Chapter 13 Allegra #3
He snorts, walks me backward until my back is at the wall.
He sets his forearms on either side of my face caging me in.
His electric gaze searches my face for what I don’t know, but I do know one thing.
I hate how I feel when he looks at me like this.
I hate myself for wanting this. For wanting him to look at me.
Because what I just said? It was a lie and if I wasn’t sure, those moth wings fluttering in my belly confirm it.
The sensation lower, deeper, between my legs, confirms it.
As much as I hate myself for wanting Cassian Trevino, I do want him.
“I had had a very bad night, Allegra. A very bad three nights, in fact.”
“I’m having a bad week, Cassian. A very bad week, in fact.”
“You and I do not have to be enemies. I don’t want that.”
“Well, too bad for you because I am your enemy! You asked me last night if I missed you. You said you’d like it if I missed you. Well, let me be very clear, I did not. I would not. Ever. I don’t want you, Cassian. Understand that.”
He pushes a hand through his hair and there is that look again, that moment of vulnerability I had glimpsed last night. But I push on.
“I want to go home,” I say.
“Home?” He laughs outright. “Haven’t you figured out yet that home isn’t safe for you, Moth?”
Again, he catches me off guard and a beat passes before I respond. “But this is safe for me? You’re safe for me?”
“Do you know what Malek offered me in exchange for erasing your brother’s debt?” I furrow my brows. “Do you? Can you guess?” He doesn’t give me a chance, not that I would anyway. “You, Allegra. He offered me you.”
“What? You’re lying. I’m not his to give.”
“But you are, and you need to stop fooling yourself about that. Your father would have sold you to Moore—”
“He wouldn’t have—”
“You are deluding yourself if you believe that. Your father was a ruthless man.”
“He loved me.”
“Well then you got off easy.”
“What the hell does that mean?”
“Nothing.”
“No, tell me. What does that mean?”
“You don’t want to know. Trust me.”
“Trust you?” I let out a harsh laugh. “You’re fucking unbelievable, do you know that? You just want to get in my head and fuck with me. My family would not use me, pawn me off. My father wouldn’t have, and my brother wouldn’t and he wouldn’t allow Malek to either.”
“Alaric’s dead so I’ll let you hold on to your delusion if that’s what you want, but at least don’t fool yourself about the others. Burying your head doesn’t make reality any less real.”
“I don’t bury my head—”
“Malek tried to sell you to me, and your brother would have done the same if he was in control, but Malek Lombardi is in charge now. I think he’s been in charge for a while. You do know that don’t you?”
“Why don’t you worry about your own family and leave mine to me. I mean, you’re the one with the missing brother and all.”
His eyes narrow. I’m pushing his buttons, I know I am. And I know I should stop, but I can’t.
He cocks his head and something cold settles around us. “Are we doing this?”
“What? You don’t like talking about reality, Cassian? Not talking about it doesn’t make it any less real.”
He snorts, gives a nominal shake of his head. “Okay then. Tell me what happened when you were fifteen, Allegra.”
“What?” This is not what I’m expecting.
“After your mother’s death, your father pulled you out of school and you pretty much only reappeared years later at a handful of classes at the college and then only under guard.”
I feel my face grow hot and anxiety bubbles at my core. “How do you know that?”
He shrugs a shoulder casually. Too casually. “Not hard to find out.”
“Why were you digging around my life? It’s none of your business.”
Without looking away, he closes his left hand over my right one and takes the nub of my pinkie between his thumb and forefinger. “You know what else I know? You had all ten fingers before you disappeared.”
Blood roars in my ears. I try to snatch my hand back, but he holds tight. Sweat collects under my arms, between my breasts. “I didn’t disappear.”
“Your mother died in a fire, her body conveniently charred to ash. And you never returned to school after that.” He studies me, but I have nothing. “There was a rumor she’d been kidnapped and I’m starting to think it wasn’t a rumor at all,” he says.
“You shouldn’t believe everything you hear,” I say, my voice sounding weird, too thin, too high, my brain trying to think of a response that might shut him up, but my mouth spitting nonsense.
“There’s video footage of you leaving school that day, did you know that?”
I didn’t. “And?” I say, shrugging my shoulders as if it couldn’t matter.
