Chapter 19 Cassian
CASSIAN
Imake slow love to her in front of that fire. I take my time and weave my fingers with hers so I can see our rings, our promise, and make slow, slow love to her.
Afterwards, I set another log on the fire.
Sitting on the couch, we watch that log crackle, the flames catching, rising high.
Our bodies intertwined, we stay like that for what I wish could be forever.
Just Allegra and me in this room, no outside world, no monsters to battle. Just us. Together. Like this. Forever.
Forever.
She turns her soft eyes to mine. They’re liquid gold when she’s sated, burning amber fire when she’s my violent little Allegra. She brushes my hair back from my face.
“You look like her.”
I raise my eyebrows.
“Your mother. I saw the photograph on your laptop.”
“When you were snooping, you mean?” I tease.
“Yes. When I was snooping,” she confirms. “She was beautiful.”
“She was,” I say, shifting my gaze to the fire, thinking about the mother I never had the chance to know.
“And Seth, he looked like her too,” she probes.
I turn back to Allegra. After a moment, I decide to correct her. “Looks,” I say.
She tilts her head, confused.
“He looks like her. Seth looks like our mother. More than I do.”
“I thought… Isn’t he… I thought he’d died.”
“You thought I killed my own brother.”
“No. I just…”
“It’s what everyone believes, Allegra. For a reason.”
“I don’t understand.”
I get up, walk over to the cabinet where I keep the whiskey and pour two glasses. I return to the couch and hand her one. She takes it and drapes her legs over mine as I settle back into a seat.
“It’s better if everyone believes he’s dead.”
“But, Cassian, people think you killed him. Why would you want that?”
“Because it’s better than anyone knowing the reality. Besides, ruthless is good in my business.”
She waits, quiet, forehead furrowed.
“He has Huntington’s disease.”
She is no less confused. “I’m sorry, Huntington’s? I don’t know anything about that.”
“Not many people do. Seth, he was barely in his thirties when he began to lose his mind.”
She gasps, slapping her hand over her mouth. “Oh my God.”
“He’s in a facility a little way out of town. He has the best care possible, and I try to visit him every few weeks, although these days I think my visits agitate him more than anything else.”
“He doesn’t remember you?”
I shake my head. “I don’t know. No, that’s not right.
He remembers something, but it’s not me.
Maybe it’s glimpses of a past life, but it’s gone as soon as it comes, and it only upsets him.
Sometimes there are moments, glimmers of hope.
At least I saw them that way for a long time.
” Hope. There’s that damned word again. Something inside me stretches awake.
“Those moments are often the worst because he’s gone and hoping isn’t going to bring him back.
It’s not going to reverse what is irreversible. ”
“Oh my God, Cassian. Is that why you look after Vivi and Gage?”
I nod. “I will always look after them.”
“Is that what your father has?”
“No. With my dad it’s early onset dementia. Sometimes it feels like we’re just fucked in every possible way.”
“It’s unfair.”
“When have you known life to be fair?”
“Not often, I guess. Does Jet know about Seth?”
I take a deep breath in. “Yes. I told him once, a while back. When we first learned what was happening. By then, my father had started showing the first signs of dementia, but Seth’s seemed to progress so much faster.
I was trying to manage it all and failing, mostly.
Jet and I, we can be the best of friends.
True brothers. Or we can be the worst of enemies.
Some days I think I owe Jet better.” I shake my head. “And Angelo and Enzo know, of course.”
“Who is Angelo again?”
“He’s my uncle on my dad’s side so Enzo’s my cousin. He was my father’s closest advisor and he’s mine, but he’s much more than that to me. Like a father, actually. More than my own ever was. But I’m not about to start feeling sorry for myself.”
“You’re just telling me. That’s not feeling sorry for yourself. And it’s hard, to always be on your own.”
“Weren’t you on your own, Little Moth? Before me?”
She studies me, her forehead wrinkled in thought.
“I guess so. I could talk to Amal, but she was so young when everything happened, and I never talked about it with anyone. After my mom was killed…” She has to stop at that word and I know the effort it took her to say it.
“We weren’t allowed to talk about her. My father… ” She shakes her head.
“That’s trauma you’ve kept inside you for years, Allegra. That trauma doesn’t go away. It’s a part of you now. Your DNA.”
She nods. “I know.”
“But it doesn’t have to define you,” I tell her.
“I know that too. You’re teaching me that.” She leans over to kiss my cheek. “I have a question.”
“Ask it.”
“When I met your dad, he mistook you for Seth and me for Vivi, I think. He accused me, well, Vivi, of taking his son and grandson away.”
“He’s out of his mind, Allegra. He doesn’t know—”
“I know. That’s not why I’m bringing it up. When you told him you weren’t Seth, he got angry. Accused you of putting him in that place. Does he know Seth is at the facility?”
