6. Rian And Dahlia Make Amends
RIAN AND DAHLIA MAKE AMENDS
Dahlia
The Empress looks strange in the daylight.
Sunlight floods the room through the floor to ceiling windows and everything from the coast of Queens to the Jersey skyline is within reach.
A single glance over the back of the velvet booth we’re sitting in makes it feel like we’re dangling over the edge of the world.
What awaits us at the bottom is a snow and concrete abyss.
The ceiling doesn’t seem so endless. At night it feels like you could reach up and touch the stars.
During the day, you can see all the metal contraptions utilized to create the illusion of an endless, starry night.
Confetti machines, strobe lights, hangers, metal frames, wires that support the massive chandeliers.
The bar is empty and so is the dance floor.
Once you learn the magician’s tricks, the wander and awe is gone.
The Empress is just another room, another place. For some reason, I think of El Aliciente and how strange and barren it felt to walk the floor after it’d been reduced to ash.
I sit alone in a booth near the bar where we’ve all seemed to gather.
Alejandro stands nearby and leans against the table for support while Lyss and Sasha are one booth over, closest to the bar.
Sasha places a cigar between his lips and strikes a match to light the end.
As soon as Lyss inhales a bit of smoke she looks over her shoulder and gets up from where she was seated.
She comes to sit by me and Alejandro and I might not have paid the insignificant interaction any mind if not for Sasha’s reaction.
He looks at her and does an immediate double take.
His eyes are the grayest I’ve ever seen—near volcanic in color—a shade most people wouldn’t believe is real unless they saw it up close.
They narrow slightly as he tracks her movement, shoulders still as he holds his breath, and the second Lyss slips into the booth next to me, completely oblivious to what’s transpired, he takes the bud of his new cigar and puts it out on the tabletop.
He leans against the side of the booth, arms crossed over his chest, eyes never leaving her, and waits.
Waits, waits, waits.
Lyss doesn’t even know he’s looking at her. She’s too focused on picking her cuticles.
I sit up and tap Alejandro’s arm. He turns to look at me.
“?Hay algo pasando entre ellos?”
He frowns. “?Quién?”
I almost tilt my chin in Sasha’s direction but the club’s main entrance opens.
Rian stalks into the room, appearing no less intimidating with a slight limp on his left side.
A cane hangs from his right arm but he doesn’t use it and discards it as soon as a table is within reach.
He yanks off his coat and tosses it aside as Damiano undresses next to him but with less vigor and frustration.
Still deep in their conversation, Rian finally looks up and notices his brother first. The room falls dead silent.
Damiano continues whispering, having not noticed the temperature in the room just dropped by ten degrees. “Besides, it’s not like it’ll cost millions…”
Rian and Sasha lock gazes and Lyss’s back straightens like a rod. Her lips part but the moment Rian tears his gaze away from his brother it lands on Lyss and she silences herself. Sasha, noticing his brother is no longer looking at him, whips around to see who’s captured Rian’s attention.
For a moment, he appears indifferent when his gaze lands on me. Then ferocious when he realizes I’m not the one Rian is looking at; it’s Lyss.
Alejandro and I watch the entire thing unfold in the span of thirty seconds before looking at each other.
“Ah,” he says under his breath. “Luego te lo explico.”
What could’ve happened between the three of them? And is it really so serious that Alejandro can’t tell me in front of everyone else?
“I’ll make this brief.” Rian announces to the room. “Law enforcement is proving to be a rather insurmountable obstacle.”
“Carson and Wilson were at Dahlia’s this morning.” Alejandro says.
Instinctively, my hand shoots out and I dig my nails into his bicep. He frowns and looks down at me but it’s too late. Rian is already looking at us.
And God, do I wish he wasn’t.
I used to think his eyes were the one gentle thing about him. The color is so light and bright, like they were carved out of a midafternoon sky at the height of spring. But now that soothing shade of blue has lightened to a far more lifeless, desolate color. They look empty.
His jaw ticks and then he looks away. It’s the most he’s acknowledged me in over a month and I know I deserve it but that doesn’t mean it hurts any less.
“I spoke to Morales last night. The FBI is going to get involved, which means we need to settle our affairs immediately. One of those being the sale of Narvaez’s shares.” Rian looks through Alejandro rather than directly at him. “You’re going to sign them off to Antonov before week’s end.”
Alejandro doesn’t flinch. “Is that so?”
“You were going to sell them to him anyway just to piss me off. At least now you can make yourself useful.”
