Chapter 33 Allegra
ALLEGRA
My head throbs. The smell of mold permeates my senses, and I shiver with cold.
In the distance, a sound. An engine? Like a car driving, except we’re not moving.
Nearby I hear water lapping along a shore, gentle and peaceful and wrong.
I startle awake with a gasp, sitting up so fast my head collides with a man’s face. He groans. Curses. When my eyes adjust, I see him looking hatefully at me. Blood seeps from his nose down his lip, over his fingers.
“Bitch,” he mutters, then bends his head to resume his work of tightening the rope around my wrists. My ankles, too, are bound tight, thick rope rough against my skin.
I look around the place. I’m in a cabin of some sort.
The door is open, shadows long in the weak light.
I hear two men talking outside, the tips of their cigarettes glowing red when they draw in breath.
The cabin is on a lake. I can see the long, narrow pier through fog hanging thick over the water.
Inside, the house is dimly lit by that little bit of light coming in through broken out windows and lanterns. Cobwebs, dust and debris cover all surfaces. The upholstery of the chair I’m sitting on is ripped, the seat itself creaking when I move. Everything screams forgotten. Smells of decay.
“Stay still,” the man tells me.
“Where am I?”
“You’re where your husband wants you to be.”
My husband.
Panic has my heart dropping to my stomach.
Malek.
The sound of laughter comes from outside. As if on cue, Malek walks into the house. The man whose nose is still bleeding stands and steps backward like a soldier respectful or afraid of his commander. Malek doesn’t even acknowledge him. He just looks at me.
It takes all I have not to physically shudder in his presence. His gaze. Because this man? He hates me. He hates my family. And he fucking terrifies me.
“Good. You’re awake.” Malek grins. He’s dressed in military fatigues. So is the other soldier and the two that follow him in.
The only one not dressed for battle is Enzo.
Enzo looks back at me, gaze level and undisturbed. I trusted him. After I saw him kill those men in the SUV to save me, I trusted him. Was it all for show?
And Cassian. What about Cassian, who has trusted him for all his life?
“Traitor,” I mutter. It’s all I can do. All I can think. He betrayed Cassian and he betrayed me and that betrayal will cost us dearly. I know it in my bones.
I glance down at my butchered hands with their missing digits. What will Malek take from me next?
Malek steps closer, grips my chin and forces my head backward. His fingers dig into my skin as he looks me over, a triumphant grin on his face.
I want to get up, to stand and face him, but with my ankles tied as they are, I can’t.
His gaze zeroes in on my hands. His grin vanishes, replaced by pure fury. He bends to grab my hands and roughly pulls Cassian’s ring from my finger. He looks at it in his palm, a sneer on his face.
“Where is the ring I gave you, wife?”
“Don’t call me that!”
He makes a fist around that ring and leans close, close enough that when he speaks, spittle lands on my cheek.
“But you are that,” he hisses, and throws Cassian’s ring across the room.
It bounces off the wall and lands in a pile of dust and debris.
“I thought you would cherish such a prized possession as your mother’s ring, but I see I was wrong. ”
“Don’t you dare speak of her, you fucking murderer. Don’t you fucking dare!”
He snorts, grin returning, eyes narrowing. “My contrary, unruly wife. I will take you in hand soon enough.”
“I will be a widow before the night is over,” I hiss.
He collects himself. “Not if I make myself a widower first.”
He looks at the soldier who’s holding his nose, his head tilted back to staunch the bleeding. “What the hell?” Malek asks him.
“She head butted me. It came out of nowhere.”
“I’m surrounded by idiots,” Malek mutters. “She was unconscious, you fool!” He shakes his head.
“Where the hell are we?” I ask.
“You don’t recognize it? The house belongs to you. Well, to us, technically, since I’m your husband. Although, it hasn’t been used in over fifty years.”
I don’t know this place. I glance over his shoulder, but nothing is familiar. I’ve never been here.
“The lake house,” he says.
“Lake house?” I recall my father mentioning a lake house a long time ago.
