Chapter 12 Cecilia
CECILIA
Over the weeks I had grown to feel a mild form of safety around Mateo and Santos.
Well, as safe as someone who was constantly trying to stay aware enough to not lose their mind, could feel. Santos only came around to bring me food, while sometimes begging me to just end this and tell Ronan everything.
At this point we all but played Pictionary to decipher my “big secret” but I still appreciated his company to that of my cell mates.
They were about as exciting as wet cardboard.
The first time I came out of that box I decided I would never breathe the truth from my lips while my heart was still pumping blood.
My contempt for Ronan had grown so deeply, I hoped to God my uncle would find me.
That they would both end each other and rid me of all of my problems in one fell swoop.
It was the practical and efficient end-all if you asked me.
I didn’t sleep much now either, I sure as shit couldn’t let my guard down around the two whispering girls. They scared the hell out of me, and I wasn’t sure if I wanted to know what the Black Crows were doing with them here. The Bratvas had a lot of power.
Too much for the Black Crows to handle.
Mateo came down once a day sometimes, and just sat next to me, letting me lean my head on his shoulder until I fell asleep.
He never actually said more than a word or two, he mostly just played classical music on his phone.
He was always gone when I woke up of course, but I was grateful for the moments of calm I was given around him.
I looked into his inky black eyes, and he extended his hand to me. I took it willingly as he led me past the kennels, through a living room, into a bathroom where a barstool was placed in front of the sink. I looked at him with confusion, unsure of what was about to happen.
“Sit,” he said, tilting his head toward the stool.
I sat on the chair with my back to the sink and he lifted my hair up off my shoulders and placed a towel over them as he brought my head into his hands.
I heard the sound of the faucet and I flinched before feeling the warmth of the water touching my head and relaxing from the wonderful sensation.
We got showers maybe once every three or four days and the shower didn’t get close to warm.
To say that I was in heaven was an understatement.
Then he poured the shampoo into my hair and began to work his fingers through my scalp, lathering it with the delicious coconut smelling suds.
I fought back but my body betrayed me, the tear escaped me before I could will it away and I just hoped that he hadn’t noticed how weak I had already become.
It was such an insignificant act of kindness bringing me to my knees.
I still knew the game being playedI still knew its rules.
I couldn’t pretend like I didn’t want to cling on to any small amount of good I could find here though.
I was already crumbling. He rinsed the shampoo out of my hair delicately and I didn’t know why, but my mouth began to work on autopilot.
It was like something inside me just needed to get the words out, just so maybe someone else would know why I was hurting so much.
“My family home burned down when I was eight,” I said, barely a whisper out of my mouth and his fingers came to a slow motion as he listened.
“My parents practically threw my sister and I out of our bedroom window to save our lives, the room was already on fire by the time I woke up to falling on the lawn.” He cleared his throat and continued to work his fingers through my hair diligently.
He squirted another tube into his hand and coated my hair in the conditioner before I spoke again.
“When I was fifteen most of my family was killed in a drive-by shooting. I was locked in a closet for over twenty minutes after I had been shot, while car after car took out the rest of my family.” My eyes looked up at him to find his black eyes piercing through me as he started piecing together just how cruel his brother could be.
“I found my mamá dead in her bed after I had been living with Ronan for almost three years. That’s when I left.”
He rinsed the product from my hair and shut the water off before he squeezed the water out of my hair and began to wrap the towel around my head.
“So, what? You’re a magnet for accidents, and you left to keep him safe, sunshine?” He asked, and I shook my head at him.
“They weren’t accidents,” I whispered and reached up for the towel, our fingers grazed just slightly as he let go.
I sat back up, pulling it off and letting the cascade of wet hairs drench my clothes. The distance between us was almost fictional, just fractions from touching. My chest was heaving with my breathing as his fingers grazed my jaw, then he lifted my chin up to look at him.
“Will you tell me?” he asked, but I shook my head instinctively.
I tried to look back down but he didn’t let me and his grip on my jaw tightened just slightly.
