Chapter 16
Chapter Sixteen
IVY
M y heart beat loud and fast as I held his hand, the first “normal” gesture to occur between us since we crossed paths. Our first touch in a darkened nightclub was a moment of mindless lust. The subsequent times, he barely looked at me. Until Athair’s funeral on a cold winter’s day when he came to offer his condolences. Until my birthday party when he came to give birthday wishes and stir trouble.
I suspected what he told me wasn’t the entire story, and that thought alone made me ache for him. I’d been tempted to run into his arms, bury my wet face in his shirt, but I didn’t think he’d appreciate it.
The woman I was before starting Yale and meeting my best friends was sheltered and would be at a loss for what to do. But after the shenanigans we’d gotten ourselves out of—burning down a house, robbing Juliette’s father, breaking the house during Wynter’s poker game, even robbing an armored truck that belonged to this man—I was no longer sheltered, hardly innocent. And I certainly understood the “eye for an eye” rule in the underworld.
I curled my fingers into fists, my knuckles whitening. On one hand, Christian kidnapped me, but on the other, he’d been honest to the point of being blunt. It made it easy to trust him, and truthfully, his story affected me.
My spine steeled and my mind made up, I asked in a trembling voice, “Can you kill her?” He shot me a surprised look. “If it’s too hard for you, I… I can organize it. I’ll get my brothers to help me if I have to.” I closed my eyes for a second before prying them open, trying to stay strong. “For you. She doesn’t deserve to have this effect on you.”
Christian’s jaw clenched. “I need to make her suffer for as long as she made us suffer.”
I swallowed. “And how long is that?”
“Twelve years.” His jaw clenched, molars grinding. “I was sixteen and Dante eighteen when we burned down the house.”
There were so many layers to this man, I wasn’t quite sure what I’d find at the core of him. “Even at the cost of your own happiness?”
His face remained immobile. “Torturing her, and others like her, brings me joy.”
I just stared at him as his words sunk in and some pieces of the puzzle fell together. It was his coping mechanism. We all handled trauma differently; who was I to judge? After all, my encounter with Sofia as a little girl hardly compared, yet I’d made myself forget.
This man in front of me re-lived it every time he tortured this woman.
I swallowed, his words not lost on me. “How many others have you tortured?”
“I’ve lost count. But none of them mattered.”
My skin prickled with emotions I didn’t know what to do with. “Who counts the most?”
He let out a mocking noise. “The fucker who hides behind the church and his red robes.”
“Father Gabriel.”
That set Christian off. His features contorted, and it looked as if he was now transforming into a monster. Or rather, an avenging angel.
I suspected his story was more gut-wrenching than he let on, and I squared my shoulders, squeezing his big hand.
“I’ll help you,” I said with resolve. Christian growled, clearly thinking me a fragile, delicate flower, but I was far from it. I wasn’t scared. I rolled my eyes. “If you’re worried about me, don’t be. Just remember how I took a big part in stealing from you and getting rid of your armored truck.” His eyes darkened. I’d only been messing with him, but the blood in my veins heated as his gaze fell to my lips. My heart beat in the base of my throat, tripping up on itself. “And you’ll help me.” He didn’t look convinced, so I added, “Unless you want me to get Aiden Callahan’s help.”
It was a bluff, but judging by Christian’s look, it worked a bit too well. He appeared ready to hunt down my should-be fiancé and make him regret the contract between his uncle and my father.
“I’ll ruin him and his whole family before I’ll allow him anywhere near you.”
“You didn’t ask what I need help with,” I pointed out, trying to keep the smugness off my face.
“Tell me, then.”
A heartbeat passed and I dropped the bomb on him. “I want you to locate Sofia Volkov for me.”
He didn’t miss a beat. “Okay.”
“Aren’t you going to ask me why?” I challenged, tipping my chin up.
“Why?”
I narrowed my eyes. “Because she killed my father.”
Surprise flickered in his blue eyes. “And you’re sure of this how?”
“It’s of no concern to you,” I stated calmly, keeping the knowledge of her children with Athair to myself. “All I can tell you is that I’m sure.”
“Then we have a deal,” he stated matter-of-factly.
