Chapter 7 #2
“What do you think just happened?” Tiberi asks, waving a hand.
“You are in our father’s place now, Carmine.
You are responsible for carrying us on your back and leading us into the future.
Now, you’re not alone. We’re not heavy burdens to carry…
but someday, Cassian is going to be the one in charge.
You’re not going to have a future to lead if you keep kicking him while he’s down. ”
My throat is tight, eyes wet, and I can barely see him now. I tighten my jaw as I try to keep it together.
“I don’t know what to do,” I reply simply.
“I don’t believe that.” He takes a step back. “When you do know, we’ll be here.”
Tiberi walks out of the room without a backward glance.
All alone in the library with nothing but my thoughts to keep my company.
I half expect Alessio to come storming in when he gets home and punch me square in the face. Maybe I could use it.
Even fifteen minutes later, no one comes in. Not to get me for dinner, not to tell me to go fuck myself, nothing.
I slowly move down to the floor, the glass a couple feet away. I sit on the floor, the seat behind my back, and my bleeding foot curled in front of me. I slowly pick at the glass shards, trying to get them out of my foot.
One by one.
Each tiny sliver coated in my red blood.
I toss them into the pile. Someone will clean it up.
Someone always does.
Except me. Right?
I’m left here all alone, no one picking me up off the ground and cleaning me up.
Soren.
Soren did that.
At the office. A pool of Jackson’s blood all round, and he had helped me up off the floor, taken me home, and cleaned me up. It wasn’t the first time either.
I stare at a fragment of glass on my palm as I think about the night I’d gotten so trashed that I had my dick out in public, doing who knew what with it.
It wasn’t that part that I think about though, no, it’s remembering flashes of Soren’s face, and being in a car. Then waking up in my bed.
Twice now, he’d been there for me when no one else was. When even I wasn’t there for me.
Still, I refuse to call him. Refuse to let him dictate my life, what I do, why I do it.
I can’t let him. I can’t. I’ve already let him and his family too far into mine. They’re
strangers.
Strangers that shouldn’t be making me feel so frustrated.
No, that was just Soren.
Any arousal I previously felt toward him is not totally gone, I realize. Despite everything, my dick still twitches softly at the thought of him.
Guilt rises up from my stomach and I swallow it down along with the bile.
How can I feel this way about him? How can I imagine those things?
Punishment…
Sex.
I’ve never felt disgusted by sex before, yet right now I feel sick to my stomach about the things my drunken mind wants that man to do to me.
Knowing how easily he could use me to take over my family. My life. I toss the glass shard to the side.
“No, that’s not going to h-happen,” I tell myself. A few tears slip over my waterline and I wipe them away furiously.
My father would never want this. He would never want that. The Fiorellis holding some kind of power over us.
He had been willing to work on allyship, but Eivor Fiorelli refused each and every time. The man always wants more than he gives.
I stare at the floor, to the side of the broken bottle and soaked rug.
My father.
Or Eivor?
I realize, maybe both.
I shake my head. I don’t want to think about it.
I can’t. I won’t.
It doesn’t work.
All my mother had wanted for her children was for them to grow up strong and know their place in the world, in our family. That we were here to protect each other.
Protect her. Like she protected us.
Yet, I was alive, in a mess of my own making, while she was dead.
Dead and buried deep in the ground, rotting and decaying, never aging, never getting to see her sons again.
Never getting to see them grow up. Never knowing the rest of her family.
Even if my other brothers had been born of the other wives while she was still alive, she would have loved them anyway.
She would have loved them like her own.
Not like Tiberi’s, who left when he was only an infant. Or Tommaso and Cassian’s…who left the family and only calls them a couple times a year.
My mother—mine and Alessio’s—she would be here still. Loving us. All of us.
Protecting us.
If only she had been here when…
“No, stop.” I put my head in my hands. “No. It’s fine. I’m fine.”
I curl my fingers in my hair tightly.
“I can’t. No.”
My breath hitches as more tears drip down my face, and I growl in frustration.
I can’t stop hearing those words.
You lie. You always lie.
You deserved it.
You probably wanted it.
My father’s voice.
Rough, quiet, and mean.
In the darkness he whispered things to me. I remember them so clearly, even years later. As far back as I try to push them, they never go away. Never.
It’s like it’s happening now. As I close my eyes and meet the darkness of my eyelids.
He’s here.
He’s here, and it’s dark, quiet.
He smells like tobacco and alcohol. Mint washes over me, mouthwash he tries to cover it up with.
He whispers to me that no one can ever know. It’s our secret time together. It’s special. It’s just for us.
He’s so big.
I’m so small.
Everything about him is rough. His hands, his body, the parts of him that I don’t know the names of yet, that he forces upon me.
He touches me. He touches me all over, everywhere. Underneath all of my clothing, even as I beg him to stop. As I start to cry and he scolds me. As he tells me that no one will believe me. That this is what I deserve. What I need.
Every single part of me is violated. Over and over and over again.
Until he’s done.
As I’m pulled back into reality, it feels jarring. I’m no longer small and fragile. No one is touching me but myself. My arms are wrapped around myself, my knees pulled up.
I’m shivering and shaking. Tears staining the knees of my pants.
“No,” I mumble. “That didn’t happen.” I sniffle and wipe at my face with both of my hands.
“He’s… He was a good man, he was good,” I whisper to myself. “He didn’t deserve to die. I didn’t want him to die.”
I huff and push myself up off the floor. My heart is racing, and I hate how weak and powerless I feel.
“I can’t be here anymore, I can’t,” I mumble and start for the door. My foot hurts with each step, but I ignore it.
I need to go somewhere else. Somewhere…darker.
Somewhere I won’t feel so fucking pathetic.
Somewhere I can prove myself. Prove that I’m in charge, I am the one leading us into the future. I will protect us.
Anxiety and determination both flood my alcohol-sloshed brain and I head up the stairs to my room.
Everyone must still be having dinner.
Good. They won’t notice when I leave.
I don’t need any questions.
I don’t need anyone right now.
Not them and not Soren.
I quickly pull on a pair of black jeans, a white t-shirt, and a button up. I may not be suited up, but I still can’t go anywhere without looking put together. I brush my hair as best I can, wash my face and ignore how red my eyes look.
Then, I turn my phone off and toss it onto my bed. Just in case Soren has been using it to track me.
I agreed to let him come with me, trail me, continue whatever stalking he insists on doing while we handle the Carvel situation, but I don’t want him there tonight.
No, where I’m going, no one is going to keep me from danger.