“What will it take?” he growled the words out in question.
“I don’t know,” I answered, some semblance of the truth willed its way out of me, “I’ve locked it away too tight.”
He huffed a breath out that was full of frustration, but I could see in his eyes that there was understanding there too. He released my chin and tucked a strand of wet hair out of my face behind my ear.
“What if we trade secrets?” he hummed in my ear.
“You keep secrets from Ronan?” I raised my eyebrows in question at him.
If they were keeping secrets from each other, then soon there would be cracks in their little operation. The thought alone made me want to smile at the idea.
He didn’t dismiss my question surprisingly, and instead leaned impossibly close to me, and whispered into my ear, “I could think of a few off the top of my head.”
Obsidian eyes and that dimple, once again turned my insides into butter before I could help myself and I was squeezing my thighs together to keep myself in check.
Down girl.
“You go first,” I urged him on.
“No, that’s not how this works,” his tone was gentle, but his words were decisive, he was in control of how this was going to play out and he knew it.
“I didn’t steal the guns from Ronan, not really. I didn’t sell them either.”
He stared at me with a curious look on his face.
“What did you do with them then?” He asked me but I clucked my tongue and shook my head at him.
“That’s another secret, for another time, and you owe me one already. Pay up.” He just threw his hands up and shrugged at me making me realize I had been gotten.
It was hard not to feel angry, even though Mateo had no allegiance to me.
Every time I started thinking he might be a good guy, or that he may just be in my corner for a split second, he would betray me again and shatter the tiniest piece of trust we had built. Like the first time he threw me in that box, and then acted like it pained him to see me after it was over.
It was my own fault though, there were no good guys left, especially in the places I was searching. His erratic behavior still frustrated the hell out of me, and I couldn’t tell if it was just a game he played, or if he was just surviving too.
Sometimes I wondered if it was a defense mechanism, to keep people at bay.
Maybe Mateo Kane might have been just as fucked up as I was.
“How long have you been waiting to let that go?” He was so close I could feel the hotness of his breath on my neck, and smell the trademark scent of his leather jacket mixed with pine from his cologne.
His thumb was smoothing down my jaw again making goosebumps appear all over my flesh. I shook my head slowly, refusing to allow him to have any more of me but we were standing so close that our lips grazed, almost electrifying me from the contact.
“We need you to play the part tonight,” he said, pulling away and clearing his throat as he cut through some of the fog in the room that felt like a hypnosis, breaking whatever spell he had me under.
“The part?” I questioned, unsure what he was trying to ask of me.
“The others are ready, but I can see through you, nothing that’s happened in the last two months has changed you,” he said, narrowing his eyes at me like he was unaffected by my vacant expressions and the mask of a broken woman I had been putting on each day.
Two months.
Shit.
I couldn’t believe I’d allowed that much time to slip away from me unnoticed.
“And?” I questioned again, not letting my surprise show.
He squinted his eyes like he was in pain and pressed his thumb to one side of his temple before he spoke.
“While I find your resolve incredibly attractive, Ronan needs you broken. Everything will go a lot easier if you play along,” he said, half warning, half pleading for me to make the right call.
“And if I don’t?” The monster part of me that never backed down reared its ugly head out, mentally slipping on her boxing gloves.
“I’d hate to see him create a worse punishment for you sunshine. Don’t speak, do as you’re told, and be the trophy we need you to be tonight. Can you do that?” His voice was so soft and his tone so gentle that I was nodding in agreement before I could think twice about what I was agreeing to.
“It’s been two months?” I asked him, unable to hide my surprise as I realized how differently time moved when you had absolutely nothing to live for.
“It’s been nine weeks,” he corrected me, clasping his hand around mine and leading me back to the kennel where the door gaped wide, and the rest of its occupants were gone.
He paid no attention to that as he grabbed the burlap sack on the dresser that I wore on my way down here weeks ago. He placed it on my head, and I instinctively reached out to him grasping his arm with both hands to keep me steady as he navigated me through the halls to the elevators.