Chapter 4
She’s back. I have spent two years in hell, missing her, drifting away from my soul, and being cut off from my life’s energy. I tried to protect her from this shithole. I never wanted the purest part of my life to be touched by the darkness. Yet here she is.
That old hag tests me again and again. I sacrificed myself for Celine, and she looks at me as if I am nothing to her.
Heat sets my blood on fire. She’s the match and gasoline in one, and I am a forest burned to a crisp––barren and turned into ash.
I thought I had hallucinated at dinner that missing her had conjured her physically.
She’s beautiful. Those dark blue eyes, the door to my piece of the night sky, peer into mine with sheer disdain.
She pushes me away, and I stumble back. Weak on my feet. Weak in my heart. Weak in my temptation––it’s impossible to purge my weakness out of me again. Celine is more than that. She’s light, and I have been drowning in pitch blackness––trapped in an unforgiven cycle of torture with my salvation so out of reach.
“Why are you here?” I demand.
“That’s none of your concern.” Her cold voice slaps me awake from my mental wanderings.
I wanted her to say she missed me and couldn’t keep living without me.
A few more years until I could escape the Family’s clutches, and I would have gone to her to whatever part of this world and demanded she keep her promise of today, tomorrow, and always.
A pool of saliva spills in my mouth. My eyes follow the arch of her hips, my favorite dip. She’s my personal drug, and, like the addict I am, my need for a dose is higher than my self-preservation. My whole being trembles with withdrawal.
“Leave, Kaden. Now.”
Her glacial look sends shock waves through my system.
She tips her chin up, fury tightening the corners of her mouth. I grip her hands and pin them behind her back. One moment, I’m holding her captive. The next, she spins, freeing herself from my grip and lowering to an almost squat position. Her foot kicks mine, and I am flying on my back before I can even blink.
What the fuck just happened?
She lands on top of me and presses her elbow into my neck, squeezing my vocal cords.
“Stay out of my way. This is your only warning.”
She pushes off me, and my hands shoot to her waist, dragging her back down. Turning us over, I get on top of her.
She thrashes under me, but I’m bigger and stronger. Still, I am on high alert. While everything in her screams of familiarity, she behaves like a different person. I have trouble discerning between the memory of her and the reality of her.
“When and why did you learn that?”
Her eyes tighten into two slits, and she smirks. “Wouldn’t you like to know?”
Her phone rings, interrupting our moment, and she squirms even harder. I don’t loosen my grip on her, afraid if I do, I’ll lose my sanity as well.
“It must be Hunter.”
I hate how she pronounces his name, ringing with sweetness and love. I think I might die. My heart pounds so loud it may rip my ribcage apart. I wrap my hand around her neck. No, I fucking refuse to believe that there could be someone else for her than me.
She bares her teeth, a manic expression on her face.
Who is this girl? It took everything in me to remain impassive while she told us about her life abroad. I played on my phone to keep my hands occupied, to keep my focus on something other than grabbing her and saying fuck it all. I learned how to survive.
That old hag invited Hunter to the table, most surely planning a new alliance for more power and money.
“Did you fuck him?” If she says yes, I won’t fucking survive it.
She grinds her pussy against my cock. “Like this?”
I thought my heart died in my chest, and I was convinced she could revive it when we got back together, but now, she’s pulverized it.
I push off her before I lose it for good and do something stupid like spank her ass to remind her who she belongs to. Storming away, I hop in my BMW M8 Grand Coupe and speed away back to campus, punching the wheel and cursing.
Leaving the insular community behind, I drive toward the outskirts of Greenville until the steel college gates appear. The security guard greets me, opening them for me. The old and prestigious college building stands on acres of land. A washed-out gray cement building looks impressive, almost like a castle. Another thing the Family built and subsequently owns.
I park in front of the upscale college house and step outside, walking toward the entrance door. We live on campus so everyone can see we’re the heirs, and that we’re in control of everything.
I shut the door behind me, sinking back against it. Blake rounds the corner, nursing a glass of whiskey and carrying the bottle. He has built such a tolerance he could drink an entire shelf and still be coherent.
I relive the unease, the train wreck these last hours turned out to be.
In a flurry of movement, I snatch the bottle and throw it at the wall. The glass shatters, like my insides.
“I was drinking that.”
“Basement, now.”
We hurry down the stairs to the gym. Once there, he reaches back, pulling his shirt off. We’re similar in height and shape, but he’s packed with more muscles. He rakes a hand through his black hair, his green eyes focused.
“This will hurt,” I say, stalking toward the boxing ring resting in the middle of the room. We shift from foot to foot, loosening our muscles, warming up.
“You wish.”
We spar for a while, circling each other. I find an opening and drive my fist into his chin, splitting it.
Rubbing his thumb over the wound, he watches the traces of blood. A faraway look furrows his brows. “That wasn’t nice of you, although girls do love battle scars.”
Then he cracks his neck and punches me straight in the solar plexus. The force of the hit propels me back, but I recover quickly, going at him. I am functioning on pent-up anger that won’t be stilled easily.
He ducks and avoids my fist, coming at me. We’re engaged in a violent dance. He elbows me in the ribs, stealing my air. I turn around and throw him with an uppercut on the mat, blood coating his teeth.
He spits the blood out. “That’s all you got?”
Then Blake pushes me off him and has me in a chokehold.
