36. Killian
“Our capo here is acting strange with his soul mate.” Liam does this a lot. He talks to other people about people in the room or the problems of people in the room as if we’re aren’t here.
“You should have seen him with Franco. He almost broke the bones in his chest.”
They’re waiting to see when I’ll break. Unfortunately, this has been going on for a while now, but if I get up and leave, I know they’ll only follow.
They won’t leave me alone. So, I sit in the office staring at a plea offer from the D.A. for a client who’s accused of cocaine possession. He’s one of our people, and the idiot got caught.
I usually kill people like him, but it really wasn’t his fault, and whoever sold him out has already been punished. Liam still believes the dipshit should be eliminated or at least sent away for fear that he’ll start singing.
Madd says, “From the point of view of the cameras, it looks like he’s pressing on Franco’s chest in an attempt to help him calm down. You don’t hear what he’s whispering to him on the audio.” Madd plays it back for Liam on the monitor.
“Did you notice Maricela’s reaction?” Liam asks.
“She hasn’t looked well lately, sure, but today was weird.” I know what reaction he’s talking about, and no matter how much I think about it, I can’t figure out what triggered that reaction.
“Was it because of Franco?”
I don’t say it out loud, but I know Franco has nothing to do with her pain.
It’s all on me.
“Killian, brat.” The only times Kai calls me brother in Russian is when he’s the bearer of bad news.
“This can’t be good,” Madd says, and I lift my head.
“What?” My voice is sharp, and as soon as I get up from my seat, I see the picture in front of my eyes—the truth.
Her fear of Franco.
Maricela looks at him like he’s the devil himself.
Her devil.
You knew it, or at least you suspected. You knew that Franco gave you everything too easily. He punished you without you knowing it. Think about it: When did Maricela say his name last? She hasn’t, has she? And the way she looks at Isabella when Isabella isn’t looking? Maricela’s refusal to give you a name. You knew it deep down. You knew it was Franco all along,the voice that was dormant in my head screams at me.
The rapist is Franco.
“Stop him!” Liam screams, but I don’t know what he’s talking about.
A familiar stench of iron and a red haze assault me.
My stench. My blood.
I know this smell better than anything else. After all, Franco spilled it more than once.
Franco. The devil who sent me to Italy after he found out I slept with Maricela. After I asked for her as my reward for the victory. After he knew Santino wouldn’t sleep with her because he was obsessed with virgins.
Franco. Franco. Franco.
“Brother, breathe. You have to breathe,” Maddox begs, shaking me.
At least, I think it’s him, but all I see is Franco’s hands on her.
Her screams. The tears I know there were tears, lots of them because she couldn’t cry any more after that. Exactly like me.
Franco knows how to stop the most sensitive person from crying. My perfect little girl. The scar on her hand and all the other marks he left on her.
Franco took the only thing that was mine. That’s what he said. It wasn’t crazy talk. He told me everything. He knew I would understand, but I wouldn’t listen. I didn’t want to listen.
At that moment today, something prevented me from understanding the truth. Maybe it was her hand on me, perhaps it was the witnesses, or maybe it was the refusal to believe the truth.
I fucked up.
“Where is she? Where is Maricela?”
I think I’m talking, but I don’t recognize the broken voice of the man speaking. It can’t be me. I never show emotion, and that liquid I feel on my cheeks can’t be what I think it is. I haven’t cried since I was eleven.
“She can’t see you like this,” Liam says, stepping into his role. These moments are few and far between, but I know that expression. He won’t let me out of here. Not now.
“He... Franco... He raped her.”
Every word is like a knife in my heart, and I know every stab will leave a scar that won’t heal. There will be no cure after this truth. She thought I would hate her and that I couldn’t forgive her.
My little girl is innocent and good, even after what she’s been through. And she still blames herself.
Please don’t make me lie to you,she said again and again, hiding her pain and letting it bloom like a poisonous flower inside her heart.
“Killian, calm down. I can’t let you out of here like this. You’ve destroyed your office,” Liam insists, and I don’t dare look at Maddox.
He’s never seen me like this. No one but Liam has seen this monster. But my brother just puts his hand on my shoulder as if reminding me that he’s here and by my side.
“I thought that publishing the fact that I fucked her in front of Santino would protect her from him. Instead, I put her in a trap. Why did I ask for her? What did I do? What the hell did I do? I ruined her life.”
My hands search for something, anything. The cross I used to get the truth out of her is the only thing still standing in this office, mocking me as if saying, “You didn’t want to know the truth, or you would have made her talk.”
I sit up and see my office is in shambles. I don’t even want to imagine how long it took them to try to calm me down.
The tears that I didn’t think would ever come again flow one after another as if they were waiting for a disaster I couldn’t handle.
The damned memories of my mother raped in front of my eyes alternate with Maricela’s face.
She’s tied to the bed, and he’s strangling her. But this time, I’m not chained without the possibility of doing anything. No, this time, I stand there and watch and choose not to help her.
“She lost everything. He took everything from her. She lost everything, and she gave herself a second chance. My strong little girl. My warrior, My wild girl.”
“You couldn’t have known,” Liam murmurs, convinced of his every word, knowing Franco would have hurt her no matter what I would have done.
“The same way I didn’t know with Isabella?” I argue.
“I left my mother to years of abuse, not doing a fucking thing. I did the same with Maricela.”
“No, it’s not the same. You hear me? What happened to Isabella is not the same. You knew if you didn’t leave her, he would kill her. We all knew that. That’s why we let him punish her.”
Maddox justifies my actions and decisions as if he’s forgotten that he had wanted to stay in that house several times to protect her when I left, too afraid to lose her to death.
“You didn’t want to leave,” I remind him.
“You’re the smart one. You were right. Now Mom is free.” The ease with which he calls her Mom saddens me. I distanced myself from the woman who gave birth to me by starting to call her by her given name.
The sound of my phone jolts everyone out of the silence and grief. I answer without looking at the screen.
“Figlio,” Isabella starts, “why doesn’t Maricela answer me? I’ve been calling her and Raven for hours now, but neither of them answers.”
Isabella. My mother, the woman who never did wrong and endured continuous hell for years.
“She must be on her way home. She was with Raven. Mom,” I say, my voice breaking. She hears it because, of course, she does. “I know now. I know the truth.”
“What are you talking about, Figlio?” She’s always called me that.
Her boy. Her little boy is her miracle. The one she could keep by her side. No more. She will not suffer anymore. Neither will he.
“I need you to sit down, Mama carisma,” I call her like I used to when I was a child. It feels right. She deserves so much this woman.
“Maricela didn’t leave because of me. It was Franco.”
“What did he do?”
I hear the tremor in her voice, and I can almost see her left hand shaking with fear. It’s the only organ out of her control as if showing the world that everything is wrong in her perfect world.
“He raped her. He raped her, and she ran away. She ran away, and I wasn’t there for her. Just like I wasn’t there for you.”
The silent cry that comes out of Isabella’s mouth stabs another knife into what is left of my throbbing heart.
A few more knives like that, and I’m afraid it will stop beating. But it must continue to function. For her, for my mother, for the children.
Franco will not win. I’m going to kill him, and I’m going to do it as brutally as I can.