Chapter 10 #2
"Chet has been a problem for everyone for years.
He's never going to go away. He might disappear for a time or two.
Maybe years. But he'll always be back," I start, surprised that still not a single person has stretched to talk over me.
"If we're going to do this, why waste it?
Not to send him a message. But to send a message to every one else.
Work together to make sure that he's not a threat now, later or ever again.
If we're going to team up, let's do it right, and kill that motherfucker.
" I round home my argument with a pointed finger.
I'm greeted only by silence. I have never commanded so much space and it's a struggle to remain silent while I allow my case to resonate. Alexei is the first to move. "Fuck," is all he says, and with that permission, the entire rooms lights up like a firecracker of activity.
There's chaos from every angle that I look. Freddie talks Anton's ear off and no matter which way he turns he can't seem to escape it. Isla tersely converses with the Rushkoff men around the room. Who must be important enough to think they have some say.
Alexei remains the only silent one, watching the chaos with barely constrained anger.
"It's like you're afraid to fight him or something," I say, sitting back in disbelief at how they all bicker.
Finally sick of it, Isla places two fingers in her mouth and whistles to draw the attention of the room. "Enough!" she says. "None of you making any noise have the final say in this. Back to your posts."
She sits back down as the men return to the edges of the room to stand against the bookcases.
Anton sits forward seriously as he addresses me first. "It would be starting a war, Sage. A war of a scale we haven't been in before."
I frown, because surely all these truces haven't made everyone so risk averse that they can't see what's right in front of them.
"If you haven't noticed, uncle, we're already in one.
" I look at them all like they've got two heads.
"Chet's killing our people. Ransacking our properties.
If there's a war, it's already started. At least have the balls to finish it. "
"She has a point, Anton," Freddie interjects.
Anton snaps his head towards him disapprovingly but within it all Alexei zeroes in on me and readies for his attack.
"How'd your last plan go, princess?" Alexei says, his stormy gray eyes cutting me to the core. "You don't generally have the best ideas."
"Alexei-" Isla warns, but he's not done making his hit.
"How many more people do you want to see die at your hands?"
I do my best to maintain a confident stare back at him, but the deep sinking feeling in my heart tells me he's right.
This family is (so far) two people down because of me.
My plans may be bold, but they are stupid, reckless and they have never ended well.
It's clear I've never been afraid to make a tough choice.
But I've never been the one to finish a fight and win.
Not really. Not when every fight I've calculated has ended with the death of a loved one.
I make promises that I can't keep.
I don't have the composure to do this verbal spar with him right now. But there is still the death promise. That is the one promise I intend to keep. I will get Alexei eventually. It's only a matter of time. "I need to use the bathroom."
I stand up on shaky legs and Alexei smirks at me, an evil one that shows his canine as he reaches out his tongue to poke it. Alexei looks proud of himself as he knows he's hit me where it cuts the deepest. He always knows.
I maintain my composure all the way to the edge of the room and am luckily out of sight before I break. A single silent tear falls down my face to start the onslaught of the others.
I rush up the wooden stairs to the second floor, finding a bathroom in the third door I open.
I rinse my face and try to make my eyes look less puffy.
As much as I've always wanted the respect, I'm not sure why I even try or bother opening my mouth.
My family doesn't know what I've done. Sometimes I'm proud.
But mostly I want to pretend it never happened.
That I didn't do these things. That I didn't open the gates for Victor and that I didn't walk right into the trap that killed him.
It's out of my hands now, anyway. This decision doesn't belong to me. I said my piece and if they choose not to listen then I won't fight it. I tap my face dry and open the door to head back downstairs.
Passing by a familiar wooden door is when I see it. The dark room with the green couch overlooking the expanse of the lake.
I freeze in the doorway, and it's only open a touch, but it's enough.
Peering inside, it's like I am floating outside my body and can see everything that happened here from this angle instead.
Gunshots. Victor laughing. Him jumping in front of me to save me.
The fear in my own eyes. The way my hands were covered in blood and his were cold.
I can't help myself as I take a step inside the room, gulping over a tight throat as I look around. It seems so similar yet so different to how it was when I was here.
My fingers trace over the green couch. My feet step over where Victor's body was left. When I step over the spot that I said goodbye to my lover, I falter, dropping down to my knees and sucking in a deep breath of air that is not strong enough.
My hands shake as they trace over the spot on the floor where he laid. My tears come on silently again and drip onto the spot where he died. There's not even a stain here. Not a mark. Not an inference of the memory.
I can't decide if that is good or bad.
I close my eyes before my heart gets the better of me. I want to claw at the floor. I want to pull him back through it and into existence again.
I can still hear my own screams. The way I yelled for him after he was gone. The way his cold hand melted into mine, even as I tried to squeeze it back to life.
Of all the emotions that come flooding up, all I can feel is the grief. The raw pain of him. The feel of him. It all attacks me. Bubbles up and tries to take me under.
I'm going to drown.
I startle upward, hyperventilating, and trip back on my feet as I rush to get out as fast as possible before I'm lost in here forever.
I turn and run. But I only make it to the door when I hit a hard chest.
"Princess." His voice is a curious whisper, and I feel the tension burning off him from where I clutch his arms. "You shouldn't be in here."