Chapter 11 Cassian
CASSIAN
Ifire that damned nurse. Send her out of the house in the middle of the night. Fuck her. Fuck her! I could fucking kill her.
Allegra lies on her back on the bed, just how I laid her down. The fingers of her good hand are twitching, though, her face tightening, lips moving soundlessly. I trapped here inside her nightmare. Another nightmare. This one may not leave her missing a finger, but it will leave scars all the same.
Fuck.
I shouldn’t have sedated her. I broke my promise again. I failed her again.
Fuck!
I pull her to me for the hundredth time. I whisper to her that I’m here. That she’s not alone. She’s unresponsive though. He body limp in my arms. Does she hear my words? Feel my embrace? I hold her tight to me. Maybe she can hear me in there. Maybe she can know she’s not alone.
Hours pass, each minute feeling like an eternity. I don’t sleep. I won’t. I won’t break another promise. I hold her until the light changes from purple to yellow and the sun feels warm on my skin.
I watch her, touching her cheek, each bruise I see making me hate myself a little more.
Someone knocks softly on the door. I check the time.
Nine o’clock. I get out of the bed, scrub my face, five o’clock shadow quickly turning into a full beard.
I push a hand through my hair and pull on a T-shirt.
I stripped it off last night to hold her to me.
Skin to skin contact. I’m not sure it helped though.
When I open the door, I see the doctor followed by another woman. A different nurse.
The doctor wishes me a good morning although her smile tells me she’s wary. She glances over my shoulder at the sleeping Allegra. “I’m sorry about the nurse,” she whispers. “It won’t happen again.”
I nod, exhausted. “Coffee,” I tell the soldier behind her.
“Yes, sir.”
“May I see her?”
I move to let her enter. “Don’t wake her. She’s finally quieted.”
The doctor looks Allegra over. She’s careful not to wake her.
She checks the bandage. It’ll need to be changed, but I tell her I’ll do it later after Allegra wakes.
She wants to argue with me that I should let the nurse handle it, but I trust myself more than I do any nurse.
When she’s finished, she promises once more that this one won’t fall asleep.
She leaves and I tell the nurse to wait in the kitchen until I need her.
I’m about to return to the bedroom, coffee in hand, when my phone rings. It’s Angelo.
“Hello?” I answer.
“Amal and Daniel Lombardi just turned up.”
“Where?”
“Florida. They’re with Lombardi’s mother.”
“So their grandmother?”
“It would appear so.”
“Why haven’t we looked there? Why don’t I know about her?”
“They’re estranged. Have been since Malek turned eighteen. It’s the first time she’s meeting her grandchildren.”’
“Hm. Let’s keep eyes on them.”
“Already done.”
“Anything on Malek?”
“Not yet. You know I’ll call if there is.”
I disconnect and return to the bedroom coffee in hand and sit down on the chair to watch her. I sip my coffee and consider this development.
Almost an hour later, Allegra begins to stir.
My heartbeats pick up in anticipation of her waking.
Allegra’s eyes flutter open. She doesn’t move at first just lies there looking up at the ceiling.
I stand to go to her. When she sees the movement, she startles, her entire body suddenly on full alert, eyes locked on me.
I stop walking and hold my hands up, palms to her. “It’s me. It’s Cassian. It’s all right. You’re safe.”
She furrows her brow, moves to sit up, winces when she presses her bandaged hand to the bed.
“Let me help you,” I say.
“Don’t touch me,” she snaps.
I stop, taken aback by the sharpness of her tone. I watch her sit up, groggy.
“My brother. Where is he?” she asks, and I wonder if she remembers that he’s dead.
“His body is at the morgue.” There’s no way around this and I hope to God she remembers.
She nods, looking distant. “We need to bury him,” she says calmly and I’m relieved. “The family will want to pay condolences.”
“When you’re ready. We can do something small.”
She shakes her head. “It’s tradition. The church, then we’ll—”
“It’s okay, Allegra,” I say, coaxing her to relax. “I’ll arrange everything as you want it when you’re ready. Now you need to heal.”
“But… He’s dead. They’re all dead.”
“I know, babygirl. I know.”
It’s silent for a long moment before she speaks again. “No more needles,” she says. “I don’t want to be sedated again.”
“It was meant to help you sleep. To rest so you could heal.”
She rubs her face, looks up at me and shakes her head.
