21. Cairo
TWENTY-ONE
cairo
Another worthless and extravagant walk on the beach, to where if I ever had an ounce of peace, it’d probably kill me. My phone is going off the hook, my mind is elsewhere, and I could put a bullet in my head rather than spend another moment in Vivian’s presence because, if I didn’t know any better, she has a tracking device implanted in my body.
The only thing I have going for me is that she’s pissed.
Apparently, she saw me on top of the yacht with Bay the other night and disappear without so much as an SOS signal or tossing her life preserver while she was flaying around in the water. The bitch could’ve drowned, and I wouldn’t shed a tear.
In fact, I’d rejoice.
She’s done nothing but make my life a living hell and ruined another’s with her manipulation and lies. I could give a shit if I didn’t watch her die.
“How many times do we need to go through this? We’ve been doing this back-and-forth for years, Cairo, and I’m tired.” I lengthen my stride, hitting the wooden sidewalk that leads up to the parking lot because I’m just so beyond tired of hearing her mouth. “She’s going to try to take you guys down. You know this.”
“Shut the fuck up, Vivian,” I grind out, aware of it all too well. It doesn’t matter how many times I warn Reeve. It also has no bearing on Torin. I see how much he’s battling with himself, but he’s losing. He wants her just as bad as my best friend does, and I don’t know how they plan on doing this, but it’s going to end up bloody and with lives lost.
“Someone needs to keep reminding you, apparently. My dad is trying to nail down Levi Wallace, but he’s been MIA. If you tell me what you’re planning, I can help.”
I don’t stop moving.
The time and multiple attempts of telling her that she’s never going to know a thing has been played out a million ways over.
“I love you, Cairo,” she pleads, her voice hard and desperate. “Why can’t you see that? Everything I do is for you. For us .”
“Go home,” I mutter, diving into the crowd of adults and kids trying to enjoy the last bit of the sun before heading out.
“Your home,” she retorts evenly, keeping up with my pace. “I know you like her.”
It’s amazing what a woman’s intuition can do.
She can sense the way my cock twitches at the sight of that girl, and I barely looked at her on purpose because of this.
“Like who?” I challenge, allowing her the decision to make a fight about this or to shut her fucking mouth. She keeps it up, I’m going to sew her lips shut.
She bristles next to me, the deep V from her floral sundress not doing a damn thing.
Nothing Vivian will ever do will ever be enough for me to forgive her. And once upon a time, I had wished we were exactly here, right where we are now, about to get married and allegedly spend the rest of our lives together.
It’s a pipe dream idea now. Not even something that makes my heart pound or butterflies to actively flee wildly in my chest.
Vivian is as dead to me as she’s gonna be for what she did to my brother. For using him for her own selfish, fucked-up ways and sending him to prison for years.
She knew he wasn’t normal. That he was socially awkward and lacked any love from a woman since his mother tragically died. And when she showed him compassion and care, it only made me love Vivian more.
Until she sent him to kill a guy who she fucked behind my back to keep him quiet.
Funny how shit works out.
Tenderness and empathy aren’t in Vivian’s DNA. It’s malice, jealousy, selfishness, and power. The latter, I can relate to, being brought up in the world I’m in, but I’ve never stepped on someone who didn’t deserve it. I’ve never bullied someone because they were less or yearned for something and would do anything to obtain it.
She’s a fucking disease, and I can’t wait to be rid of it and her.
“I asked you a question,” she snaps, as if she has any authority over me. As if she’s entitled to an answer because she’s still my girl.
I should just listen to Reeve and put a bullet in her.
“Maybe you should ask less,” I answer calmly, passing the double-sided rows of food trucks. “You’re not gonna like the answer.”
Her hand finds my forearm, and she yanks me back, demanding I talk about this right now.
Meeting green eyes, I solicit, “What can I do for you, Viv?”
Her nostrils flare at my nonchalance. How I can’t fake giving a flying shit. “We haven’t discussed what you did ,” she leers, manicured hands clutched into fists. “How you almost let me die out there.” I blink at her, which only clicks the notch on ramping her anger higher and her heels hitting the hardwood floors toward me. “Did you want me to drown?”
“Honestly, Vivian, it wouldn’t have been my worse day.” Her hand suddenly slams across my face, but I welcome the pain.
I deserve it.
I allowed her to send my brother to prison when I should’ve seen the signs sooner. When I should’ve stopped her ordering him around and making him into her little puppy. I just thought he needed the attention and that one day he’d grow the confidence that I know resided in him.
I failed.
She fucked everything up.
And I can’t even pretend to be sorry about it.
