46. Maricela
The search for Raven has become the sole purpose of the alliance since Alec disappeared without a trace, taking Raven with him.
The only thing that keeps me calm is the way that fucker looked at her. He did take her, but for some reason, I know she’s as safe as she can be under the circumstances.
As for Franco, every time I take a moment and allow myself to think about him, I can breathe again. It’s like my lungs didn’t know how to work as long as Franco and I shared the same space on this earth. One of us had to go.
I still keep the entire truth from Killian, knowing that I’ll have to confess what I did to a baby that could have been his—ours—a life I took.
The press investigated Franco’s death to no avail after the police determined it was the accident of a sick man.
Maverick, however, wrote a speculative article about the mysterious death of a king. I wanted to punch him, but Ronen wouldn’t let me.
In the meantime, Julian and Ronen refused to leave my side, staying here nearly the entire time this past week until Connie asked if her uncles were coming to live with us.
That had Killian taking time away from his search for Raven to tell them to leave. They just looked at him and returned the next day. They’re here now, tending to Connie as I watch over the entire scene.
“Uncle Julian?”
Connie takes her thumb from her mouth and looks at Juli with adoration. She began sucking her thumb again when I didn’t show up at school or even return home until after they had already gone to bed, leaving her and Amado in the care of Marlina. At least her leg isn’t bouncing.
“Yes, Little Princess?”
“I’m not that little,” she huffs, prompting him to rise to his feet and comment on the height difference between the two of them.
She looks up at him, but my friend is a brick and a tall one at that. The lack of eye connection has Connie releasing the heavy sigh of an eighty-year-old woman who has seen everything life has to offer.
“But I’m the tallest in my class.”
“Just like your Uncle Killian.”
“I don’t want to be that big,” she says, sounding appalled by the idea.
“Well, your Aunt Raven is tall, but your nonna and your Aunt Maricella aren’t, and you do look a lot like Isabella.”
“I do?” Connie looks at me for confirmation, forgetting about the Legos she was playing with just a minute ago.
“Yes, your hair is as black as hers, and your eyes are big and blue, just like your nana and your Aunt Raven.”
The notion of being like her grandma seems to please the little girl. I can’t blame her. Isabella is young and beautiful, like a timeless picture in a museum.
“When is Aunt Raven coming back? She promised to take me to buy a present for Joshi.”
We had to tell Connie that Raven went to look for new artists for her gallery so the sweet girl wouldn’t worry, but sometimes Connie realizes that her favorite aunt is gone.
“We don’t know, sweetie. Finding good artisans is hard, but she’s trying to do everything she can to return soon.”
“I don’t like the men who are with us,” Connie complains, referring to the guards who we can’t go anywhere without.
From what Killian tells me, Agim, one of the most influential people in Albania, heard about Raven disappearing, and he’s been making the alliance’s life a living hell. Several men have already been killed. Not only that, but the man Alec killed was essential to his adoptive father, so Alec is in danger as well, which puts Raven in a more complicated situation. Killian told me everything, even things I wish he hadn’t.
“They’re here to protect us,” I explain gently.
Even now, I know five guards are standing outside the building and two more outside our door.
“But I wanted to buy Joshi a present, and Aunt Raven picks out the best gifts.”
“Joshi. Isn’t that the boy who bullied you?” Ronen asks as he joins us from the kitchen with a slice of the cake I made. Connie shrugs, just like Maddox does every time he doesn’t have a logical answer, and doesn’t say a word.
“Princess, do you have a boyfriend?” Julian asks dramatically, plopping onto the sofa behind him and sending Connie into giggles. Hero wants in on the fun, too, and runs to Julian and licks him as if checking that he’s okay.
This is family happiness. Something I never thought I could have but always wanted. Can I continue to live like this? Without the touch of the man I love, with the uncertainty of the location of my best friend? Can I afford to enjoy such small moments?
Yes, Killian gave me the power of an orgasm over the phone, but he still hasn’t touched me, not like I need him to.
“He’s not my boyfriend,” Connie says once her giggles subside. “Uncle Liam and Uncle Killian said I shouldn’t have a boyfriend until I’m forty. Aunt Maricela, are you forty? ‘Cause you’re Uncle Killian’s girlfriend, aren’t you?”
