Chapter 42
ALLEGRA
One Week Later
Cassian set fire to that field. After collecting the bodies of the men who fell in his name, he burned it to the ground. The corpses of the traitors, the lake house, the blood staining that earth and the bones beneath it.
He’ll look after the families his men left behind. I heard him talking to some of the mourners, the mothers, the wives, the children. Cassian is kinder than most realize.
My villain will do right by his allies. But woe to you if you are his enemy.
The only body he carried out of there was Enzo’s.
I watched him do it. I get it. They were not only cousins, but friends.
Or Cassian was a friend. Enzo? I don’t know when he turned on his cousin, if his mind was poisoned by Malek or if it was pure jealousy and greed that fueled his ambition.
We’ll never know, and I see how it’s on Cassian’s mind.
I wish I could take away the pain of Enzo’s betrayal, but I know I can’t.
For me, leaving Malek’s body to burn, that was an easy choice.
From the day I was born, he was my enemy.
Hell, from the day I was conceived. I don’t mourn him.
My thoughts are on Amal and Daniel. Will they look at me differently now?
Daniel is too young to know or understand, but Amal, she may not ask who did the actual killing, but she knew her father.
She knows what he did to me although I haven’t told her about the rest of it.
How far back his betrayals go. He’s still her father.
I know what it feels like to know the blood of a monster runs through your own veins.
I don’t want to burden her any more than she already is burdened.
I know every time she sees me, sees my hands, she’ll know.
She and Daniel will remain with their grandmother for a while. I think it’s a good idea for all of them. I got to meet her over Facetime. She was playing with Daniel and just seemed sweet. The opposite of her son.
Now, Jet and I stand inside, watching Enzo’s casket being lowered into the ground from the window. It’s just Cassian and Angelo out there and Angelo can barely stand. Although he is refusing a wheelchair.
I don’t feel for him either. He knew about Enzo. He learned the truth days before and he didn’t tell Cassian. He was there at the house when I was Malek’s prisoner and he walked away. He could have changed what happened and he didn’t.
A soldier clears his throat behind us. We turn. Jet raises his eyebrows.
“They’re starting to arrive,” he tells Jet.
“Keep them waiting. I don’t want them inside until we’re in place,” he says with an authority that matches Cassian’s.
Today isn’t only Enzo’s burial. It’s the day the remaining members of the inner circle of my family will meet with Cassian and a new treaty will be signed. I’ll be sitting at Cassian’s side for this. He’ll take the lead. I shouldn’t be anxious, but my stomach is in knots.
“Yes, sir,” the soldier says. They speak to Jet with a different respect since the battle.
He returns his attention back out the window and I take him in.
Jethro Blackstone. Cassian’s brother, even if not by blood.
I see the mark healing just above his right ear.
A bullet grazed him. It’ll leave a scar, but he was lucky.
He’ll be more handsome for it. For that and the patch of gray in his hair.
“What?” he asks. He must feel my eyes on him.
“Nothing.” I shift my gaze back out the window. “Do you think I’m a sociopath?”
“What?” he asks, clearly surprised by my odd question. He knocks my arm, which is in a sling between us, and I hiss at the sharp pain.
“What the fuck kind of question is that?” he asks, not apologizing.
I shrug my shoulder and turn back to the two out in the graveyard behind the church. Technically I don’t think you’re supposed to bury any more bodies, but, well, he does have a cemetery in his backyard.
“I just don’t really feel anything for him. Enzo, I mean. Or Angelo. Or Malek.”
He shifts his gaze out the window and it’s his turn to shrug. “You’re not a sociopath, Allegra. Angelo’s the only one out of that bunch I’d give the time of day to and barely. Never did like or trust Enzo. And Malek, he was just a fucking asshole.”
The priest makes the sign of the cross and Angelo and Cassian turn to walk back into the house. I see how Cassian holds onto Angelo’s arm.
“Yeah, he was.” I turn to look at Jet. “I’ve been doing some research.”
He looks at me, eyebrows raised. “Research?”
“Huntington’s disease. If you don’t have the gene, you can’t pass it on even if it’s in your family. He knows this, doesn’t he?”
“Why are you asking me?”
“I don’t know.”
“You want to have babies, Allegra?”
“Not yet, but eventually. I mean, imagine a tiny little one of those running around here.” I point to Cassian.
“Yikes.”
“Shut up. You’d love it. You’d be an uncle.”
I feel Jet’s eyes on me.
“I mean…” I watch Cassian. “I think he’d be a good dad, and I think, with all that’s happened, a child could bring joy to his life.”
Jet sets his hands on my shoulders and turns me to face him. “You’d be a good mom,” he says, and I feel my eyes well at the kind, unexpected words. “But he needs to mourn first. Seth… you know he isn’t going to make it, right?”
I nod. Seth is on life support. His brain is dead. “I wish I could have met him. Gotten to know him.”
“At least Cassian will keep his promise to him.”
“What promise.”
“Seth asked him, when he was diagnosed, before he got really bad, he told him he didn’t want to live like that. He asked his brother to help him end it when he got sick. When he was no longer there.”
“Oh my God.” My hand flies to my mouth. I just stare up at him, not quite believing what I’m hearing.
“He was desperate and scared, Allegra. Don’t judge Seth too harshly. He was a good man. What happened to him was shit.”
The door opens and I collect myself as best as I can. Cassian and Angelo walk inside. Cassian looks from me to Jet and back. Tomorrow, he and Vivi are going to take Seth off life support. Tomorrow, Cassian will keep his promise to his brother.
I clear my throat, unable to speak, because I understand the burden he’s been carrying, and I love him a little more for it.
“They’re arriving,” Jet tells Cassian.
Cassian nods once. He turns to Angelo. “Go home and get some rest, Uncle. I’ll come by in a day or two.”
Angelo sets his hands on Cassian’s shoulders. His face is bruised, and he will always have a limp. His body is slow to heal. He looks older than that day I met him. What’s happened has broken him and I don’t think the physical beating he took was anything compared to the emotional.
“Thank you, Cassian. Thank you for forgiving him.”
I watch Cassian closely. His right eye narrows and he doesn’t speak, doesn’t make any gesture. I wonder if Angelo understands that Cassian didn’t forgive Enzo. He buried him for the old man’s sake. Perhaps out of guilt for the beating. Who knows? But no, Cassian did not forgive Enzo’s betrayal.
Two men are waiting to take Angelo home. Once he’s gone, Cassian turns to us.
“You ready?” he asks Jet.
Jet is his new consigliere. His right-hand man. Severin is pissed, which is making this that much sweeter for Jet.
“I’ve been ready for years.”
Cassian comes to me. He takes my hand, studies my face. He brushes a run-away tear from my eye.
“How about you? Are you ready to show them who their queen is?”