4. Jet #2
She takes this in and crosses to the wall of windows, looking down into the spray of water. “Is this where you get rid of the bodies?”
I walk up behind her. “I don’t bring my work home with me.”
She turns, gasps. We’re so close she’s almost in my arms.
Almost.
A beat passes, her eyes flicking to mine, then down, fingertips coming to my chest, tentative there. She cranes her neck to look up at me.
I should step back. Give her space.
I don’t.
I don’t want to. I like looking at her like this. Seeing this difference in size between us. Like how much smaller than me she is. Like how her eyelashes try to hide her pretty cut sea-glass eyes from me.
I especially like how her fingertips hesitate as they dance across my chest.
“That’s not funny,” she finally says.
“No, you’re right. It’s not.”
Her eyebrows furrow when she takes in the scar on my cheek. A bullet grazed me. I was lucky. Another inch, hell, another centimeter and things would have been very different for me.
She reaches up to touch it and my breath catches. She notices. I know it in the beat that passes before she speaks again.
“Malek did that to you,” she says. She meets my gaze and waits, the air heavier around us, as if she’s expecting judgement. Condemnation.
“You rarely call him your father.”
She seems surprised by the comment, then shrugs. “A name on a piece of paper.”
“Well, you give him too much credit. Malek wasn’t that good a shot.”
“And this,” she continues somberly. Fingertips brush through my hair, black mostly, gray at one temple. Overnight that happened. “Everywhere I turn I see the traces of him. How can you stand to look at me? How can any of you stand it?”
Her eyes fill with tears and when she drops her hand, I capture it, hold onto it. I understand her meaning. Me, this scar. Allegra. Her missing finger. Fingers, really. It was all him.
“What he did is on him, not you. It’s not your fault. You do know that don’t you?” Because this is the crux of it. This is the root of all her brokenness.
My damn phone rings obliterating the moment. Why didn’t I turn it off?
“Fuck.” I step backward, dig it out of my pocket.
She clears her throat, turns her back to me to watch the water.
I walk away from her. “What?” I bark.
“Where the fuck are you? And what the fuck do you think you’re doing?”
“If you’re asking like that, I’m guessing you know.”
I hear Cassian draw a tight breath in. I can just see him counting to ten. “Jet. What the fuck?” he asks with a little more control.
I rub the back of my neck and watch the reflection of her in the antique mirror leaning against the wall. It’s the only old thing in this place. It belonged to my grandfather. I fucking hate it but it’s good to look at myself in it. To remember.
To never forget.
Amal rests her forehead against the glass wall. She traces a pattern in it.
“She’s with me. She’s safe,” I tell Cassian quietly thinking if I had to describe what she’s feeling right now in one word, that word would be despair.
“That doesn’t really answer my question.”
“Yeah well, maybe I’m not in the mood to answer to you.”
I can almost see his eyes narrowing. Hands clenching into fists. Allegra beside him trying to calm him. Although I’m pretty sure I’m not in the top ten of people she’d like Amal hanging around with.
My relationship with Cassian is a strange one.
I became an advisor to him after the shitstorm of Enzo’s betrayal and Malek’s attack.
Then, somehow, I took on the role of enforcer.
That fit me better. I discovered a talent I didn’t realize I had, sick as it is.
But I’ve never needed Cassian. The Blackstones have always been a powerful family, money or not, and now, money’s no longer an issue because we’re back at the top of our game.
So, I guess that’s another thing I bring with me, like the mirror. Money. And my name. The latter only when I need it because I hate it because it, too, belonged to my grandfather.
“Bring her home,” Cassian says.
“I don’t think she’d call your house home.” Amal turns to look at me, openly listening. And why not? We are talking about her.
“For fuck’s sake. Bring her here then, whatever you want to call it,” Cassian orders.
Amal’s eyes have narrowed rebellion masking vulnerability. This version of her is more like the girl I first met that day in my office. She was still in her school uniform, young and cockier than she should have been. It’s good to see that girl is still in there.
She shakes her head no. She’s not going back.
“In the morning,” I tell Cassian while looking at her.
She juts her chin out. If it was just her, if her little brother wasn’t in this, she’d walk away. I know it. She’d fucking disappear into the ether. But she can’t do that. She’s backed into a corner and she knows it.
“That’s not fucking possible,” he grits out.
“She’ll be there for breakfast.”
“Do I need to come get her myself?”
“Breakfast, Cassian. Leave it.”