“You don’t get it. I’m not resting. I’m just trapped in there.
I can’t wake up.” Her eyes fill with tears, but she is quick to swipe them away, angry suddenly.
Angry is good. It can be strength. Fear will cripple you.
Make a victim out of you. It’s the last thing she wants. I know that.
My fuck up made her into exactly that.
My fuck up left her vulnerable to my enemies.
“Amal and Daniel are safe,” I tell her, hoping that will help.
“Where are they?” she asks, looking relieved at least momentarily.
“With their grandmother in Florida.”
“Grandmother? I didn’t know they had any living grandparents.”
“Malek’s mother, apparently. They’ve been estranged from what I learned.”
“And they’re safe? You’re sure?”
“I don’t think he’d hurt his children. Anyway, I have men watching the house.”
“Can’t you just get them?”
I shake my head. “They’re safer away from here, Allegra.”
She considers this then nods. She looks down at her hand which she’s cradling.
“There’s medicine for the pain,” I say. “You just need to eat a little something first.”
“I’m not hungry.”
“A few bites of toast. Anything.”
She shakes her head, looks away.
“I’m sorry, Allegra.”
She shifts her gaze up to mine, obviously surprised to hear it, but I can see from the way she looks at me that she does not accept the apology. I don’t expect her to. A simple spoken apology does nothing. It doesn’t take back what happened. It doesn’t change the present. Doesn’t promise a future.
It’s not Malek Lombardi’s head on a fucking stake.
And I will deliver that to her.
I will delivery Malek Lombardi’s head on a silver fucking platter for her to do with as she pleases.
Fury has my hands fisting. I force a deep breath in, exhale. Calm myself. Not now. This is not what she needs right now.
I touch her cheek, but when I do, she grips my wrist and glares up at me. She shoves my hand away, but I don’t move when she tries to climb out of the bed.
“You’re not strong enough,” I tell her as she slides her legs off the bed and her knees immediately buckle as if to prove my point.
I catch her, lift her in my arms. Instinct has her setting her hand on my shoulder.
It’s the first time she’s touched me since everything.
First time she’s not shoving me away. I don’t set her on the bed.
I hold her to me, feeling that small hand on me, her touch waking something buried deep at my center.
She’s here. I have her. She’s safe now, no matter what happened. She’s safe now.
“Allegra.”
Her eyes search mine, seeking something.
“I hate you,” she says. “I hate you.”
I take her words. They’re like a slap to my face, a fist to my gut and no less than I deserve.
That thing that was waking now twists painfully in my chest.
“I know you do.”
That’s not the response she’s expecting. Did she expect me to defend myself when I have no defense?
Her forehead furrows, eyebrows coming together, a momentary softening of her eyes. But she blinks them closed, shakes her head. When she opens them again, they’re a shade of fire.
“You let him get to me.”
She’s right.
“I’m sorry. It’s not enough, I know, but I am.
And what I will do to Malek Lombardi…” I trail off, because what I will do to him will not make up for this.
Nothing I do can ever make up for what he did to her and I’m not talking only about the physical damage.
I’m talking about what’s going on inside her head.
Those nightmares. Her terror. “I will rip him apart limb by fucking limb, Allegra. I will deliver him to you in pieces. I vow it.”
She watches me. She doesn’t trust me. Why should she?
“I need to use the bathroom,” she says.
I nod, lift her in my arms. She resists at first, maybe she doesn’t want to be so close to me.
“Be still,” I tell her. She still struggles. “I’m not letting you go.” I tighten my arms around her. Does she grasp the full meaning of my words?
She grits her teeth and refuses to look at me, but she stills as I carry her into the bathroom.
“I can do this part,” she says when I go to help her to the toilet.
“Allegra—”
“Just wait outside.” I open my mouth, but she points to the door. “Out, Cassian.”
Although reluctant, I nod and walk out of the bathroom.
I pull the door almost closed and wait for her.
When she flushes the toilet, I give her a moment then go back inside.
She’s standing at the sink, hands on the edge of it, holding herself up.
I position myself behind her, my arms on either side of her.
Her eyes meet mine in the mirror. We don’t speak.
I turn on the water and wash her hands carefully in mine, taking care with the bandage, gentle with her hurt hand.
I watch her as I do it, neither of us blinking.
