Chapter 15 Tennant
Iam both surprised and not to see Benjamin fast asleep in Ignacio’s bed.
The baby mouse didn’t give me the chance to invite him to sleep with us last night, after he found Lio curled up between Hollis and me.
Whether it was because he wrongly thought I was sleeping, or he didn’t want to disturb the little Boss, he was there and gone too quickly for me to do anything except watch the confusion and devotion to his Boss and friend before he left.
I assumed he went back to his own bed, but the way he is so peacefully and deeply asleep at Chaos’s side tells me that even if that was the case, it wasn’t a restful sleep.
“At least, give him a little longer before you finish the job,” Ignacio’s hoarse, drug-riddled voice tells me.
I look from Benjamin to him. “You’ve looked better,” I comment, ignoring the bait his barely-awake brain has so easily given me.
“Felt better,” he says. His arm tightens around Benjamin and I narrow my eyes.
If I could feel sympathy for anyone, it’d be for the second person to ever survive a brush with death at Cristian’s hands, but it’s hard to even pretend with someone I don’t think deserves an ounce of the love and affection he receives.
“I’m not you,” I say lowly. “I will never hurt him. If he still wants you… I can’t ever tell him he’s not allowed to do something.”
“I find that hard to believe, considering you hate me.”
I shrug. “Believe what you want about me, I don’t care. Benjamin is mine, full stop. I will never let him go. But…I’ve been told he gets the right to choose. If Roman and Benjamin want you, I’m not going to stop them, unless I have a reason to.”
Benjamin shifts on the narrow bed, clinging to Ignacio, as if, even in his sleep, he’s terrified of the other man being taken away. It’s…irritating, at best, and resigning, at worst, to know that there must still be some good in Chaos. Otherwise, neither Roman nor Benjamin would trust him.
I hate seeing his hands on Benjamin. Hate that he knows what the baby mouse feels and sounds like, that they had more time together.
It makes me want to mark him up, to leave a claiming bite on every inch of skin possible.
And Benjamin would let me. Because he’s mine, and he knows it.
He might hate the idea of it at first, hate that I see him as something I need to stake a claim in, but he’d also be lying if he tried to say the dangerous parts of me, the one that wants to lock him away and keep him to myself, isn’t part of the attraction.
Benjamin brings out the worst of the monster, and he never shies away from it.
So, he can have Ignacio, if he wants. I’ll just remind him, over and over, and over again, who his heart, body, soul, and blood now belong to.
There’s plenty of room in that generous heart of his for both Chaos and I, and if my Baby Mouse needs another lesson as proof, my knife and I are ready.
“I won’t hurt him,” Ignacio says. “I’ve learned my lesson. I just want him to be happy. Don’t you want the same?”
I barely glance at him and I see a need for me to understand, to give him permission to have what will never solely be his again. Too bad it’s not my choice to make, it never was, and that’s the hardest part of all this.
“I’m heading out. I don’t know how long it’ll take. Please let him know, and tell him that he can call me if he needs to once he's awake.”
I turn for the door. “Tennant.”
I should keep walking, but…I have to at least pretend to try. Looking back at Ignacio, I meet his dark, sleep-filled eyes. “Don’t give him a hard time about this. He needed sleep.”
I sneer at him. “He can have whatever he wants and needs, I’d never begrudge that.
I pay attention to everything there is about him, and will never keep him from it.
I'll only be there to prop him up if he needs me to.” I stare at him for a moment.
“If you’re worried that this,” I motion between the two of them, “needs an explanation, or is wrong in any way, or that I somehow will be upset over it, then maybe you are in the wrong. I don’t have to like it; all I need to do is respect him and his choices.
Questioning and wondering what I may do simply tells me you still aren’t listening to him properly, and you don’t deserve him. ”
Leaving Benjamin is hard, more than I expected, but my excursion needs to be done sooner rather than later, so I force myself to continue on with my mission without a look back.
“How many clothes can one toy have?” I mutter, shifting through the clothes rack in Roman’s former closet.
Hollis chuckles in my ear. “He likes options.”
Options, sure, we’ll call it that. Never mind that he technically had three other closets full of shit, on top of this one in his fathers’ apartment.
There's the one Roman, Hol, and I shared in the apartment downstairs, the one we shared with Jude at the main house, and his childhood bedroom’s at the main house.
Who knew one tiny person could accumulate so many clothes.
Pulling out a few skirt suits that I hope Roman will like, I pull out as many of what he calls “fun” skirts as well—ones that are for everyday wear versus belonging with any one suit.
The boy has plenty of regular suits, but the only time he’s worn pants since the Bosses were taken was on the rescue mission.
I don’t think he has plans to go back to pants unless absolutely necessary.
It doesn’t matter to me what he wears, pants or skirt, it's whatever the little shit feels most comfortable in. Considering I’m the first one who ever saw him in a skirt when he was ten, I know how much being able to wear what he wants means to him.
I try not to think of the trust he showed me that day, or how significant it was that he told me about his more feminine style before he went to his father…
There are certain things I try very hard not to think about when it comes to Roman, and my position in his life before we got together is one of them. Second only to when he first started having sex—though that is for very different reasons.
“Ten…” Hollis doesn’t have to finish his sentence, I know what he must be seeing on the cameras without him having to spell it out.