“Jet—”
“I said fucking leave it. Allegra can watch Daniel. I’ll have her back tomorrow. I’m telling you to leave it alone.”
“She’s not for you. I told you that. Tell me you fucking know that.”
I bristle, a rage building inside me. She is exactly for me rumbles the Devil inside me.
I give a shake of my head. Look away.
No. Not for me. But not because Cassian says so. She just deserves better than me. Than the monster I’ve become. No, not become. The monster I already was underneath it all. The violence was there long before Cassian Trevino entered my life.
But she’s not going to get better because we’re all monsters in this life. She’s a part of the Trevino mafia family and ultimately, we all know her fate.
Fuck fate.
“Tomorrow.” Before he can answer, I disconnect the call and shut off my phone.
I should have done that after the first text.
Cassian can send a hundred men here if he wants it won’t do him any good.
He can’t get in. No one can. Not even if they spelunk over the sheer rock face. This place is my fortress.
“You bought me a night,” she says and she’s going for casual but she’s flopping. “You’ll pay for it.”
I go to her, standing too close again. Studying every feature of her face, wide searching eyes, little upturned nose, upper lip fuller than her lower lip.
She takes that lower lip between her teeth now. Her breathing is short and I can see her nipples have pebbled beneath the fabric of her dress.
For me. Exactly and perfectly for me.
I shake my head to clear the thought. She’s inexperienced, I’m sure of it. Her biting her lip is not meant as an invitation to me and even if it was, I would only hurt her.
“I’m not scared of Cassian Trevino,” I tell her. It’s the truth.
She considers that, shifting her gaze momentarily away, then back. “Lucky you, you can make your own choices.” She pauses as if deciding whether or not to continue. “You know what he’s going to do. What I’ll be expected to do.”
I clench my teeth. I do know. I’ve always known. She was safe for a while. At school. Too young. Now, she’s almost done with school and at twenty-two, old enough.
“I won’t let that happen,” I say, my voice coming out hoarser than I expect because I realize I’m making a promise.
“But you don’t get to decide. He does.”
“I won’t allow it.”
Amal’s eyes narrow as she searches mine. Her gaze drops to my mouth momentarily. Her eyebrows furrow. She’s thinking. Trying to work out a plan.
She draws a deep breath in and stands up a little straighter. “There’s a solution.”
“You’re not going to disappear,” I say, thinking that’s what she means.
She looks surprised by that and gives a quick shake of her head. “No, that’s not. I mean…” she hesitates, then steels herself. “Make love to me.”
I blink. I’m sure I misheard. “What?”
She lowers her head, looks up at me through thick black lashes, those blues like shards of sharpest glass now.
She steps backward, putting just enough space between us that I can see her fully.
She reaches back and I hear the zipper of her dress.
A moment later, she slips it off and lets it drop to the floor.
I keep my eyes on hers, swallowing, trying not to look as she steps out and comes toward me, undoing her bra, letting it, too, fall to the floor. Next is the sliver of lace that served as her panties.
I swallow, unable to not look. Just a glance. A quick glance at those small, round breasts with their dark tight nipples, unblemished, perfect skin, the shaved slit of her pussy is right there and fuck me.
Fuck. Me.
I shove my hands into my pockets because fuck knows what I’ll do with them if I don’t.
My cock, like the cock of a fucking teenage boy at his first sighting of a pair of tits, is getting stiff.
And when her fingertips skate over my chest, my dick stands fully at attention, as if giving me the signal that he’s all in.
“What the hell are you doing, Amal?” I ask more harshly than I intend.
“Make love to me, Jet.” She rises on tiptoe and brings her face to mine, inhaling, brushing her lips over mine.
“I see how you look at me. And I feel you. You want to.” At this she slides one hand down between us and, more boldly than I’d expect, wraps her hand around my shaft.
“You really want to. And I want to. So, I’m telling you to make love to me. ”
After a long, long moment of me telling myself one of us has to be responsible here and it looks like it’ll have to be me, I draw a hand from my pocket to brush a lock of hair behind her ear before cupping her face, tilting it back so I can really look at her.
“Be careful, sweetheart. You don’t want this. ”
“I don’t want to be careful. Make love to me, Jet.”
“I’m going to say that’s the whiskey talking.”
The seductive look of her eyes turns to something else. A blush creeps into her cheeks. She’s embarrassed. She drops back onto flat feet.
“I can hold my liquor.”
“Clearly not.”
“You know what? Never mind. I’ll find someone else.”