FOURTEEN
Benito
M y mother can intimidate the most authoritarian men. Politicians, lawmakers, underbelly kingpins: she’s had them all cower at her feet with a few words alone. When she stole Nastasya from the room, I figured I knew how it would end.
Seeing my mother’s shaken face when they return, it appears I assumed wrong.
Whatever the fuck Stas said to Mama, she’s left my mother distant and unsettled as she lowers herself to Papa’s side. I connect with Mama’s gaze and lift my eyebrows a fraction. What happened? She stares back, mouth set in a flat line, and then, with the grace of the socialite she is, turns her head slightly to give her attention to the person currently speaking: my uncle.
Ouch.
The cushion shifts on my left, the floral notes of Nastasya’s perfume wafting past me as she settles in the seat. I rip my phone out and smack a question into my notes app.
What did you say?
Her eyes settle on the words before she lifts her chin to smile. “The truth.” Two words whispered from soft lips.
Two words that deal so much fucking damage.
I never directly lied to Mama about Nastasya and me. My mother made her assumptions, and like the coward I was at the time, I let her believe whatever was easiest. If I’d told her the extent of the truth, it would have not only broken her heart to know her son could be so callous when spurned, but it would have leaned toward me needing to disclose the truth about my silence.
Sure. She knows why I can’t talk. The whole family does. It was impossible to hide when Vinny carried me in the front door, blood streaming from my jaw, and barely conscious.
It was even more impossible to hide when the laborious task of healing began. A cut, a scrape, or a graze—they’re easy to care for. But a wound in your fucking mouth presents numerous problems. Most of all, the fact that it never truly has time to mend before you aggravate it again with food, drink… hollering into the fucking void out of sheer frustration.
It shocked the fuck out of me the first time I heard my changed voice. It disgusted me when I tried to use it to make a distinct sound.
The decision to take a vow of silence wasn’t hard to make. The resolution to not retaliate until the time was right was harder.
“It was decided while you ladies were out of the room that the wedding will take place within the month,” Papa details, staring Stas straight in the eye. “I trust that is enough time for you to organize things?”
She glares at her father as she answers. “Papa had me start already.” She switches focus to Mama and adds, “With the help of my cousin, Lana.”
I taste the cold that fucking chills my veins. She what? My hand finds its way to Nastasya’s wrist before I register what I do: I tug Stas to her feet.
“Benito.” Mama frowns. “Is something the matter?”
I know that saccharine tone—she fucking knows precisely what pisses me off. My nose twitches with the flash of a scowl, and I guide my wife-to-be from the room with determined strides.
“I’m sure they’ll be fine,” Papa appeases Arseni when the pakhan shifts to the front of his chair.
“What the hell are you doing?” Stas hisses as we cross into the foyer.
I don’t answer until we’re safely tucked in the passageway to the servant’s quarters. “Lana?” I mouth, releasing her.
She lifts one eyebrow and folds her arms. “Will that be an issue?”
My nostrils display my irritation.
“Unless, of course, you’re worried you might slip over and have your dick fall in her again?” She’s the spitting image of her father when she wants to be nasty.
My fist hits the wall behind her with a dull crack. I keep my arm extended, semi-caging her close to me while I relish the pain that pulses through my knuckles and into my wrist.
Shaken but not put off, Nastasya continues. “I’m sorry if having Lana help me makes you uncomfortable,” she snaps, eyes narrowing. “Because, you know, it’s so fucking great for me to have the bitch who fucked my first love help arrange the wedding.”
Her sarcasm burns, but three words in that tirade have me soften my fist into a flat palm against the paneled wall. My first love. I crook an eyebrow.
“What?” She turns her head, giving me her profile.
I jerk it back with a firm grip on her jaw. Look at me. One tilt of my head, the raise of my brow—she goddamn knows what I ask of her.
“ Were my first love,” she stresses. “As in, I don’t love you anymore.”
Liar . My smile is wicked, a glint of my teeth.
“Calm your ego, hero.” She presses a hand against my chest—hard. “I’ve agreed to do this crazy fucking thing with you, but that doesn’t mean shit. Got it?”
It so does.
I drag my fingers down the side of her face, amused when she flinches away. If I didn’t affect her, she would have shown indifference. But she runs from the connection, the thrill I still feel when I touch her supple flesh.
“You tore me apart when you did that, you know?” Her whisper punches the air between us.
She doesn’t give me time to respond, darting free of my presence and taking two refreshing steps into the open. I turn and slump my shoulders against the panels she’d occupied seconds before. I would love to explain the whole fucked up mess to her, but there’s only so much I can say through typed words on a screen. If she chooses to look away to stop reading or take the wrong meaning from the plain dialect, then I have no way to argue my point. I can’t put the feeling into the words I know she needs to hear.