“No one engages,” I tell my team. “I don’t want any interruptions. Unless you believe your or my life is in danger, you are to stand back.”
I get a round of affirmatives, and pick up the stack of clothes I’ve pulled out for Roman.
“Is Hollis’s office all packed up?” I ask as I make my way to the living room and stop to wait there, setting the clothes over the back of a chair.
“Yes, sir. I think we got everything he and young Mr. Mason requested. I made sure to follow their instructions to a T in order to disconnect everything.”
“Good. You’re free to leave. The sooner those two can get set up and start working, the better.”
There’s hesitation before the confirmation comes over the line.
“Everyone else, hold your position for now.”
Another round of “Yes, sir,” and then the comms beeps and Hollis says, “Private channel. Highly doubt you want everyone to hear whatever bullshit Cristian has to say.”
“Thank you, Tesoro.”
“Stepping off the elevator now,” he replies.
I’ve long since had the time between the elevator and front door memorized, so silently, I count down. Crossing my ankles, I shove my hands into my pockets as I lean against the chair while the front door opens and slams shut in the foyer.
Every click of Cristian’s shoes on the hardwood has the darker, baser part of me wanting to come out to play.
The loyal part, the one that remembers where we came from, how far we’ve gone for one another, says this is wrong.
But the other part…the one that I refuse to acknowledge exists, tells me that everything I do is because of the feelings I have for Roman and Benjamin.
The sight of Cristian, with his gray suit, perfectly combed hair, black eyes with dark circles under them, and it seems like more gray in his close-cropped beard than just days ago…it hardens something in me.
He darts his gaze between me and Roman’s clothes. “I see my son has you doing his dirty work for him now,” he says carefully.
I take a moment to respond, gauging his words, my response, and the way he holds himself so stiffly that he seems to be one hard hit away from shattering.
“Why waste money on things we already have? Seems illogical to me.”
He tsks. “And running away was logical?”
I keep my expression blank. “No one is running, Cris. Well, I’ll rephrase that, no one but you and Il Padrone are running.”
He sucks in a breath. “How dare you. We have done nothing but try to keep our Families together since returning.”
I shake my head. “You’re the ones tearing them apart. I understand if you’re confused, upset, and pissed at the decisions that were made while you were gone, but ripping the Families apart…it wasn’t your smartest move.”
“You do not get to tell me what is best for the Family when you are helping Roman and Emilio destroy everything we have built!” he hisses.
“No, Cris. I am saving what we built. The people who locked me away because I dared to protect—”
“Do not,” he growls, taking a step toward me. “You do not get to hold that over my head, not anymore.”
“I gave up my life for you,” I continue anyway, ignoring him. “I risked not only my safety that day, but my freedom and sanity.”
“I never asked you to do that.”
“You didn’t,” I agree. “But I said I would help you, so there was no way I was going to sit back and let that happen. I did what I needed to then; and I have no regrets about it. Same as now. I am saving what is left of the Amato name. I am standing by your son, because the Cristian I met when I was eleven years old would have wanted that. The one I saved at fifteen would have begged me, and the one who saved me at seventeen devoted his life to me.” I give him a smile, one that feels twisted and wrong, even to me.
“So many think I’m the one who chained myself to you, simply because you’re the first one to face the monster head on and win.
Never would they believe you’ve been hiding your own behind mine for so long. ”
“Are you choosing them over me then?”
Swallowing, I don’t answer for a long moment, before shaking my head.
“No, Cris. It’s because I chose you back then, and will continue to choose you again and again until one of us dies, that this has to happen.
I care too much to watch you destroy yourself.
If this is what you want, then who am I to stop you? ”
“Roman—”
“Is not up for discussion.” Pulling my hands out of my pockets, I straighten up, hoping he can see the seriousness on my face.
“I’ve watched him put you first his entire life, now he’s finally doing something for him, without worrying about what you will think.
I respect him too much to leave him behind.
The Cristian I know, the one I stood by, who I molded myself for…
he would want me to stay with his son, so that’s what I’m doing. ”
His jaw clicks, and there’s a moment between us in which I think I’m going to have to put him down, but he doesn’t make a move and the tension seems to pass. “I hope you don’t die because of my son’s mistakes,” he says carefully.
“I will always be there for you, Cristian. You were and will always be my priority, but that doesn’t always look like what you think it should.
What we built, the world we brought your son into, the legacy we leave behind, that is what I am protecting.
I will always be here for you. You’re welcome to call me, day or night, but this is the only choice I have. ”
“I hope they’re worth throwing your life away for,” is all he says.
I’m not surprised when he walks out. He already stabbed me, and was given retribution by Benjamin, there’s nothing more either of us need from each other.
The sound of the front door shutting is loud in my ears, as is the beating of my heart.
“Love?” Hollis’s voice is the only reason I’m still standing.
“I need you, Hol,” I say, or I try to.
“I’m here, Ten. I… Fuck. Come back to me. I got you.”
“Benjamin?”
“Yeah, I’ll make sure he’s there too. We got you, Love. Just come back to us.”
Somehow, I manage to remember to grab Roman’s clothes, and on shaky legs, I leave the apartment, for possibly the last time.
Hollow. If I had a name for the feeling currently coursing through me, it’d be hollow.