I slam my elbow into his ribs and get out from under him. An injured beast is roaring inside of me who can only be contained by fighting or I’ll bleed this world dry.
“You don’t fucking get it,” I snarl.
“I’m your best friend. Try me.”
“This rage… I can’t take it anymore, man.”
He plops down on his ass, his hands dangling over his knees.
“Celine’s stupid for coming back.”
All we want is to leave this place, and she came back willingly.
“She’s different.”
“What did you expect? That girl lived for you and you––”
“I did what I had to do.” And if I needed proof of what that did to her, I got it tonight. The fight leaves me. Everything seems irrelevant now that I lost her.
He shrugs. “Well, the way she looked at you, or better yet, didn’t look at you, tells me you’re her past.”
From the corner of my eye, I see Abigail. “Are you done being animals?”
“Not everyone is a Kyusho Jitsu expert like you. We actually like to use our fists,” Blake says.
“Yes, we’re done.”
“Celine has changed… we worked too hard…” She sighs, pursing her lips. Some people, like Abigail, appear ice on the outside while being soft underneath.
“You did great tonight,” she adds, looking at me with eyes full of understanding.
“Grandmother still doesn’t trust us.”
“In this family, trust is the greatest luxury. None of us can afford that,” Blake says, dropping on his back, eyes glued to the ceiling.
Abigail tilts her head, brows creased in deep thought. “She will be her eyes.”
I nod, and she adds, “You can’t trust her. And we came too far for her to ruin our only chance to escape.”
I pat my chest in mock hurt. “Thank you for your trust.”
“Shut up. We all know only Celine has that power.”
And always will.
Standing up, I leave and go upstairs. Down the hall, I enter my bedroom. I discard my clothes and take a shower. Thoughts of Celine invade my brain, keeping me hostage. Goddamn it. How much longer until I can feel something other than pain?
With a towel wrapped around my hips, I find Bailey on the edge of my bed, her eyes on her phone. Even our births have somewhat been coordinated. I was the first one. Four months later Abigail was born, then Blake, Celine. Bailey was the exception, as she came six months after Celine. She’s the youngest. She just turned nineteen, and we all protect her the best we can. Yet, she’s the one no one would see coming. She looks dainty and innocent while she can rip your life apart with the touch of a button.
“This damn family keeps most things analog. Of course, I didn’t find out Celine was coming back. Sorry.”
“Hey, that’s not your fault.”
She tilts her head, tapping her mouth. “She’s different.”
“Yes, she is, and I need you to keep her away from everything that may reveal what we’re doing here.”
“She’s my friend. I don’t want to deceive her.”
“You’re not deceiving her. You’re keeping her safe.”
Bailey offers a small nod and leaves. I get into bed. The image of Celine pinned under me comes alive before me, and my dick begs for a release, but no. This is another form of torture.
It’s not as if she didn’t just shit on everything.
But again, I broke her heart then. What she doesn’t know, though, is I broke mine just as much.
***
After a restless night with dreams filled with her, or better said, my recurring nightmare, I wake up, drenched. Her crying and begging for me and me being strapped to a chair while they showed my greatest fear on the screen, of Celine being tortured and killed. Not being able to prevent it, always ends with me disheveled.
When I calm down, I change and go downstairs.
In the kitchen, Bailey peels a banana while Abigail prepares herself a cup of coffee looking straight at me.
“Kaden, I know how you feel about her, okay, but Celine is like the Trojan horse.”
Blake walks inside, straight for the fridge, and takes out a protein shake. “We don’t know that for sure.”
I take a sip of the black liquid when Abigail shrieks. “Are you both out of your minds? We’re risking our lives here.”
I let Abigail get away with most of it because, like me, she suffered the most.
“Abigail, enough.”
That shuts her up.
Bailey eyes me with accusation, saying, “Celine has to be hurt.”
“Don’t look at me like that. I did what I had to do to protect her.”
Blake gulps down the rest of his protein drink. Discarding it in the trash, he crosses his arms over his chest. “You see, bro, you should have done that for me. I would have built you a fucking thank you statue.”
“We’re so over your suicidal tendencies. Grow the fuck up,” Abigail says, raising her arms in the air, and he storms out.
My tone lowers to a warning. “Abi.”
“What? We all had to sacrifice. This will end badly,” she says before heading back upstairs.
It’s just me and Bailey and I say, “Promise me that Celine will never find out.” It doesn’t matter anymore. I lost her. I don’t want to poke that pulsating and festering wound when she clearly moved past us.
“Why?” she asks in a soft voice.
“She doesn’t need to know that I’m playing house with Abigail.”
“Yes, for the Family.”
“And for her as well. It has to be like this.” I have no idea how I will get her out unscathed a second time, but I will.
Through the window, I watch a black car pull in front of our house, and Bailey and I move to the hallway.
The entry door opens. Light seeps through, flooding my insides.
Celine wears jeans and a fitted long-sleeved top, her hair in a high ponytail. She emanates a strength, a confidence that is more than sexy. She turned into a breathtaking woman, but again, she always had that effect on me.
“Honey,” Abigail says from the top of the stairs. Celine looks from her to me, her eyes two narrow slits. It has to be this way.
“Make yourself at home,” I say to Celine. “Abi is waiting for me.”
I would have told her who Abigail is to me, but not after her confession. She fucking annihilated me.
I hope it hurts her like it does me waking up every day without having her.