Chapter 16 #2
I park outside of the Dresvanni estate and take a deep breath.
It’s not unexpected or out of the ordinary that I’m here now.
I’m not sneaking around. I don’t bother parking where the guards can’t see me; they’ve gotten used to seeing my face in and out of the estate.
Unless Carmine has told them about my betrayal, I don’t think I need to worry about them manhandling me.
Still, I don’t go inside.
Going inside means I need to make up my mind. I’m not ready for that yet.
It eats away at me as I sit in the car getting colder and colder as the minutes, then hours, pass.
I sense that I’ve gotten a text, but I can’t bring myself to look at it right away.
Instead, I close my eyes and imagine that none of this is happening. That my uncle didn’t order me to take care of Carmine. That he doesn’t want to take over his entire family.
I groan. What am I doing?
I’m supposed to be strong. I’m supposed to be one of the best. Yet, I’m here debating something that shouldn’t even be a debate. I don’t agree with my uncle’s plan, but that has never mattered in the past.
The blood on my hands stains down to my marrow. Nothing will ever change that.
What’s a little more?
I huff. “God-fucking-dammit,” I slam my fists against the steering wheel. “This shouldn’t be so fucking hard.”
As I’m putting my hands on my head, a familiar car pulls up to the gate, goes inside, and I watch as it stops at the carport.
Carmine steps out, looks toward the gate, and I swear his eyes meet mine through the tinted windows.
As though he can actually see me. I know he can’t, but the expression of concern wrinkling his features makes my fingers twitch and I want to get out and go over to him immediately.
I don’t.
I grab my phone and finally look at the text. It’s from him.
What happened? My meeting is over. I’m coming back now.
Swallowing the lump in my throat, I hover over the screen with my thumb but then turn the screen off. I lift my hips so that I can shove the device back into my pocket and then I stare at the front door to the Dresvanni estate again.
How long can I avoid this?
I shake my head. “Be a man,” I grumble. “Just…do what you’re told, get it over with. They’re your family.”
A rush of adrenalin comes over me. I make sure my gun is in its holster, a dagger hidden in my boot as always, then I head to the gate.
I’m let in with no problem. So, he must not have told anyone about me. I take a deep breath, watching it form a cloud in front of my face, and make my way up the stairs to the door.
My pulse is racing. My palms itch. I can’t keep myself from glancing around me before trying the door and finding it unlocked.
The second I push the door open and step inside, Carmine is there. Standing in the foyer, his face flushed from the cold, his hair windswept, and brow furrowed.
“How long were you going to hide out there?” he asks me.
I notice Tiberi and Alessio are nearby, looking as though they’d stop everything they had been doing just to be here. I step closer to Carmine.
“I wanted to wait until you were back,” I insist. He eyes me suspiciously
“Are you going to tell us what’s going on?” Alessio asks. “We deserve to be in the loop. What happened in Greece?”
Carmine doesn’t look in his or Tiberi’s direction. “I’ll fill you in later,” he says. “Right now, Soren and I need to talk.” He shifts his weight and turns toward the hallway, but doesn’t step away yet.
“I don’t think that’s a good idea. Ever since Soren has come into your life you’ve been in nothing but trouble. You’ve been nothing but trouble actually,” Tiberi notes.
I snort softly. “Believe me, he causes his own trouble.” I try to mask the anxiety creeping up my spine. It’s difficult.
Alessio rolls his eyes. “I don’t trust you.”
“You don’t have to trust him; you just need to get the fuck out of the way. I promise, I’ll tell you everything that’s happened after I talk to Soren. We need to clear a few things up,” Carmine says, his voice genuine. I can tell he does want to bring his family into the loop.
Unfortunately for them, he won’t have the chance.
“Fine. The second you’re done talking to Soren,” Alessio says in a clipped tone.
Carmine nods, not demanding that Alessio change his tone. Not insisting that he’s the one in charge. It’s a stark difference from what I’m used to. Both with my own family and Carmine’s usual demeanor.
Finally, I follow him down the hallway and into his office. The office that used to belong to his father. The man who violated him.
The memory of him spilling his guts to me on that rooftop come flooding back and my stomach clenches.
God, the rain that dripped down his face and mixed with his tears. The redness of his eyes…the plump swollen state of his lips. How much pain he had felt just telling me about it.
I feel the pain in my own chest and I don’t understand how it’s possible to feel someone else’s pain so clearly, but I do.
I close my eyes.
The door is closed behind us. I know Carmine is standing in front of me; but I don’t say anything.
“Soren.”
I don’t reply.
“Soren. Tell me what happened.”
I slowly turn around so that my back is facing him.
There’s no guards in the room. He trusts me enough to be alone with me. Totally and completely alone.
Just like his father had been when he had died.
No guards in the room. No one to save him.
Just an expected bullet to the head and chest.
“My uncle knows everything,” I tell him. “I don’t know how, so don’t ask. It doesn’t matter anyway.”
“Of course it matters. If we’ve got someone telling our business, I want to know who,” Carmine insists. “He…he knows everything? Are you sure?”
I reach down toward my gun, slowly. Just enough that it probably appears like a normal casual movement.