“We’ll help each other,” I agreed. We’d been playing this game of cat and mouse for years, and anticipation buzzed in my veins. My eyes fell to his strong, veiny hands, and memories of his rough touch filtered into my mind. I wanted those hands on me, his head between my legs and him inside me, but I knew it could never be.
After all, he told me so himself.
“On one condition.” His voice startled me and I met his darkened gaze, trying to keep my thoughts out of my expression.
Tilting my head, I asked, “What?”
“You’ll marry me.”
His words hit me like a blow to the chest, and I sucked in a breath.
“Marry… you?”
Tension rolled through him, his presence becoming larger than life.
“Yes.”
“But you said?—”
“Nobody is allowed to touch you—fuck you.” His voice drifted to a dark rasp. “You and I both know it was over the moment I touched you. There’s no going back.”
My stomach dropped and I gulped. “If I marry you, the Callahans will start a war with my brothers.”
His smile was wicked. “And I’ll finish it. For you.”
The sun was high in the sky when we made our way back down the stairs.
The woman who’d spent years tormenting her sons sat, still tied to the chair, the flesh on her leg hanging loose and weeping from the open wound.
Vittoria DiLustro kept her gaze fixed on the ground.
“Not again,” she sputtered, shaking in her filthy rags. “You can’t torture me again, Christian.”
I refused to feel sorry for her, not after hearing his story. Maybe being born into this world had tainted me from the start, or maybe I believed in an eye for an eye.
Christian pulled out a gun from the waistband of his blood-smattered jeans.
“You want to know what I hate more than cruel bitches?” He stepped closer, the gun lax in his hand. “Cowards.”
My eyes slid between the two of them, my breath held in anticipation.
“Angel, you shouldn’t have to see this.”
“I’m not leaving you.”
His gaze flicked to me in surprise and I gave him an encouraging nod. I might not fully understand what made this beautiful man the way he was, but I knew that permanently eliminating this woman from his life would bring him peace.
But also, there was a part of me that wanted to ensure he followed through. The darkness inside him tempted him with revenge, and although I understood it, it made me distrust his choices when it came to Vittoria DiLustro.
“ What ?” Vittoria had the audacity to act shocked. She turned to me, her bottom lip quivering like the greatest actress who ever lived. “I don’t know how I got wrapped up in this, but you have to help me. Christian is crazy. You should know he needs to be committed?—”
A dark chuckle escaped Christian and he tsked. “Still refusing to take responsibility. I’m the product of your actions, Mother .”
“You’re no child of mine,” she spat, ignoring his words. She tried to scurry back, the chair rocking from the force of her movements. “You’re not my son. You are not my son!” she screamed.
“Thank fuck,” I interjected. “You don’t deserve to have any children, let alone be around other human beings.”
Something in my eyes must have made her realize I’d be of no help because her face blanched.
“Time to say your last prayer,” Christian said as he walked toward the woman, kicking her knee so hard a sickening crack sounded.
As her chair tipped over, his boot slammed into her face. She groaned, blood spurting from her nose as her lips moved in a prayer uttered in Latin. But she was no longer the focus of my attention. It was Christian and the expression of euphoria on his face.
Every second around this woman he was growing increasingly intoxicated. It must derive from the control he exerted over the person who’d taken it from him when he was a child.
Vittoria watched him with cruel eyes.
“I’ll always h-haunt you,” she snarled, her teeth chattering. “Even in death. And so will Father Gabriel.”
“End it, Christian,” I told him softly. His eyes lifted to mine. After a second of staring at me, he turned to Vittoria.
“May the Holy Spirit free you from this miserable life and your sins swallow you whole with the grace of the Holy Spirit. Amen.”
A chill passed through me and I stared wide-eyed as he aimed his gun at her head. That was a bit… scandalous. I’d heard rumors of his famous last rites in the underworld, but hearing them stated was a bit too much.
“Wait—” Vittoria uttered, but she never got to finish whatever pathetic plea she’d been about to spew.
It was so quiet I could hear my own heartbeat when Christian’s gaze suddenly came to me. And just like that, our marriage agreement was set and sealed.
In sin. In blood. In stone.