“You need me,” she quips. “More than I need you.”
True, but I’ll find another way to gain a cop to do my bidding. I definitely don’t need her fat piece-of-shit father to do it for me.
“Then leave me alone,” I counter. “I’ve told you over a hundred times that I don’t give two shits about it anymore. You fucked up a long time ago. I don’t understand what you thought was gonna change. You following me around like a lost puppy is only pissing me off. We’re done. We’re over. We’re fucking through . You keep doing this to me…and I’m gonna make you disappear to the point where you’ll be on one of those missing persons shows that you like so much.”
Vivian pushes out her lips. “I messed up. I know. However, he’s out of jail on good behavior. He’s fine now.”
“He lost out ,” I snap, my jaw tightening so hard that it feels like one wrong move and it’s gonna snap. Just because he got out of prison doesn’t mean shit. He should’ve never been there in the first place. “You took years from his fucking life, Viv. I’ll never forgive you for that. We’re dead and gone. I don’t love you anymore. So, you may as well stop trying and save yourself the energy. Go harass some other poor, innocent soul.”
“Stop trying?” She steps closer to me, determined as all hell to change my mind. She’s been on that kick for years and nothing’s stuck yet. It’s like beating a dead animal. You can’t resurrect the thing to feel anymore and I’m never going to revive what we once had. “We’re getting married?—”
“Are you fucking slow?” I leer, my temper finally breaking through to all this bullshit that I’m still dealing with years later. “I’m not marrying you. I’m not dating you. I don’t want to be with you. Do you understand me, because you’ve never answered that question?”
“You don’t mean that.”
Oh my fucking God.
“Don’t get it twisted,” I reply through clenched teeth, wanting to throttle her already and just get it over with. “You’ll never wear my name. I don’t want to protect you forever and always. I’m not attracted to you, and I sure as hell don’t forgive you. If you keep pushing me, I swear to God, I’ll make it so you wish you never would’ve laid eyes on me in the first place.”
“Don’t say things you don’t?—”
“Mean?” A mirthless chuckle reverberates in my chest. “Nah, it’s a fucking fact. When I run Wharf Bay and take over for my father, you won’t be pulling the shit you are now. This is leniency, Viv. A gift. The only one you’re ever going to get from me.” My cell goes off again, and I use that opportunity to dip out and end this worthless conversation. “Thanks for another waste of my time.”
“Cairo, don’t you dare leave.”
I do just that, and I’ll let you guess what she does.
Her voice begins to blur, words not even forming into sentences as I’m sure she’s arguing with me about what I should and shouldn’t be thinking or feeling.
It was always going to come to this.
I knew it a long time ago; I just wanted it to be different. I had always hoped Vivian would find some other asshole to harass, but she’s always had her eyes set on me. I’m not sure if it’s the power or the fact that no one else will ever give her the time or space.
Her hands start flying around at my side, deep in conversation with herself, with me as the main character, when I start to slow my steps for her to get ahead of me and lost in the crowd.
Vivian gains a few feet, still going at it with herself and getting a few weird looks from passerbyers when I’m suddenly linebacked in the side, stumbling into between two food trucks before I can catch my footing.
But my spine is slammed into the side of the nearest metal vehicle when I’m presented with something hard in my gut, accompanied by someone soft pressed against me.
“You really need to set her straight, Black,” the female voice muses. “You’re starting to look weak.”
Bay.
The woman Vivian just spent a whole two minutes bitching about.
“Little Terror,” I snide back, peering down at the outline of her body, only half of it sworn from the lack of lighting hovering over the boardwalk. “I thought I told you to stay the hell out of my way. This is starting to sound like a broken record.”
“I think a little appreciation is in order,” Bay replies, putting a little pressure on her gun into my stomach. “Didn’t your mama teach you any manners?”
“She did. She told me to stay away from flighty women and candy.”
“Good advice.”
“I thought so, but they won’t leave me the fuck alone, and I didn’t grow up with a sweet tooth. I’m sure now she’d tell me to just stay out of trouble.”
Bay smiles. “Well, you obviously didn’t listen to that because you’re part of the Forsaken Crew. And I’m guessing that comes with a lot of trouble and bullets.”
“Says the girl who currently has a gun pressed into one, so how do you think this is gonna end?”
“Hopefully with a thank you?”
“And?”
“I definitely wouldn’t expect a kiss goodnight from you, so that’d be it.”
Leaning against the metal she has pressed into my stomach, I smell lavender and something sweet off her skin. “You think this is all a game, don’t you? My warnings aren’t because they’re in my best interest, but because they’d keep you safe, too, Bay. You lost your protection of Wallace because you couldn’t keep your legs closed, so I’m hoping you’re not thinking you’re going to get it over here.”