Julian and I burst into laughter just as the four men in question step out of Killian’s home office, looking as somber as ever with another set of guards following.
“I think you’re allowed to have a boyfriend,” Julian whispers, but not quietly enough because Liam, Kai, Maddox, and Killian look back with sour glares. I want to ask if they discovered anything, but not in front of his men.
“I think Uncle Killian is mad,” Connie says, running to her uncle before he reaches the door. He lifts her into his arms, and she kisses his cheek. He tells her something that has her nodding with such a serious expression. Probably about her potentially having a boyfriend. Connie kisses him again, then gives Maddox’s leg a brief hug before running back to Hero and Julian.
Killian sends the guards away before he approaches me, takes Amado from my arms to kiss him, and tells him, “Take care of your sister,” before he puts the baby back into my arms, kisses my forehead, and leaves with his friends.
“Go after him,” Ronen pushes, probably noticing the welling of tears in my eyes. “You can’t go on like this. Do what you need to do to bring him back to you.” I nod and give Amado to Ronen, not saying a word, and hurrying to my bedroom. After I get what I need and release all my nervousness with a few exhaling breaths, I know this is the right choice and return to the living room.
“I’ll be right back,” I say to Connie and run out the door, passing the bodyguards coming after me.
“It can’t go on like this,” I shout as I reach the elevator, and the effect is immediate. Killian freezes in his place, and so do all his friends. They look at me and at the little bottle I’m holding, and I see the fatigue, the fear, and the despair in all of their faces. They hide their feelings well, but it’s there. Even Kai and Liam look different. The coldness in their gazes has been replaced by fire and fury, a fury equal to that of the gods.
“You know something,” I accuse them. “You know something, and it isn’t good.”
“Your point, Rotten One?” Liam sounds angry. Anger is better than apathy.
“Tell me.” I forget about my stupid plan. I’m a shitty friend. Sitting in a safe place while I don’t know what’s happening with Raven.
“He took her out of the country,” Killian answers in an emotionless voice, the same voice he directed at me in college. “From what we know, she’s on one of the islands out there. We’re trying to find the exact location.”
I don’t think about my actions. It’s as if my body reacts all on its own, but I approach Killian and slap him.
“Go,” Killian orders everyone.
“Maricela and I have some things we need to sort out.” Instantly, his friends disappear into the elevator.
I expect him to take me back to the apartment, but instead, he pulls me toward the stairwell. It reminds me of Connie’s day of birth. A day when he punished me and tried to make me say what I’m worthy.
Oh, how much I want him to do that again. To remind me that I belong to him, that he belongs to me. He’ll never hurt me again, and no matter what other things I hide from him, they’ll never change our feelings for each other.
But instead of the apartment or going up to the open roof, he takes me up just half a floor and stops. Killian opens a dark storage room and turns about. The place is filled with all sorts of cleaning supplies, but at the rear of the room, there are a couple of chairs, a table, and a bed. It must be a place where the cleaning crew takes breaks. It’s spotless, just like the entire building, the place that has become my home.
“Are you aiming for a punishment?”
Fuck, am I? In everyone else’s eyes, I deserve a punishment. Maybe also, in my eyes, and from the capo himself who says he still loves me, even though he can barely look at me.
“Answer me.”
“I don’t know.”
“Sit.” Killian’s voice vibrates with part rage, part lust. He’s definitely mad, but at who, I can only guess.
His eyes are more vibrant than ever. It’s strange how I learned to see past the void he shows the world. The unfeeling man.
This is what Killian wants the world to see him as. An anti-social intellect. A businessman, and to some, a criminal. As many faces as the masks he wears. I had the idea he wasn’t wearing any masks with me. Well, I’m about to find out if I was right.
“Make me.”
The blue in his eyes flickers, and his lips thin, but he doesn’t move. I get angry, really angry. Fuck this. Fuck his guilt, fuck this new way he’s trying to kill what we are. I won’t let him.
“Make me, cabron.”
