Twenty Three
LIANA
Finally arriving at the compound, I resist the urge to break free from his tight grip on my hand and run towards the soldiers’ house. He’s sticking to his promise, taking me to see them, but suddenly, it doesn’t seem as exciting as I thought it would be. It’s like I’m hurling him into another sad and similar situation that he doesn’t realise he’ll be reliving until it’s too late.
“I can go alone,” I whisper, looking up at him. His eyes remain focused on the dimly lit path ahead of us.
Taking a deep breath, I watch as the door in front of us opens and Remi steps into the doorway as if he was anticipating our arrival.
“He’s going to stay with me in the hallway while you speak with them,” he finally says. “I don’t belong in your family… but I expect you to relay everything back to me.”
“Okay,” I answer, a slight glimmer of excitement coming back to me.
“But remember, I know when you’re lying, Liana. If you try to hide anything from me, and I mean anything , I’ll know.”
I nod once, swallowing the lump in my throat. While I can tell he shows some reluctance in allowing me to see them again, he knows we both need it. Without me, he'd be at square one with no information, and he needs this as much as he needs air to breathe. It’s like if he doesn’t get the information he’s been longing for, he’ll be stuck in a loop where all knowledge leads to a dead-end road, no justice coming from it. But if for some reason he prevents me from seeing them again, he’d lose me and he fucking knows it.
Now that I know he knows what it feels like to have lost a sibling—or, in his case, two—I just know he wouldn’t dare think of it. He’d be contradicting his own pain.
As we enter, the house feels somewhat colder than usual. I know that Remi likes to keep the AC on full blast to keep his soldiers on their toes, but this is preposterous; I’m freezing my fucking tits off here.
I try to pick up the pace with my steps, but his tight grip doesn’t relent. His strength keeps me at his side, his fingers digging into mine like he’s afraid to let me go.
“Too tight, Dario.” I wince, trying to release his grip. “Your grip is too tight.”
“I’m sorry, little one,” he whispers, loosening his grip.
We descend the stairs, Dario first, followed by me and Remi behind, Dario’s hand still holding mine. I’m like the spread in this sandwich, except the bread is two muscled men with disgruntled looks on their faces.
“Apollo first,” I tell him, and he nods, walking the length of the corridor in a few long strides, pulling me along.
This dress is not practical for this place. It’s too long, too constricting.
As we stop outside Apollo’s cell, I listen as a muffled clatter comes from inside. It startles me, begging for me to enter now. The second his metal door opens, I rush in, the door closing behind me.
The sight before me is unexpected. The chains around his wrists are loose enough to allow him to sit on the floor and eat from his metal tray, and new chains clasp around his ankles to prevent him from leaving. They’ve shown kindness to him—kindness to me.
“You’re back,” he says without looking at me, his words muffled by the food in his mouth. “Pardon my manners, won’t you? When you live in these conditions long enough, every bare necessity you’re neglected of is something to savour when it comes.”
I inch closer. “Can I—” I stop, his head instinctively shaking.
“I’m sorry, it’s just a reflex. You can sit,” he assures me, displaying a hand in front of him.
Without hesitation, I scrunch up my dress and sit.
“Such a pretty dress,” he says, reaching out to feel the fabric. “Never quite your style, though, was it?”
A breathy laugh escapes me. “No. No, it wasn’t. Perfect for the occasion, though.”
“You’re all grown up now,” he whispers on a breath. “Are you… happy?”
“I don’t know,” I admit. “At first, I hated him, but with every passing day it felt like I was forcing myself to despise him and it all slowly went away. In a sense, I’d like to think I’m happy, yes. But in love like husband and wife should be? No.”
“If it’s meant to be, it’ll be.”
“What about you and Ares? Are you still—”
“I don’t like to think about him,” he says with a sense of harshness in his tone.
“Isn’t there something you like to remember to keep you sane? To keep you going while being in here?”
He laughs, a hum escaping him. “The last thing I said to him was… I told him that he was a bastard. It was a stupid argument, really, and definitely didn’t warrant that response, but I said it and it’s the last thing he had from me before I stormed out.” He pauses briefly, placing another torn-off bit of sandwich into his mouth. “If I had known that was the last time—”
“But you didn’t,” I interrupt him, a quick change in my tone. “You couldn’t have known.”
“Maybe, but somehow he did. He told me he felt something about this mission wouldn’t end well, and I listened… for about a week. But after our petty fight, I took it to spite him. I should’ve listened.”
“You couldn’t have known.”
“But I should have. His gut instincts were always right. No matter what they were, they were right and made enough sense that after the first time, I always listened to him.”
“So, what did you fight about?”
“Liana, I told you—”
“I know what you said, Apollo, but I’m here to make up for lost time. I want to know who you were after you left and what led you here, before I do what Dario wants. You will always, always be my family before anyone else.”
Finally, he looks at me. I hadn’t noticed before through my blurred vision caused by tears, but his eyes… His eyes are different. Not only are they filled with dread and numbness, one is completely white, a lengthy scar above his eyebrow down to mid-cheek, while the other seems untouched; it mimics Savio’s childhood scar.
My hand lifts on its own accord, wanting to feel it, but his head retreats. “You can look, but you can’t touch. I can hear the questions escaping you, but for now, you only get one, so choose it wisely.”
“I still want to know you,” I admit, pulling my hand back. “What happened with Ares before you came here?”
“We were arguing about kids,” he starts, looking back at his tray of food. “I wanted them, he didn’t, and I accepted that. Some people are destined to want children, but if their partner doesn’t, they find something to fill in that void. Ares’ love was enough to fill that void for me.”