“Why are you so scared of me?”
I immediately scoff. “Scared? Sweetheart…it should be you who’s scared of me. All the things I could do to your family—” Bay’s fist launches into my ribcage, and I grunt, not expecting her to be able to hit so hard.
“Threaten my family again, my little Italian Stallion,” she leers. “And I’ll drown you in your own blood.”
My lips coil in victory that it didn’t take much to rile her up, nor much imagination. “Are we sensitive now?”
“Fuck you, I’m Emilio Wildes’s daughter,” she professes with confidence, using that card for the first time, and it sets my skin ablaze with what I expected all along. She’s going to run up against us. “And that probably gets you to believe I’m going to flip sides. But my question is, what side do you live on?”
“What the hell are you talking about?”
“You work for Emilio. You’re his lap dog?—”
“I’m not his fucking lap dog,” I retort sharply. “The hell gave you that idea?”
“The night you came to the bar and burnt it down with me in it.”
My palm latches onto her hip and my skin burns from the contact of just touching her through clothing alone. “I’m not going to tell you again, Little Terror. I didn’t light a match, nor did I give the order to burn you in that bar.”
Bay continues to stare up at me, unaffected by my anger. “How does it feel to keep repeating yourself and the person you want to listen doesn’t?”
“I don’t care how you feel.”
“And that’s mutual. So, in the grand scheme of things, we want to stay out of each other’s way. That actually works for me. Because I’m not going to lie down and become Emilio’s bitch just because Levi left me. I don’t need your advice, so shove it up your ass the next time you want to hand it out. But, if you want to, save everyone the trouble and kill me right now if you’re going to continue this back-and-forth shit. I’ve lived my whole life without you. I don’t need you now.”
Her last statement is almost cryptic. As though she’s accepted the fact that she’s alone and her fate is sealed. I haven’t seen Wallace around her since their very public breakup. I’ve had guys watching him when I can. Making sure he’s not fucking with us and playing this shit against my boys and me.
“If you think I’m gonna give a fuck about Wallace breaking up with you, you ran into the wrong guy.”
“Yeah, that’s exactly why I pushed you into a dark space,” she mocks back. “I needed that comfort.” The hard imprint of her weapon leaves my body, and she steps away from me, bringing up two crammed fingers up to her lips, and it’s then that I realize she never had a gun at all.
It was those two fucking digits.
Rage slams through me as I amble forward, knocking into her chest, but she doesn’t recoil away from me.
In fact, a shitty little smirk forms across her lips.
“I think I’m going to kill you one day,” I allude undoubtedly, removing my own gun from the back of my jeans and mocking her actions that she just handed over to me seconds ago, thrusting it into her side. “No one is gonna save you, Little T. No one would even know. You’ll disappear, solve all my fucking problems right here and now.”
“Except Vivian.” Bay wastes no time throwing her in my face because my ex would be. “I see why you couldn’t pull the trigger on her before. Sheriff’s daughter and all. However, I’m more concerned at the lack of imagination you have at just shooting me.”
“You want something more?” My fingers dip underneath the blue crop top she’s wearing and around the cotton material of her bra. “Do you think fucking you would be more creative? Knock you around a little bit like De Leon used to do?”
Bay shoves at my shoulders, pure fury coursing through her features, but I don’t stop there while I have the chance.
“At least I kept myself out of a dumb-ass gang,” she grinds out. “You’re worse off than I am.”
She has a point.
However, with all my predicaments, at least I’ll have power.
“I’m not the one that has to watch out for Wallace now, am I?” I taunt. “Your beauty didn’t save you this time. Wallace might be a prick, but he’s not stupid. And I can’t say I blame him for dumping you on your ass after fucking Torin.”
Bay averts her gaze from me. “You think you have me all figured out.”
“I don’t,” I admit. “And that’s the problem. You’re just as petty and rash as Torin, and I’m surprised I haven’t pinned you down yet.”
“And do you think Torin would bow down to Emilio?”
“He never has.”
“Then you should have your answer.” She steps back, my lead-filled threat something not of her worry right now. “You’re welcome, by the way. She should be gone.”
Then she falls into the light, striding away from me and exposing her attire. Tight blue jeans around those thighs, her ass filling them out while her long dark hair falls down her spine.
Bay doesn’t steal a glance at me. Clearly not interested in me or any other bullshit I’ve been dealing out to her lately.
But I don’t hesitate to thrust mine in her wake, because I won’t fall victim to whatever plans she has formed in her head.
With or without Wallace.