Chapter 53
53
“ I swear… if you tell me to sit down one more time, Calliano.”
The man in question gives me a stern glare, keeping his arms folded. He won’t let me leave this house, won’t let me follow after them, even if I feel as though being contained within these four walls is like fitting me with a straightjacket.
“You can pace up and down all you like; it’s not going to change anything. Angel is with her. That’s the safest fucking arrangement we could make, and you know it.”
“Andreas knows something.” I drag one hand through my hair.
“He thinks he knows plenty of things.” Hawke is a master of remaining calm amidst a shitstorm, and right now, I just want to yell in his perfect goddamn face because I don’t know how he’s able to switch everything off so ruthlessly like he does.
“How the hell are you going to make your little plan work… if he’s suspicious, that’s going to flip everything and screw us. We won’t have a goddamn hope.”
“Just leave it with me.”
“No. You keep fucking saying that, and I don’ t see how you or your brothers are going to fix this.” My chest feels like it’s going to explode. “It’s more than just Andreas Noire. If it isn’t him, then it could be Vitto, and if it isn’t that asshole, then it could… it could be…” I can’t even bring myself to say my father’s name. Any thoughts of that maggot get caught in my throat.
“We’ve got a plan.”
“What fucking plan?” A cold laugh bursts out of me. “You’re full of shit.”
“I’m not the enemy here, Grey.”
“Oh yeah? With all your goddamn secrets and sitting there like you don’t give a damn about either of them.” I let the snarl fly in his direction because fuck him for being a heartless bastard.
Fuck him for having the ability to remain distant. Because I used to be able to do that, too. There was a past version of me who could be cold and calculating and didn’t care about anything but sticking a knife into a warm body in order to see the blood flow freely over my boots.
There was a time in my life when that’s all I lived for. How I got my name and came to be the one they send the dead-men-walking to.
Now? Now I’m left standing here in the wreckage left behind, assessing the damage after the storm that has destroyed everything I knew about how to survive in this world.
How the fuck are we going to make it out of this? How am I supposed to keep the two of them safe when Andreas Noire has grabbed hold, and the only reason that man ever personally gets involved with anyone within the Anguis is if he wants his pound of flesh?
Would I survive knowing that foul excuse for a human had laid a hand on either of them?
“ Grey .” The deep, familiar voice cuts through my spiral into the darkness. I blink and realize that Hawke is standing right in front of me in the middle of the kitchen. “Stay with me, man. Don’t let it eat you alive. That’s what they want, and that’s when they win.”
My hands come up in warning. Not to step closer, not to get near me, because obviously all I’m good for is destroying anything good that comes near me.
“Don’t.” The sneer on my lip curls into a growl.
“I’m not gonna let you, or them, get hurt.” His blue eyes flash with a streak of silver, a violent lightning strike that gives a tiny hint of what might lie beneath the surface he’s continuing to keep so calm.
He moves closer, and my fists grab hold of the front of his shirt, holding him at arm’s length. “You can’t promise anything, and you fucking know it.”
“It’s ok to admit you care for them. It’s ok to admit you love them.”
“ No .” Shaking my head, I push or goddamn pull, or I don’t even know, but my knuckles are white under the force of gripping the material covering his torso. “Love is what my brother felt for the drugs. Love is what my father felt for sticking his blade into me and watching me bleed for him. That Noire bitch loved to play with her favorite Callianos when they were little kids, didn’t she? Love is fucking poison. It’s a cancer that infects and twists and turns everything rotten.”
I can’t stop the words from flowing; I can’t stop them from bubbling up and boiling over, and Hawke’s hands come up to cover mine.
“Tell me I’m wrong.” My mouth hangs open, like I can’t get air down past the helpless way I’m panting. “Look me in the eye and tell me that you don’t believe the same things I do.”
“Grey…” The firm hold of his palms wraps my wrists, and he’s not trying to push me off him, even though I’m damn near tearing the fabric of his shirt.
“I can’t lose them.” It’s a croak, a desperate whisper.
Hawke drags me into him, and wraps his arms around my shoulders, and my hands automatically slide to cling tighter to him.
I’ve never felt this kind of fear. It’s drowning me while being only inches from the surface, like I’m held under by an invisible force.
“I know.” His voice rumbles through the front of his chest and into mine. Hawke keeps holding me, and I can’t fight him. I can’t fight it. Everything is tearing me apart from the inside, and he’s letting me hold onto him like a mast in the middle of a hurricane of dark thoughts and even more insidious fears.
“It’ll kill me knowing she’s with him.” It doesn’t matter who. We both know that it could be any single one of them, and it wouldn’t matter, because the disgusting reality of any of them going near her would rip through me, us, like a chainsaw through flesh.
Every muscle fiber feels like it’s vibrating with hatred. Pure fire scorches a trail of despair through my lungs and prevents me from finding an escape from the inferno that threatens to char every ounce of flesh from the inside out.
“I know.” As he says those words, I hear it finally in his voice. The moment it cracks just enough to tell me that he feels it all, too.
Just as he speaks, at the moment his carefully constructed exterior finally falters for a split second, we both hear it.
The sound of their vehicle returning.