I’m not sure he’s ever been here. It’s dilapidated.
Unusable. Because it’s butts up to land that has been disputed between the Trevino and the Moretti families for as long as I can remember and it has a violent history for both of our families, but especially ours.
I recall something Cassian said a long time ago. Something I hadn’t understood then, but I do now. We’ve danced this dance before. Battles between the families have played out here. Inside this house, victory was declared and not by us.
“I’m going to re-write history tonight,” Malek says as if reading my mind.
“What does that mean?”
Just as I ask it, a man walks into the house. He looks at me, holding my gaze for an angry moment.
“Vincent?” I ask, it’s stupid I’m surprised.
Why am I surprised? What did I expect when I walked into my father’s study with Cassian Trevino at my back?
It wasn’t me they feared in that room. It wasn’t me they bent their heads to.
It was Cassian. Vincent has clearly chosen his side.
He saw what Cassian did to Joseph. How many others have switched sides?
How many are loyal to Malek? Although can it be switching sides?
Malek has been a part of the Moretti family all my life.
In their eyes, it’s Cassian who is the usurper. Me who is the traitor.
“Soldiers are on their way. Delayed, but coming,” he tells Malek.
Malek nods, looks at me and I want to lunge at him.
I want to claw that smug grin off his face.
“What does it mean that I’ll rewrite history?
” he asks me. “Two families cannot rule our territories. There can only be one ruler. This piece of land is the perfect place. Tonight, we’re settling the dispute once and for all.
When I’m finished, the Trevino family will bend a knee to a new leader,” Malek says, glancing at Enzo.
“Or they will die. See, when Cassian kidnapped you, wife, he broke the peace treaty.”
“No. Michael had already broken the treaty.”
“Michael made a mistake. He paid Cassian what Cassian demanded, extortion though it was, and yet, your lover still took what was never his. Bringing him into your father’s home, thinking they’d bend a knee to him, or to you, that was a miscalculation on his part.”
“You planned it all along, didn’t you? You planned this whole thing.”
“Well, honestly, it did fall into place nicely, but I’ll admit I was happily surprised.
Didn’t expect your Romeo to fall in love.
I mean, who knew he had it in him? When Cassian almost killed your brother that day at the house, he gave away his hand.
Not the best poker player if you ask me.
I found his weakness, Allegra. His Achilles’ heel, if you will.
It’s you. Can you believe it? Very cliché.
” He shakes his head with a false smile of utter enjoyment on his face.
“You were the one behind all of it. My father believing my mother was having an affair. Her murder. My father’s murder, and it was murder. Michael’s murder I saw with my own two eyes.”
He studies me, one corner of his mouth lifted into a grin. He’s pleased. “I heard how Rami was punished. He deserved worse, that brute. But I do owe a thanks to your lover.”
“You ordered him to kill Michael! What do you deserve?”
“I only took what was my due. And now, you’re my due.” He grips a handful of hair painfully forcing my head backward. “I’m going to enjoy making you scream, Allegra. I’m going to like watching you on your knees you arrogant little bitch.”
I jerk free and clamp my teeth down on his hand.
“Fuck!” Malek tries to break away, but he only manages it after I’ve broken skin.
After I’ve tasted the copper of his blood.
I pay for it, though. He backhands me so hard, I fall sideways off the chair, the side of my head hitting the ground because I can’t get my bound hands in front of myself fast enough to break my fall.
My cheekbone throbs, but I turn my head to look at him, push myself up and spit out a mouthful of blood. I push through the pain. “That the best you can do?”
He crouches down, hate animating his dead eyes.
He closes his hand over my throat. “Oh, no, not the best, bitch-wife. You want to see my best?” He squeezes my throat, cutting off my oxygen.
I clutch at his forearm and I think for a minute, as I look into his furious eyes, see the spittle around his mouth, I think he’s going to kill me right here. Right now.