He opens his mouth to respond and I tighten my grip on his arm once more. He silences himself.
Rian lifts a brow. “Is there a problem?”
“No,” I answer before Alejandro can. “There isn’t.”
His gaze meets mine again. It sends a shiver down my spine. “As for you—”
I cut him off. “What about me?”
“You’re a liability.” He retorts. “Don’t you think half a magazine clip and a bullet to the eye was excessive? You’re half the reason the police are going in so hard on this case. Those aren’t self-defense wounds.”
“Oh, I’m sorry I wasn’t counting the bullets I put in your traitorous best friend’s body after he tried to kill us.”
“Something he’d have never done if you hadn’t been in possession of his pistol in the first place.”
“Maybe but he was going to betray you just the same.”
“Nothing you haven’t already done.” He parries back. Then lifts a finger to gesture. “Or am I supposed to believe this is purely platonic?”
I’m surprised when it’s Lyss who speaks up. “Rian, that’s enough.”
“No, let him finish.” I get up from the booth. “Is there something you want to say to me, Rian?”
“Dahlia…” Alejandro whispers.
“No.” Rian’s jaw clenches. “There isn’t.”
“Really? Because it seems like there is.” I say. “And if that’s the case, then you should just say it.”
He looks at Alejandro. “Sell your shares before the end of the week and get her out of New York. I don’t want her here—”
“Excuse you?” Fire catches in my veins like a struck match to gunpowder. “I don’t have to go anywhere!”
No one moves. The silence is such that I can hear each person breathing.
Lyss gets to her feet and takes Alejandro’s upper arm.
Damiano notices and follows suit, leading them to one of the private booths on the upstairs mezzanine.
Sasha hesitates, torn between his own morbid curiosity and forced disinterest but eventually decides to follow Lyss as well.
Once they’ve ascended the stairs and are out of sight, I turn on Rian.
“I’ve been trying to contact you for weeks. Why are you icing me out?”
Rian doesn’t answer.
“I know you’re angry. Believe me, you have every right to be.
But you never visited me in the hospital and when I tried to see you myself, you had everyone send me away.
” As my throat tightens with emotion, I take deep, steadying breaths to keep it from cracking.
“Last month, things got complicated between us. I get that. I acknowledge it was my fault. When Alex got here I should’ve—”
“You think I’m upset because of him?” He says slowly, eyes narrowing with focus.
I struggle for the words. “Well…”
He pinches the bridge of his nose.
“Please, let me explain. I never intended for anything to—”
“Dahlia,” he cuts me off. “I’ve never met anyone as intelligent as they are clueless.”
My lips purse. “Rude.”
“I had no right expecting fidelity in a relationship that never really existed.” His freehand flinches at his side and he balls it into a fist as he looks away.
“You were right. I was asking you for a commitment I hadn’t even made myself.
Moving in together before deciding what we really wanted would’ve been a mistake.
I kept asking you to choose between me and a man I didn’t even know for some abstract future I hadn’t defined for us.
And then when I discovered that man was Alex… ”
I wring my hands, unsure if I should reach out to him or stay where I am.
“You made your boundaries clear. I didn’t. I muddied the waters of our relationship before it even began because of my inability to commit. So whatever did or didn’t happen between the two of you it isn’t any of my business. It doesn’t matter.”
“But it does matter. I shouldn’t have—”
“I won’t fault you your mistakes any more than you fault me for mine.” He pauses for a moment. “I promise. I’m not upset because of that. In fact, I expected it to happen much sooner.”
“There isn’t anything going on between us,” I say and it’s the truth. “Ask Lyss. He drops off groceries and cooks for us. That’s it.”
“It’d be all right if it was more.”
“No…it wouldn’t be. I’m sorry—”
“Don’t be. You love him.”
“I love you too.” The confession slips from my lips with a desperation that makes my knees weak.
“I know you do. But it isn’t the same.” He replies.
“You love me the way you love Damiano. Maybe you were confused for a little while because you felt disloyal or guilty but I never was. I knew from the moment I watched the two of you in the same room together that I was the intruder. And if I fought against it as long as I did, it was only because I let my ego get the better of me.”
I wish I knew what to say to him.
His forgiveness feels undeserved. Was what I did infidelity or was I merely crossing one line of many? How do I justify this in my head?
I betrayed both of them in different ways. Rian because I abused his trust and Alejandro because he was the one I really loved all along. And then it hits me.
“I’m sorry.”