“He knows I’ve been protecting you,” I say, eyes still closed. I imagine his face. It’s probably twisted with uncertainty. His eyes are probably all shiny and hot with anger. Anger at me, my uncle, whoever the shithead who figured it out is. “He knows I don’t agree with his…total take over plan.”
I feel Carmine get even closer to me. My body warms as his hand touches my shoulder.
“Fuck. What did he say? What did he do?”
I’m quiet, I slide my hand down even more.
“Soren, for fucks sake tell me.”
I grab my gun and turn around, pressing it against his sternum.
Carmine gasps. His eyes flick down to the gun pressed to his chest and then up to my eyes that are now open. I stare back into the face of the man I have to kill.
“Soren…” he mumbles. His bright eyes move as he thinks. As he figures it out.
“Why?” he asks.
I swallow the lump in my throat. “I have to,” I growl out. Low and rumbling in my chest.
“You don’t,” he whispers.
I clench my teeth. “You don’t understand,” I say. “Eivor…he’s not going to stop. It doesn’t matter if I kill you, someone else kills you. You’ll be dead, Carm.”
My fingers twitch.
“I won’t. You know that. For sucks sake, Ren. After what we just shared? You’re really going to kill me?” His voice is low. Like he doesn’t want to alert anyone. Doesn’t want a guard to come bursting through the door.
Why doesn’t he yell for help?
He might stand a chance. Maybe.
My breath is shaky. “I have to,” I repeat myself. “If I don’t. I die.”
Carmine lifts a hand and presses it to my wrist. “No, you don’t. If they come near you—”
I cut him off. “My family is all I have! My loyalty to them…it’s all I’m worth. Tell me, if your only option was to kill me or betray your family, which would you choose? Which would you really choose?” My voice gets louder, and my eyes burn. I press the gun firmer to his chest.
“I’m in charge here,” he hisses. “I’m not your uncle. I’m not some power-hungry tyrant trying to take over the world. I want to build my empire surrounded by others’ power, not crushing everyone to dust.”
“You don’t kill?” I ask him in disbelief. “You’ve never had blood on your hands? You’ll never kill an entire family to take their place?”
Carmine’s jaw shifts. “I never said that,” he tells me. “There will always be blood on my hands, but it won’t be for no fucking reason.”
I stay quiet, struggling to keep my composure.
“Do you really want my blood on your hands, Soren?” he asks. He lifts his other hand and pressed it to my cheek. His thumb brushes my bottom lip. Warmth shoots up and down my body, to my ears and neck, and down to my groin.
My hand nearly shakes. My knees feel weak.
I still don’t reply. I just glare at him; more and more pain settling into my bones.
“Your finger isn’t even on the trigger.”
The look in Carmine’s eyes is so intense that I can’t help but break.
Every breath comes rushing out and my lip trembles.
How emotional can one man make me?
I try to hold it in. I try to find the darkness that dwells inside me; let it take over. Let it do the job I need to do. But I find that the darkness is too far mingled with the rest of me; and the rest of me, isn’t willing to even put my finger on the damn trigger.
“I can’t,” I whisper. “Not you. I can’t lose you.”
“You don’t have to,” Carmine reminds me.
Right as I’m about to say something else, the door bursts open.
“What the fuck is going on in here?” Alessio asks, voice so loud compared to our low tones that it actually makes me flinch.
The gun is still pressed to Carmine’s chest.
“I knew it! I knew we couldn’t trust you! Get the hell away from him!”
Suddenly I’m grabbed by the back of my shirt and my gun is knocked out of my hand, grabbed and tossed across the room. I instinctively reach for my dagger but before I can, a gun is pressed to my head.
“Alessio!” Carmine shouts. “No, don’t!”
“What is your problem? You’re really going to save a guy who could’ve killed you in a split second?” Alessio spits out with distain and disbelief.
“Just let him go, now. I trust him. Don’t you fucking touch him,” Carmine hisses and I feel his hands on me now.
He pulls me back away from Alessio.
“You’re going to go against your own family for him?” Alessio accuses. “He’s trying to kill you! Are you that fucking messed up, Carmine!”
My head is spinning.
“I gotta get out of here,” I mumble.
“No, don’t. We need to—” Carmine starts, but I shove myself away from him.
“Just let me go! I can’t be here.” I don’t bother to get my gun from across the room. I don’t care anymore. I don’t need it.
I can’t bring myself to use it away.
“I don’t deserve to be here,” I mumble.
I hear Carmine’s voice full of emotion. “Soren, no. I need you here—"
“Let him leave,” Alessio orders. “He isn’t welcome here anymore. He never should have been!”
“You don’t understand! Just let me explain for one second. His family is trying to make him hurt me. Let me—” I hear the office door slam closed. I have a feeling it was his brother that did it. I can hear the shouting, muffled now.
I’m already near the front door, though I don’t remember walking down the hallway.
All I can do is storm outside into the bitter cold and back to my car. My hands are shaking but it doesn’t matter. I don’t know where I’m going. I don’t care where I’m going.
I just need to get out of here.
I don’t know what Eivor is going to do when he finds out.
All I know is, I can’t kill Soren.
I can’t kill the man I’m falling in love with.