“Stop. Fucking stop or you’ll kill her!” Enzo says and suddenly I can breathe again and I’m gasping mouthfuls of air. My vision begins to clear, and I refocus on Malek, standing over me, Enzo holding him back.
Malek snarls in frustration. “I’m going to kill him in front of your eyes. I’m going to make sure you watch as his life bleeds out of him.” He turns to Enzo. “Get her upstairs,” Malek barks, shoving Enzo. “Now.”
Enzo stands to his full height. He is formidable, as big as Cassian, much bigger than Malek and Malek cannot move him.
“Last I checked I don’t work for you. Don’t give me fucking orders like I’m your foot soldier.”
Malek snorts. “Isn’t your cousin the one who treated you like a foot soldier all your life long? Isn’t that why you’re here?”
“Well, I’m not about to be yours,” Enzo says.
Malek faces Enzo. “Don’t forget why you’re doing this. Cassian Trevino’s blood is tainted. He can have no heir. He doesn’t deserve the throne. He should have stepped aside when his brother got sick. When he knew he’d only destroy the family. You said so yourself.”
Enzo’s eyes narrow, but he’s listening. I have to hand it to Malek. He figured out Cassian’s weakness and Enzo’s.
When Enzo’s jaw twitches, Malek grins. “Remember what I’m going to give you,” he says through gritted teeth. “But it does not come free. Get her upstairs.”
Enzo’s hands fist.
“Do it. I want her high in the sky when he gets here.”
Enzo grits his teeth, but bends to pick me up and even though I resist, he easily hauls me over his shoulder and begins to head to the stairs.
Malek follows and soon we’re on what was once the second floor which is now open to the sky, the air thick with fog.
The roof is completely gone, and the walls are about waist high.
A heavy wooden beam that must have been one of the supporting beams stands straight up in the middle of the space.
I see sharpshooters with night vision lenses taking their positions behind sandbags.
They are prepared for their ambush, and this is the perfect ambush.
The house is set at the far back of the property.
Behind us are woods. A single-track unpaved road leads to it.
They’ll have to use that or come on foot.
Either way, they’ll be walking to their graves.
Enzo sets me on my feet, and I pull back from him. “You fucking traitor. Why would you do this? Cassian trusts you.”
He doesn’t look at me. Instead, he’s looking beyond my shoulder where Malek has gone.
“Get her up there,” Malek commands.
“It’ll be a while before they get here. You can’t keep her up there that long.”
“Don’t tell me you’re growing a fucking conscience.”
I turn to the sound of a gun being cocked and find Malek taking aim at Enzo.
“You know what they say about cheaters, Enzo?” Malek asks.
I have no idea what he’s talking about and from the looks of it, neither does Enzo.
“Once a cheater, always a cheater. In my experience, it’s the same with traitors.
” After a long, pointed minute, he disarms the weapon and puts it back into its holster.
“Allow me to motivate you. Think of what he owes you. Think of all those years he’s treated you like trash when it’s his line that’s tainted, that’s unfit to rule. ”
Enzo shifts his gaze to me. I instinctively try to step backward and almost fall, but he catches me. He takes my arms and raises them over my head. He’s almost face to face with me for a moment.
“You’re really going to do this? To follow him?” I ask.
Enzo eyes narrow. “He’s right. Cassian’s line is tainted. Our family will be dead because he won’t step aside and let someone who can father a successor take over the throne. It’s selfish. I’m doing this for the greater good of the family.”
“Keep telling yourself you’re doing it for the family, but you know the truth as well as I do. Greed. Jealousy. You want what is rightfully Cassian’s.”
“I’m doing it for the family,” he repeats.
“And you think Malek is going to let you rule? You think he’s just going to hand you Cassian’s territory?”
“Trevino territory. Not Cassian’s personal territory. And I’m a Trevino.”
“You’re handing everything to Malek, you idiot.”
He glances over my shoulder at Malek and leans closer. “If he betrays me, I’ll kill him and take over both territories.”
“And Cassian? What happens to Cassian?”
He looks me square in the eye. “He dies.”