“I thought there was an argument?”
“I’m setting the scene so you’ll understand why I acted the way I did,” he quips. “The day I left, he found out he had a daughter. It was a summer thing with this girl back in high school. The only reason she told him was because she was ill, afraid she wouldn’t make it, and wanted her daughter to know her father. Without a single ounce of hesitation, he rose to the occasion. I called him a bastard because he was contradicting himself. He told me he didn’t want children, but the second he found out he already had one, he was ready. I guess he just didn’t want one with me.”
“Not necessarily,” I answer, hoping to get my words out before he cuts me off. “By knowing he was already a father, he might’ve realised he was wrong. Sure, he thought he didn’t want one, but I guarantee once he found out, his feelings on the whole ‘kid’ situation changed.”
“Maybe, but I was so worked up that I couldn’t think. I couldn’t even look at him without feeling angry. I was so pissed off at him, like he was telling me I wasn’t enough. That I wasn’t father material.” He looks up at me again. “Do you know what it feels like to be looked at by your partner and suddenly see all the things you hate about yourself? It’s like he was telling me everything I already hated about myself, making me relive everything over and over again. He was my everything and he made me feel lower than Gabriel ever did. I swear he had the same look in his eye, too.”
“You were only seeing what you wanted to see.”
“And I saw the pain and anguish in his face long before he even realised he felt it. By that point, I was long gone, erasing everything about myself to become someone new—to become the person that came here.”
“Wait,” I say, a brief sense of hesitation in my tone. “Dario said you evaded them for a year before they caught you—didn’t you go to see him? Didn’t you try to make amends before they caught you?”
He sucks his teeth. “I tried. I went back to our old house, but I didn’t go inside. I mean, what could I have said that would’ve made anything better? Instead, I went around back and watched as he played with her. She squealed as he picked her up and he laughed like I’d never heard him laugh before. I wanted to be there with them. I wanted to be a part of their family, but then I saw him. Ares was with another man. I couldn’t do that to him. I couldn’t throw myself back into his life. He was happier without me there—he was happier with his daughter and someone new. It’s what he deserved.”
“Oh, Apollo, I’m so sorry,” I whisper, resisting the urge to touch him.
“They only found me because I visited his place on a regular basis. To hear his voice was like music to my ears, music I hadn’t realised I loved so much until it was gone.”
“So tell Dario what he needs to know, Apollo. Tell him why you were here and your plans, so you can see Ares again. You deserve closure as much as everyone else involved.”
He shakes his head. “I don’t know anything; it was an anonymous mission. Before we came here, we managed to find his name, but it proved to be a dead end. The man who ended our lives doesn’t exist.”
Another man who doesn’t exist. What the fuck have I walked into?
“What was your mission then? Why were you sent here?”
“Dario has always been one of those guys that everyone hates and fears—they hate to fear him, but he brings it out in everyone. I guess Aldo just wanted it all to end. He wanted to weaken him to the point that the top spot was open so he could take it. He wanted the fear and power Dario has, but ever since our mission failed, he’s gained more respect and Aldo is no more. Or at least that’s what I assume. There’s no way he’d keep the name and stick around. It’d be like waiting for impending death, which believe me, isn’t fun.”
“That’s it?” I ask. “That’s all? You came here to kill him and failed. You know nothing else?”
He stays silent, glancing up at the ceiling as if recalling his memories. “That’s it. There was no reason and he stayed anonymous up until the point we found him. We didn’t want to do it, but the money was too good to pass up. And to have a guy like him gone would’ve been a good thing for everyone.” He looks back at me. “But I got to know him in the six months that I worked here and with every passing day, I knew more about him than he did about me and it didn’t seem like a fair trade. I was going to end it, call it off, but it was too late. Someone called them, informing them of a threat and eventually, when they realised it was us, we left. They held a grudge, of course, and made it impossible for us to escape. I thought my life ended when I found myself here, but it ended when I left Ares. Anything that has happened since is what I deserve for leaving the man I love.”
“They can’t keep you here if they know you did nothing. You’re not going to die here, Apollo. You’re just not.”
“You can’t stop the inevitable, Liana. This is something that is meant to happen. My actions have consequences, and this is one of them. You can’t save me from my own actions; that’s my job.”
“You might be my big brother, but this is something I can help with. Your job might be to look after me, but you can’t do that locked up in this… dungeon.”
“I’ve made my peace with it and so should you. I belong here because of what I did. Nobody forced me to pretend to be someone else; I did that all on my own.” His Adam’s apple bobs as he swallows. “Please, just leave. I’ve loved talking to you, but I’m exhausted now. We can talk another day.”
His words seem so painful to hear. I knew our body clocks were different, but I hate how fleeting our time spent together feels. He’s falling asleep in front of me, and it’s not even 8 pm. It feels so unfair.
“I’ll come back tomorrow, okay?”
He nods, pushing himself backward to the old, dirty mattress in the corner. A shiver runs through me, turning my blood cold. “You can’t sleep on that.”
“It’s comfier than the floor,” he says, his words coming out as a joke. “Besides, it was clean when I got here.”
I push back the feeling of disgust and leave, catching one last glimpse of him before the door closes.
“Anything?” Red asks, pushing himself off the wall opposite me.
“I’d like to see Savio first,” I tell him, taking the lead to his cell.
“You’ve been in there for almost an hour, Liana. He’s asleep.”
“What?” I ask, spinning on my heels. “I missed him?”
“You can talk to him tomorrow,” he says, approaching me with fast steps. “I’d like to get some sleep now.”