I will make this up to her, I swear it to myself. Small things. Like this. Big things. Like Malek Lombardi’s head. She’ll see I mean it. She’ll see how sorry I am. She’ll forgive me. She’ll have to.
“It’s enough,” she says, and I nod, rinse the soap from our hands and grab a towel to dry hers, then mine.
She turns to face me, still trapped between the sink and my body.
She looks up at me and my heart misses a beat and all I can do is look back at her when I want to do so much more.
To say so much. She’s so small. A delicate thing trapped in a world of villains. Of monsters.
“Allegra, I—”
She shakes her head, breaks the lock of our eyes and when she tries to step around me, I lift her back up in my arms.
“I can walk.”
“I’ll carry you.”
I take her back into the bedroom, pausing once I set her on the bed. We stay like that for a long minute, her looking at me, me at her, her eyes like flames.
“In pieces,” she says finally, and I’m relieved to hear it.
“In pieces,” I say it like a promise.
Her eyes fill up and I can’t imagine the nightmare in her head right now.
“I will still hate you,” she says.
I nod. I know that. My throat is too tight to speak.
I sit her on the edge of the bed and when a tear slips from her eye, I wipe it away, but the instant I do, she grabs my wrist, fury behind the pain.
I do it again wiping another tear. When she tries to shove me away, I don’t let her.
I cup both sides of her face, bend my head and, eyes open, I kiss her mouth.
It’s a tender touching of lips before I kiss those tears, taste the salt of them.
She keeps her good hand on mine, the wrist of her bandaged hand on my forearm.
I draw back, look at her. A flurry of emotion passes through her eyes and when she raises her arm and slaps me, my head whips to the side from the force of it. I let myself feel the sting of it, then I turn my face back to her.
Her eyes are narrowed to slits, and she does it again.
My cheek burns, but I remain steady and again, turn back to her. This time, when she hits me, her lip curls and the slap is followed by another and another and another. A releasing of tension. Of frustration. Of rage. Whatever she needs.
She grows angrier and angrier as she beats me, her fists on my chest, the fall of her damaged hand light as a feather, the nails of her good one sharp as knives.
I let her do it. I let her pound on me and stand strong for her.
This is what she needs. And as she pants and beats her fists against my chest, I take it and I hear her curses, her proclamations of how much she hates me through her tears.
And when she wears herself out and only tears remain, I cup the back of her head and pull her to me, pull her face into my chest and I let her weep.
I let her weep for all the losses. For her mother.
For herself. With each of those body-wracking sobs, my heart breaks for her.
Because I left her vulnerable. In my anger, in my fury, I left her vulnerable, and my enemies saw an opening and they attacked.
She draws back, face a mess of tears and eyes of amber and when I press my mouth to hers, she pushes me away then pulls me to her.
Our eyes open, we kiss, her teeth tearing my lips, her hand a fist in my hair pulling and pulling.
I lay her back careful not to give her all my weight as her legs open and I press against her, my kisses deep, hers biting.
Her telling me she hates me as I push her nightgown up to her waist and tug at her panties, a tearing sound when I shove them out of my way.
I know I shouldn’t. I know I shouldn’t. But I break my one rule.
The same rule I’ve broken with this girl before.
This woman. The one woman I’ve ever broken it with.
Because when I push inside her, when I look into her eyes and I push inside her, it’s home.
It’s fucking home. It’s the one place I belong.
The only place I’ve ever belonged. The only place I am whole.
“Allegra.”
She sets one hand against my chest, and I have one arm wrapped around her, holding her half up, the other hand is on her hip, gripping, my cock sheathed inside her throbbing with need.
Allegra snaps her teeth at my lips.
I kiss her fully, tasting her tongue when she slides it into my mouth, devouring her as I begin to fuck her, to thrust deep and hard, taking her, reclaiming her from him.
And when she cries out, when she grips a fistful of hair and cries out and the walls of her pussy throb around my cock, I watch her come undone.
I watch her and she’s so fucking beautiful.
So fucking beautiful and I swear once more to deliver Malek Lombardi’s head to her.
Malek Lombardi and every other man who dares to touch her.
Who has ever dared to hurt my Allegra. To lay one finger on her.
I vow to tear them all to pieces with my bare hands.
I vow to be her protector until the end of time.
And with that violence in my heart, I come.
A vow of violence on my lips. Her breath my breath.
The air I need to live.