Chapter 38
Chapter
Thirty-Eight
Alexei
My lips are on fire.
From afar, she was curious and intriguing. Up close, it is worse than I could have imagined. If I thought there was something nuclear between us before it has now reacted. I am spun into her web, breaking me down, bleeding me dry, cutting off my oxygen, and yet I relish it and I welcome it.
She has shattered me.
With a simple press of her lips against mine something inside of me has broken.
She should have been easy to kill. In fact, I had plenty of opportunities to do it. I knew I was going easy on her. Possibly the whole time. Telling myself it was for the fun of it.
But I let it go on and on and on.
I crouch down next to the pool at the DeMarco estate, still reeling from the feel of her lips on mine. I reach down and scoop pool water to my face, attempting to wash the scent of her off me.
It does not work, and endless cleansing would not subdue me from her now. The water slides easily off my tattooed hands but it doesn't rid me of the feeling of her on my lips or in my hands.
I stay there, angrily staring off into the distance, unfocused and unaware, thinking back on the times I had my shot to kill her.
Every encounter was a game. It would have taken a simple flick of the wrist, swing of the knife or silent shot with a pistol.
I could have done it. I never did. It would've been within my rights of the death promise to do it at any time I wanted.
Not even the night she knocked herself unconscious just outside the gates of her estate. Nobody but me saw that happen. She knocked herself right into the dirt. I could've easily grabbed her leg, pulled her out, and finished her there. Yet I didn't.
Even as I'd traveled so far chasing her, I saw her there and I walked away. I chose to walk away.
All this time I'd told myself it was because I wanted to draw this out. Because I wanted her to live in fear for a little longer.
I sigh deeply and resign myself to a sitting position, shielding my eyes from the sun with my hand.
Victor would've clapped me upside the head for being so weak. For being too weak to extract his revenge? Who knows now what he was capable of doing to me for that.
Still, I miss my brother.
At first, punishing her was the only solution. If it wasn't for her, he wouldn't be dead. That is still true. But now I wonder if I was just punishing myself. First, for not being there for Victor. And second, by not allowing myself to have what I so clearly want.
"Hey, loner." I turn over my shoulder to find Isla approaching me. She smiles knowingly as she sits next to me on the edge of their pool.
I glance at her but don't bother saying hello.
"Moping out here now?" she asks.
I give her an annoyed look. "I'm not moping."
Isla smirks at me. "What are you doing then? Because I caught a small glimpse of Sage kissing you in there. Looked hot."
I crack a smile. Sage would be devastated if she knew we'd been caught so brazenly. Luckily only by Isla, though.
"Don't make me kill you for watching," I say, laughing.
She jostles my shoulder with hers. "So you are out here moping? About her?"
I shoot her another look. Mostly because that's easier than trying to express out loud just exactly what is running through my head. I run a stressed hand through my hair, noticing only now at how the muscle pulls against my gunshot wound. She hasn't patched me up very well.
Nope. Instead she ripped me open in new ways.
Isla hugs her knees to her chest, her blonde hair blowing gently behind her with the breeze. "I've always liked her," she says with a smile.
"And thank you for adding your opinion," I say, rolling my eyes and huffing as I rest my hands behind me.
Sitting here it would look like we're doing nothing more than enjoying a nice sunny day by the pool.
And it is a beautiful place to do that. Everything on this property feels so familiar now.
I know my way around. I have my own room here.
The guards easily open the gates to me. It's like it's a part of my own.
I never wanted to hate them.
Well, I hated one of them. For taking something I thought should be mine. That thought drives something foreboding inside of me, leaving a sour taste on my tongue. Because I know that even though I hated him, she didn't.
"She'll never forgive me," I say, whispering the words into the wind and kind of hoping that Isla doesn't hear me.
She does, though, and I am forced to face it.
"Every thing that happened, it was an accident," Isla says. The fact that she doesn't address forgiveness is not lost on me. We both know that's off the table. "You'll both come to see that eventually." She nods to herself, as if she needs convincing just as much as I do.
"Well," I say, shrugging. "It was her I was trying to shoot."