I’m sorry can be understood a thousand different ways when not voiced from the heart.
“I can send you a list of options for the wedding,” Stas says, breaking the silence. Fuck knows I can’t. “Choices for colors and styles.” She glances toward where our parents still exchange pleasantries. “I’m sure we’ll have the opportunity to get together again soon.”
Fuck. I frown at the despondence in her eyes and the downturn of her mouth. I was so focused on what she thought I didn’t give credence to how she felt.
The bruise on the swell of her shoulder reminds me where I should have directed my concern.
I catch her attention with a gentle snap of my fingers. She whips her head to face me, anger storming those emerald eyes. I jerk my head, asking her to move closer. With a sigh, she obeys, seemingly comfortable to do so when she sees my phone in one hand.
I’m sorry for your loss, Stas.
Her gaze lifts to meet mine, yet there’s no softness or gratitude in her stare. She looks downright murderous. “How fucking dare you.”
Christ, give me strength. What the fuck have I done now?
“Your goddamn family pulled the trigger, Benito.” Stas shakes her head and moves away. I resist the urge to pull her back to me. “Your men take my best friend, and you have the gall to offer condolences?”
I push off the wall and move toward her. She tries to flee, to dart out of my reach by circling the vast foyer, but it doesn’t take me long, with my lengthier strides, to catch up. I snare her by the waist of her camisole, quickly wrapping my other palm around her back, and then pull her flush. Stas resists, her hands shunting at my shoulders and upper chest to get me to relent, but I stand firm, copping a fist to the jaw in her frenzy that makes my head reel back.
I don’t care what she thinks or who she assumes did the deed. My father said the order didn’t come from him, and I believe him.
The De Santis family didn’t murder her best friend.
“I don’t want your sympathy,” Stas complains, back arched over my firm forearm in her effort to get distance between us. “Stop condescending me, you asshole!”
I hold my fiancée tight, waiting, counting the seconds until she folds. Because she will fold. We all do eventually, when the emotional outlet is one that we need.
“Fuck you,” she utters in weak protest, her back relaxing. “Fuck you and your whole goddamn family.” Her throat thickens, and she leans into the embrace. “All you give me is trouble.”
I lift my hand from her waist and cup the back of her head. She doesn’t cry; I’d wager she has no tears left. But what Nastasya does next is exactly what I’d hope: she relents. Her body falls against mine; limbs sated with the knowledge I’ll take her pain and let her be. She never has to pretend. Never has to put on a brave face or play the role when she’s with me. Women are overused and underappreciated in the criminal world. We expect our female counterparts to bear the equivalent pain that we endure but without the same privilege of release. Made men have the luxury of passing their agony and anger onto our enemies. I can excise the burn of my grudges into the flesh of the people I hold accountable. Meanwhile, as a woman, Nastasya is expected to burden her resentment in silence.
I know how fucking hard that is on the soul.
My hand continues to cradle her head while I trace a path up and down her spine with the other, grazing my touch over the curve and swell of her body. Her limp arms lift to encompass my waist, and I sigh. The rush of air ruffles her golden tresses, stirring her heavenly smell from heated flesh. I’ve waited years to have this again—spent just as long believing I never would.
If I could go back and fix one thing in my past, it wouldn’t be losing the ability to speak. It’d be to tell my first love what she meant to me before I did.
The urge to whisper an apology leaves my lips tingling and my throat thick with regret. I run my nose along the shell of her ear instead, unsurprised when she stiffens slightly against me. My cheek touches her head, and I lean into the contact. Affection: the only way I can convey my thoughts.
“I want so badly to say that I still hate you,” she utters against my chest, fingers flexing on the back of my shirt. “But I can’t.” Stas pulls back, the intensity of her gaze leaving me frozen in awe. “I hate myself, instead, for wanting to forgive you.”
Then don’t. I shake my head and frown. I don’t want her forgiveness.
I need her trust.
Bringing both hands up, I cradle her face and softly kiss her forehead. The road ahead will be a rocky one. We’re guaranteed arguments and betrayal, lies and inconveniences.
Our families will never rest, no matter what they say this union means.
I catch Stas’s eye, ducking my head slightly to level our gazes. You and me, I mouth slowly to ensure she catches every syllable.
“Against the world.” She huffs a disbelieving laugh.
Fingers pinched on her jaw, I frown and nod. She may laugh about it now, but there’ll be no humor left in those pretty eyes when I burn this house of lies to the fucking ground.
I told her once that her happiness is my life’s purpose.
It’s about time I showed her I goddam meant it.