would have used her dominant hand,” Raven said cryptically. “She was angry, she wanted to scar you, to humiliate you, she wanted you to feel the warm blood ooze down her fingers and see it spread across your chest. She wanted to maim you—so you’d always look in the mirror and think of her. I imagine, knowing that, you wish she would have used the right hand. I wonder, knowing that, if you wish, you would have died.”
I nearly stopped breathing. “I’d cut the scars from my body if I could, then.”
"I’d help you if I didn’t get queasy,” she said in an honest voice while my stomach sank to the ground. Would I never get rid of her? Of the memories. “There’s always tattoos, Ace.”
I almost laughed. “Yes, I’ll just get a giant De Lange crest across my chest like everyone else in my family to cover up the scars from the person who promised me forever.”
I’d said too much.
I couldn’t take it back.
I tried to turn away but Raven stopped me, not with her hand, or her face, but with her words. “Nobody has the power to promise forever.”
Instantly, I felt stupid. “Right.”
"But a moment?” Raven sighed. “That’s a promise kept.”
“How so?”
She turned onto her back and looked up at the ceiling. A tear ran down her cheek colliding with the pillow. “Try it.”
“Try what?”
"Promising me a moment.”
I turned onto my back and stared up at the ceiling with her then reached across the mattress and gripped her hand. “I’ll hold your hand for five seconds and try to stay awake so you can sleep.”
"See?” She squeezed my hand. “Was it that hard?”
This moment? Yes.
Because for a brief second, she tempted me…
To promise her more.