Chapter 32 Faina
FAINA
Ican’t believe what I’m hearing!
Cian’s actually buying into this bullshit? Does he really see no end to this other than servitude under this cunt?
“I’m tired of tracking across the world trying to avenge people who aren’t here anymore,” Cian continues.
“People who left me for months to be tortured. I was always second best, no… third best. I was nothing. My twin got Underboss, not me. My brother got Captain. I was nothing more than a grunt, and for what? So I can try and kill you to avenge them?” He groans as he laughs and reaches for his glass of wine.
“Cian…”
“Don’t,” he snaps suddenly. “You’re just another reminder of how pathetic my life has become.”
My heart sinks while Hawk can barely hide his glee. “Tell me more.”
“What else is there to say?” he says with a dry, humorless laugh.
“I spent my entire life growing up in my brother’s shadow.
Do either of you have any idea what that’s like?
How often Cormac fucked up and I was there to clean it up, I was there to fix things, and when it came down to it, when it really mattered, Cormac wasn’t there for me.
He was promoted to Captain based on stupid rules when I was the one who put in the most work out of everyone!
” He raises his voice slightly. “And then to make matters worse, my twin gets Underboss? I wasn’t even considered!
I was overlooked as nothing more than a grunt, like my name and my efforts were worthless. ”
Hawk leans forward slowly. “I know about being overlooked. It’s how people like you and me excel, though. When they don’t see us, we’re free to make bigger moves.”
“Are we?” Cian stands abruptly and drags one hand through his hair.
“I was so overlooked, I spent months in captivity being tortured and no one came for me. They came for Saoirse, they looked for her, but me? I was nothing. I was a nobody. And then there’s you!
” Suddenly, he points at me and my heart jumps.
“Me?”
“You! I fell in love with you, you made me love you, and then I find out you’re a fucking cop. Interpol, of all things! So while I’m running through Europe, you’re bringing the cops right to my door, and even when they arrested us, they were more interested in her than me!”
Didn’t we already talk about this? I thought Cian and I had smoothed things over, but his rant continues, and each word feels like a blade against my skin. He sounds hurt and angry, his voice growing louder and louder.
“I’m just a pawn,” Cian rants. “I’ve always been fodder. Always sent in when no one else dares and I’m just a fucking chess piece to everyone around me.”
Our eyes meet, and where I fear to see anger or hatred, instead I glimpse something else. A warmth that’s family. An understanding.
Of course.
I know Cian.
I know how much he loves his family.
This isn’t him.
But Hawk is drinking up the performance like it’s everything he’s been hungry for and more.
“I understand,” Hawk soothes. “As soon as I saw you on the bridge, I understood. Who else would survive that explosion but you? Who else would understand what it’s like to claw your way toward something, only to be denied over and over?
Other people are better. Other paths. And to be abandoned in that facility, tortured in ways that still affect you now?
Never mind being tricked by the cops… I understand. ”
“Bullshit,” Cian snaps.
“No, I do!” Hawk suddenly sounds earnest. “Work with me, Cian. Let me crown you as the new king and together, we can take over the entirety of America together. The drug trade won’t know what hit it and everyone who ever overlooked you in favor of Cormac will learn to respect you or we’ll deal with them. We’ll be a world power.”
Hawk is desperate. It’s amusing to see, despite how his hunger for power killed so many people and how he’s blind to how he brought all of this on himself.
It would warm me to know that anyone still doing business in the States refuses to work with him, but it brings a cold fear that Anastasia is truly dead.
“Can you guarantee that?” Cian snaps. “How can I believe you?”
“Look…” Hawk stands and follows Cian’s pacing.
“I did what I did because I was tired of being overlooked. It must be fate or something that you survived because you are my ticket to the power I want, and I am the ticket to the respect you want. We can help each other. Don’t you see how perfect this is? ”
Cian seems to mull it over before he nods. “I do.”
“Then do we have a deal?” Hawk holds out his hand. “Together, we’ll soar higher than Cormac ever did.”
Cian gazes down at Hawk’s hand and then he clasps it in his own. “Sure.”
“Excellent!” Hawk walks back to the table, then he pauses and rotates to Cian. “There’s just one teeny-tiny detail.”
“Which is?”
“Her.” Hawk points at me. “I’ll give you the world, Cian. We will take over the world and all organized crime will be under the Hexagon umbrella, but you have to prove you’re really on my side.”
“How do I do that?”
Hawk slowly picks up his gun and whistles, which brings in an armed guard from one of the nearby rooms, then he holds out the handgun to Cian. “Kill her.”
I leap to my feet immediately. “Cian, no!”
Cian’s staring at the gun as if it’s something that just spawned in Hawk’s hand.
“She lied to you,” Hawk continued. “But I’m not going to persuade you to make this choice. This is your choice, Cian. Are you choosing a future with me where we become the greatest criminal legacies the world has ever seen? Or does your story end here, with her?”
“Don’t listen to him, Cian! He’s using you, can’t you see that? All he cares about is getting an anchor in New York and he can’t do that without you!”
My heart races and a thousand thoughts clash together in my mind.
It’s one thing to try and persuade Hawk that Cian is on his side, but killing me to prove that?
The guard behind Cian keeps his rifle trained on him at all times, likely ready to fire if Cian tries to do anything other than what’s asked of him.
I try to back away toward one of the doors but the moment I get close, it opens and I’m face to face with another gunman. With nowhere to run, I’m cornered with a gunman to my left, Cian and Hawk in front of me, and a railing behind me leading to the cold, dark abyss of the ocean.
Cian very slowly takes the gun.
“I’m tired, Faina,” he says quietly. “I’m tired of living for other people’s agendas. Tired of chasing after what I think they think I should do. I want to live for me, and how can I trust that you won’t hand me over to the cops the next time I piss you off?”
“Cian, please!” My heart pounds faster and faster, causing my hands to tremble when I press them together. “I—”
The words I’m pregnant rest on the tip of my tongue, ready to be spilled out in front of everyone, but in the end, what good would it do?
Either Cian kills me or Hawk does, or worse, he does something to the baby inside me as soon as I reveal it.
Praying Cian has a plan becomes a distant thought as Cian slowly walks past Hawk and lifts his weapon to me.
Our eyes meet. “Please,” I gasp. “It can’t end like this.”
“Can’t it?” he replies.
“What a show.” Hawk smirks proudly. “Who knew the cold Russian had feelings?”
“Fuck you,” I snarl. “Fuck you! You think you can just get away with this, but let’s be honest, even if you take him back to New York and try to present him, what’s going to make all the people who overlooked him previously even care to look at him now?
Being the sole survivor ten months later only buys a little goodwill! ”
“You think they’ll overlook me?” Cian asks slowly. “Is that really what you think of me?”
“No! I didn’t mean it like that! I just—”
Our eyes meet again while Hawk snatches up the wine bottle behind him. Cian’s left eye twitches faintly and the corner of his mouth ticks upward just a fraction.
Is this part of his plan? What the hell is he going to do? I can’t barely think straight between the pressure building in my chest and the panic that whatever happens next won’t be enough to buy Cian any kind of time.
But I have to trust him. It’s the only chance I have.
“I loved you,” Cian says firmly. “I think part of me always will, but I can’t be a nobody anymore. I can’t be this ghost.”
“Cian—”
“Goodbye, Faina.” He pulls the trigger, and hot pain explodes in my shoulder. The force of the blow sends me stumbling backward with a cry, but there’s nothing for me to grab onto.
The railing hits my lower back for a split second and then I’m toppling over it and falling down, down, down….