“He did and maybe some moments he still does, but I’m not sure. When he says that he could mean a grave because maybe he believes I killed him. Who knows?”
“Why would he believe that? You’re his son too.”
Fair question. Heavy question. “My mother died giving birth to me.”
“Oh, Cassian.” Her eyes fill up.
I shake my head. I don’t want tears. “My father loved her very much and he always blamed me. From the moment I was born. That’s what I meant when I said my uncle was more a father to me than my father was.
And Seth was a very good big brother. I don’t know where I’d be if it weren’t for Seth.
Now it’s my turn to do what’s right by him and I can’t bring myself to do it. ”
“But you’re doing it. You’re taking care of his family.”
I smile, cup the back of her head and pull her to me. “You need to know, Allegra, I will never have children.”
She draws back, almost started. “It’s hereditary? Do you have the gene or something?”
“It can be, but I don’t. I’ve been tested, although I still wouldn’t...” I trail off. “Vivi’s afraid to test Gage and I get it. It’s why in the beginning I was so insistent you take that morning after pill. Just in case. I wasn’t just being an asshole.”
She chuckles. I brush hair back from her face.
Allegra studies me, working something out.
“Wait.” She pushes my hand from her face and holds it on her lap. “Why are you fucking me now, then?”
Oh.
Shit.
I clear my throat. “I took precautions.”
Shit. Shit. Shit.
Her forehead furrows. She draws back a little. “What precautions?” she asks, skeptical of me. Rightfully so.
“It’s nothing you need to worry about. You hungry? I’m starving.”
She cocks her head and that soft gold of her eyes darkens. “My period was different than it’s ever been.”
“Probably stress. Should we get some food?”
“When I asked the doctor about refilling my prescription she said I wouldn’t need it anymore. I forgot about that with all that’s going on.”
She pulls her hand from mine, folds her knees under her so she’s taller, at eye level with me on the sofa.
I try to swallow some whiskey for the excuse of looking away.
“Why did she say that Cassian? Why are we having unprotected sex without you shoving morning after pills down my throat?”
“Allegra, I was just—”
She pushes my hand away, jumps to her feet. “What did you do? What the fuck did you do?”
I stand. “Sit. Relax, Allegra. We’re having a nice night.”
When I try to take the whiskey from her, she pulls back sharply which sends liquid sloshing over her arm and mine, onto the couch.
“What did you do, Cassian Trevino?”
“It’s fine—”
“What did you do?” she demands.
“I had her give you a shot. Just to be sure you were safe. To be sure there wouldn’t be any accidents.”
Her mouth falls open. She takes a step backward and glares at me.
I put my hands up in surrender. “Allegra, it was to protect you—”
“You made a decision about something that important on my behalf while I was half out of my mind?” she asks, voice rising.
I take a step toward her. “Allegra, calm down.”
“Allegra, calm down?” she hurls her glass at me. I duck in time, and it crashes against the wall. “You fucking bastard! You don’t get to make those decisions for me! What the hell is wrong with you?”
“I was just trying to protect you. Be reasonable, you didn’t know the history.”
“Well, maybe you should have told me. Maybe you should have waited until I was, I don’t know, conscious, to fucking tell me and let me decide for myself, for my body!”
“Allegra,” I get to her, wrap my hands over her arms. “You have to understand—”
She slaps my hands away. “It’s not me who has to understand, Cassian! It’s you. You are not God. You’re not a king who just gets to decide willy nilly—”
“There was nothing willy nilly—”
“Get off me. Don’t touch me.” She tries to pull her dress on over her head, getting her arms caught in the process. I go to help her, but again, she pushes me away.
“Be reasonable. I didn’t want to put you in the situation where you might be forced to make a choice—”
“Oh, you’d give me the choice then?”
“Jesus, Allegra.” My phone, which is in my jacket pocket, pings with a text. We both glance over to the desk where it’s hanging over the chair, but I ignore it. When I turn back to her, she’s shaking her head, furious.
“Sleep somewhere else tonight. In fact, sleep somewhere else until you understand what you did was wrong. Because whatever your reasons, you don’t just get to decide those things for me. You don’t!”
She storms toward the door, turns back around to grab the photograph of her mother and herself from my desk then walks out the door nearly colliding with Jet on the way.
“What the—"
“Let her go,” I tell him, pushing a hand into my hair.
Jet looks at me and I realize I’m still mostly naked apart from my briefs. I pull on my pants and shirt.
“Severin will meet you in half an hour. I texted you the location, but wanted to be sure you didn’t miss it.”
“Thanks.”
“What was that?”
“Nothing. She’ll calm down. You sticking around for a while?”
Jet nods.
“Keep an eye on her. Don’t let her do anything stupid.”
Jet is trying to contain his amusement.
“What?” I ask as I pull my jacket on.
“Just never seen you like this, brother.” He mutters something that sounds an awful lot like pussy whipped.
I flip him off and walk out to meet Severin.