I stand chest to chest with him—well, not really, as my chest doesn’t exactly reach his—letting his intoxicating scent of mint and expensive male reach my nostrils. Like a lioness in heat who doesn’t get what she needs from her lion, I pounce on him, smacking him straight in the jaw.
“Maricela,” he warns, but I never was one to oblige him or anyone. He knows it, too.
So, I punch him again, harder this time. I let all my sadness and fear of him finding out all that I did come to the surface.
I hit him for not talking to me when I was of the mind that we told each other everything.
I hit him for leaving me when we were mad at each other four years ago.
I hit him for not finding me. I hit him for being the fucking love of my life.
And he lets me without saying a word, just letting me hit him again, and again, and again until the first tear finally falls.
“Fuck you, Killian Fierro. You don’t get to seduce me in college, make me come back to your bed, fall for you all over again, and retreat into yourself because of my fucking rape. Your fucking father raped me! My sister hated me and sent me away when I was broken and devastated. I lost it all because you were my fucking all. Cabron the mierda, te amo. Joder. Te amo tanto que me duele todo,” I say between sobs.
“It hurts. I love you so much that everything hurts,” I tell him, translating my words, not wanting him to miss anything I tell him.
“I love you too,” he says, and I sniff, sucking back the tears that continue to fall.
“I do. I fucking love you to the point of madness. From the first moment I saw you at the mansion, dressed in simple clothing like you couldn’t give a fuck about anyone or anything. I was furious with my brother. I immediately thought that you were the wife-to-be. I didn’t even see Serena. I saw only you, your muddy hair framing this sassy face, those lips I wanted to bite, and the eyes I wanted to fucking live in. My reaction to you the second I saw you actually frightened me, and then you had to open your sweet mouth.”
He plasters himself to me as I walk backward, and he comes at me, just like in college, two flames colliding to ignite the world.
“Killian,” I cry, his name coming out as a plea.
“No. First, you will hear me out. I was a fucker. I haven’t touched you, but not because I don’t want you.” He lifts my head with a finger under my chin, making me look into his eyes, eyes I love so much. “I couldn’t understand how you could want me to touch you. I left you behind knowing that Franco was angry and that I ruined Santino’s plans.”
“I don’t understand.”
But don’t I? Franco said something along those lines more than once when he took my body against my will.
I will ruin you because of Killian. He should keep his dick out of Santino’s holes.
“Santino wanted to fuck you. He had a kink for virgins, and he knew somehow that you were a virgin. I wanted to shake you every time I saw you talking to him on the phone those first two years. I hated the fact that you filled so much of my thoughts. I wanted you out, and Franco wanted you broken just for the hell of it, and when I failed to do his bidding, he punished me through you.”
I shake my head, and Killian continues.
“The rape was never meant to hurt you, for the simple fact that Franco Fierro didn’t see you as human. He saw only his game of power and his hatred for women. It was all about hurting me.”
I caress his face, and he inhales sharply. I see it now, something I didn’t want to see. Killian Fierro, my killer, is all about emotions. He hates himself so much for something he couldn’t prevent.
“I love you,” I tell him again because I need him to know it, to believe it before he hears what I’m about to say.
“I love you so much, and I need you to know that your touch was the only touch that didn’t revolt me. The first time you touched me after four years of being apart opened all the wounds I kept hidden. You broke me open again and again. You made me feel when I didn’t want to. With your touch, with your hands on mine.”
He blinks back tears, and I step even closer.
“You couldn’t prevent Franco from doing shit. He could have done to me what he did to Isabella. He told me things he did to her before your eyes. He relished in it. I was and am grateful you didn’t see it. I never want you to hurt because of me.”
Then I kiss him. I kiss him because I can. Attacking his lips and letting all the pain go. I know it will never disappear entirely, not really, but I also know that I’m happy when I’m with him.
Because of him. Franco tried to ruin me. He even succeeded because I will never be the same. But I can live with it.
“Maricela. Little Girl,” he growls into my mouth.
His pain is my pain, and vice versa. I let it all out, pouring myself into him, letting his lips bruise mine, and doing the same to him.
“Fuck me, Killian. I need you to take all of me, even the parts that were never touched. I need you to fuck me in the ass and remind me you were the first man to ever make me break all my promises. For you and because of you.”