Isla just shakes her head at me. "It was all an accident."
I think back to the day again, transporting me to a dark place in time. Where Victor was screaming at me to hurt them, to defend him. Listening to Prince as he shouted at her to kill my brother.
"I aimed that gun to save my brother's life," I say, gritting my teeth as anger consumes the emotions around me. "I'd do it again."
Isla places her hand on my arm, and implores me to look at her. The earnest look in her eyes floats the anger away from my body. What I feel in its place is the raw grief that I've been pushing away.
"No," she says, "you wouldn't."
The grief, this time, comes out the way it was always meant to feel. It floods me, and yet my only outward reaction is to wipe my palm over my mouth to try and contain it.
Fuck.
This hurts.
It's a feeling that takes over every nerve ending in my body like it's ripping apart my bones.
I've been turned inside out and every organ bleeds outside my body while it tries to survive somewhere it doesn't belong.
It's unnatural to feel this much pain and not die from it.
Because something this potent could kill.
At the end of the day, Isla is right.
I wouldn't do it again. Any of it.
I wouldn't aim the gun at Sage. I wouldn't shoot Prince. I wouldn't make a death promise. I wouldn't leave my brother to call the shots.
It was Victor's time to die.
That realization pierces me and I double over, holding my stomach to stop from being sick right over the edge of their pool.
Oh, God.
It... fuck, it was Victor's time. He had gotten out of control. He was losing it. Between the manic behavior and teaming up with Chet...
"Oh God," I say, repeating my thoughts out loud as Isla pats my back. "It was Victor's time."
Isla purses her lips in agreement but doesn't respond.
I wish I could've saved him. But not from them. From himself. I hate everything that he did and everything that he turned out to be. I know he's not a victim, but in my mind I'll always wish there was a way I could've saved him.
Even though I know full well now that there was no way for me to stop him. I had no idea what he'd planned with Chet. What he really wanted by bringing us into this mess with the DeMarcos. Or how far down this path he had really gotten.
He kept me completely in the dark.
Maybe I could've stopped him if I'd known. But I didn't. The only mistake I made was not stopping him in the short moments I did know. I gave Sage her gun. I gave her the knife that killed my brother.
"It's not too much to grant yourself forgiveness you know," Isla says, still patting my back with a gentle comforting touch.
"No," I bark out, the venom in the words surprising even me. "I do not need to ask forgiveness for what happened to Prince." It's only now that I realize I do have rogue tears dripping down my cheek.
"Not for him," Isla says. "For what happened to Victor."
I shrug her hand off my back, but don't dare move to wipe the tear that's now dripping on my chin. "I don't blame myself," I lie, teeth gritted and doing my best to turn my pain into anger instead.
"Yes you do," Isla replies, knowing me better than I wish she did and still showing me much more patience than I deserve.
I wish it wasn't so obvious how much I do blame myself.
For all of it and especially for allowing Victor to be killed.
Because it does feel like something that I allowed to happen.
Whether through inaction or indecision. Maybe I could have stopped it.
Maybe this could all have ended the same way, but without my brother needing to die, if I hadn't left him there to do so.
When I look back at Isla, she is still staring at me, patiently waiting for me to decide I'm ready to talk to her.
"I can't," I say, the words barely audible.
"I understand," she says.
We sit for a moment. Letting the fresh air sweep away all the things that have been said. After a while, Isla turns to me, giving me her full attention when she finally asks, "Can you... forgive her?"
I blink slowly, grateful that both the anger and the tears are gone. Absorbed into my skin, not showing, but always there. My heart beat slows and I clutch my hand over my chest, squeezing the fabric there as I close my eyes and admit it out loud. "I already do."
"Then maybe that's enough," Isla says, turning back towards the pool. She sits quietly next to me and together we stay in comfortable silence, watching as the day goes by. The sun warms my face, bringing with it a sense of peace.
I accept now that it was Victor's time. I will always wish there was more I could've done to help him, but there wasn't. So while I don't forgive myself, I do understand now. Even more so, I understand that this feeling isn't ever going to go away no matter what I do to block it.
The only thing I can do now is live with it. And move on.
So I do.