“I recognized the driver.”
I just stare up at him because I don’t know how to respond.
My father told me the kidnapping had to be kept a secret.
Not that there was anyone I could tell. If it wasn’t kept quiet, then more of our enemies would come after us and maybe I wouldn’t survive the next attack.
It was one of the reasons he took me out of school, not that I’d been able to go back anyway. Not after what happened.
“Do you want to know what I think?” Cassian continues, drawing me out of my head.
“Not especially.”
“I think they took you and your mother. And I think they did this.” He rubs the little nub.
I try to pull my hand away again. “Let go. You don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Who are you protecting?”
“No one. You’re not making any sense,” I say, looking beyond him to the wall.
“Do you know what’s really interesting though, Allegra?”
I shake my head. “I don’t care. Let me go, Cassian.”
“That driver, do you know who he worked for?”
I grit my jaw, my breathing tight, my body cold and my heart hammering against my chest. “Let me go.”
“He worked for your father. Did you know that?”
My vision starts to go dark around the edges, my heart thuds, each beat heavier than the last like an army is marching across my chest. For a moment, I’m back in that car.
Back in that room. For a moment, I feel the man’s hand like a vice around my arm half dragging half carrying me out in front of her. For a moment, I hear her scream.
“Your mother’s betrayal cost her her life—”
“Stop!” I pull my hand free and this time, he lets me. I cover my ears. It’s stupid, I know, but I can’t hear this. I shake my head. “Just stop!”
“Did he intend on it? That’s my question. My guess is he wanted to punish her for some transgression, but did he intend on killing her?”
“You don’t know what you’re talking about,” I hiss through gritted teeth, my brain rattling in my skull the sound of blood pumping deafening, my heart thudding so hard I think it’s going to explode out of my chest.
“Then tell me.”
He watches me closely and I wonder how much he knows and how he knows and then I think he doesn’t.
He can’t know. No one can. No one. The men involved in the kidnapping are dead.
I saw their murdered bodies. My father is dead.
Everyone involved is in their grave. Everyone but me. And I’m certainly not telling.
He takes my wrists and draws them away from my ears. His hold isn’t hard. He’s being careful not to hurt me.
“Do you remember when you defended your father claiming he never raised a hand to you? Claiming that he wasn’t that kind of man?”
“Let me go!”
“What I don’t get is why you would defend him. He had you and your mother kidnapped.” I shake my head, tug to free myself from his grasp. I need him to shut up. I just really need him to shut up so I can think.
“Your finger? They wouldn’t have gone that far without his permission. Did you know that?”
“You’re wrong! You don’t know what you’re talking about. You don’t know anything! Let me go!”
“Your father allowed it, Allegra.”
“Stop!”
“Hell, I think he ordered it.”
His words echo, bouncing off these too high walls, and the edges of my vision are fully black now, my heart beating too fast, my lungs not getting enough oxygen, my body going into flight mode. This time, when I tug, I manage to pull free and stumble backward with the momentum.
“I’m right, aren’t I?” he continues, coming toward me, catching me before I fall. “Tell me. Tell me the truth. You know the truth. I can see on your face you know.”
He’s still talking, but his words make no sense because my brain can’t process them. I just need him to shut up. I need him to shut up and so I draw my arm back and ram the heel of my hand into his side, hit him exactly where I’d stabbed him just days ago.
The instant I do it, he stops talking, hunching forward.
If he wasn’t injured, I wouldn’t be able to hurt him.
His expression at first is disbelief. It’s that moment before his brain registers what happened.
I know the instant that pain hits and Cassian’s face goes to rage, his mouth tightening into a hard line as red bleeds into his shirt, the wound opening, his hands tightening on me.
I push against his chest to get away. Shit.
I didn’t mean to do this. I needed him to stop. To shut up. I just needed him to stop.
“That was a mistake.” Cassian’s words are short, his pain written on his face. He’s controlled, and I think that’s when he’s most dangerous.
Before I can respond, he wraps one arm around my middle and pulls me to himself, lifting me off my feet and stalking out of the bedroom.
He walks slowly, each step heavy with pain and purpose.
I try to pry his arm off, twisting to get away, calling out for help knowing no one will help me, but even injured, he’s too strong and far too determined.