Chapter Thirty-Six #2
I didn’t know what to say, so I let him continue.
“A very embarrassing narrative, to be honest; my father was never creative. I could have come up with something better. Then again, it seemed to do the trick. I was named The Wicked and reigned amid assumptions people make of me. I must admit that it is fun sometimes.”
I breathed out, taking the bowl from between us before stretching to keep it on the bedside table. I shifted closer to him.
“Hey,” I said softly, and he gave me his attention. “I think it’s not too late to start changing the narrative.”
He shook his head. “It is too late. The narrative is who I am. It might not be who I am now, right in this moment with you. But the minute I walk back into that compound, it’s who I am.”
“But that’s not fair. To yourself, or the memory of your family.”
Something softened in his eyes; his stare grew deeper, more meaningful, and I almost shrank into myself at all the emotions it carried and how he didn’t make any move to hide them.
“You believe me,” he said, lowering his pitch.
I lowered the pitch of my voice too, keeping our conversation locked between us and nowhere else in the room. “From one liar to another, I think it’s pretty easy to spot our truths just as much as our lies, Elio.”
“That might be the wisest thing you’ve ever said since I met you.”
I let a small laugh bubble out of my chest. “Come on, I have said wise things … a lot of them, actually.”
“Your sexual innuendos?”
I shot him a deadpan stare, struggling not to smile. “Now you’re the one bringing sex into the conversation.”
“I’m only stating facts.”
I smiled. “Well, what can I say? Sexual innuendos come with my whole package.”
He raised both his brows. “Oh, you’re a package now.”
“Mm-hmm. I know people who would kill to have me stand by their side,” I said with a proud smile.
He switched to Spanish. “With you offering them what?”
I loved his accent when he spoke in the language. It rolled naturally and deeply off his tongue and throat. It was seductive, even though I was positive he didn’t mean for it to be that way.
I responded in Spanish too. “Words of advice, strategic planning, ways to get information because it is the most valuable thing you could ever hold against your enemy.”
“Is that what you offered Manuel?”
I knew he was going to ask, and I thought I knew the answer I would give, but looking at him now, I didn’t know how to lie … so I just went with the first thing that came to mind.
“It wasn’t like that, at first … I was just living with him, helping with chores here and there because I’m all things but a freeloader.”
“Why were you living with him?”
I swallowed, looking away from his face. “I-I can’t really remember much about those times, but … I think he saved me. Um—from my buyer in the trafficking business, and he brought me to Sicily. I was sixteen. I thought I was finally free from the life I’d had, but—”
“It wasn’t freedom,” Elio pointed out, and I nodded.
“It wasn’t … It was worse.”
“Did he hurt you?”
I bit the inside of my lip. “He didn’t do anything that I didn’t want. At least I thought I wanted it because I thought he—loved me.”
I looked at him, expecting to find his eyes judging me, but there was nothing; he just listened.
“But he didn’t love you,” Elio said, gently urging me to divulge more.
“Maybe he did … in his own weird way, but it was unhealthy. I was underage, and he was an adult—and I was stupid to think it was real from my end. Manuel was obsessed at best. I started living when I left him.”
“When was that.”
“I was nineteen.”
“And he just let you go?”
“Yeah,” I said, finally looking at him. “He woke up one morning and told me that I was free to leave if I wanted to.”
“Did you want to?”
I shrugged. “At that time, I didn’t really know—it took me a month to make the decision to leave.
I needed to find myself, you know. He didn’t give me any money to fend for myself when I left, and I was stubborn as hell, so I just told myself that I would be able to do it, and well, here I am, in bed with the guy who kidnapped my family and me. ”
Elio didn’t say anything; he just stared, eyes deciphering, cutting down each of my words, looking for loose ends, anything that would signify a lie.
“Hm. You still have your freedom.”
“In a twisted, fucked-up way, yeah.”
It was quiet for a while, and then he spoke. “I have a vague idea of what it feels like to have your freedom taken from you. I had mine taken when I left for the army.”
“Why did you leave?”
“My father. He thought I was going crazy like Mother, so he forced it on me. I was nineteen. He wanted to rid me of my depression, and to him, the army was the answer. I respected him too much to say no. I had to leave everyone I loved behind … It was horrible out there.” His throat bobbed.
“When I came back, they, I didn’t get there on time, the fire—my mother—she—my siblings—well, they were gone. ”
Something melted inside me. “I’m so sorry to hear that.”
He nodded. “Going to the army … it didn’t just take away my freedom; it took my family, destroyed what was left of it, and it was all because my father thought I was crazy.”
I frowned. “He was the crazy one,” I said, then paused. “Wait—is this by any chance the reason you left Devil?”
He nodded. “There would have been no one to take care of him when I left for the army. I couldn’t trust anyone, not even Casmiro. So I had to send him away.”
“But it was only for a year, right? You could have reached out when you got back.”
“I wanted to. I went to Los Angeles a few months after I got back. I watched him from afar for a few days. He was happy, or he seemed happy and normal. I didn’t want to ruin that. So, I left and have watched him from afar ever since.”
“Then tell him this; I’m sure he wouldn’t hate you as much as he does now. Devil might be stubborn, but he’s understanding, and deep down, I know he cares for you.”
“I don’t want him to. I can’t be there for him. I can’t promise to be when I know I might not live past thirty-three.”
My frown deepened. “Don’t fucking say things like that.”
“Does it upset you?”
I shot him a look of disbelief. “Yes, it does.”
“Then I’ll stop.”
“You’ll stop thinking it too?”
“I am afraid that is impossible. It’s not something I can control.”
“Then seek—”
I could tell he suppressed a groan. “I have repeatedly told you why I can’t seek help. Repeating myself is not something I am fond of.”
“Okay, fine, I’ll drop it.”
“Thank you, Sport.”
“Why do you call me that?”
His brows twitched, and his gaze dropped from mine.
Silence fell between us.
“Are you gonna answer or—”
“You challenge me. You’re sharp-mouthed; you don’t fold easily; you keep me on my toes. You’re just as stubborn as me. You’re a little thing, yet a big force of nature. You’re like my personal kind of sport. Except I don’t like to play, I just derive pleasure from watching.”
Like it had the time he kissed me, the little glitchy stutter attacked my chest to the point that my response was a simple “Oh.”
“Hm,” he hummed, eyes still on me, and I wanted to ask him why he was staring, but his phone screen lit up with a vibration and a text sound.
My gaze flickered to it, but I couldn’t see the texter.
He looked down at his phone but didn’t pick it up. He just brought his attention back to me.
“So tell—” He stopped when his phone blared up again. Three times consecutively. He sighed and then picked it up.
I watched him unlock the device. It was shielded from my view, but I watched how he typed back to whoever texted him.
I frowned again.
Was it Casmiro …
The sound of him sending the text filled the space between us.
It wasn’t even up to a second before the sound of a response from the texter came through.
He was typing out another reply.
Elio’s face gave nothing away, and it only fueled my curiosity.
The back-and-forth continued for about a minute before he dropped the phone.
“Cassie?” I asked.
“No.”
“Angie?”
“No.”
“Who was—”
“I’m curious to know you, Zahra,” he cut me off.
My gaze went to the phone again, unable to detach my mind from how he had wholly stopped our conversation to text this person.
If it was Cas …
I could feel his eyes on me when he spoke again. “Tell me, what is it you desire?”
The question had my gaze snapping to his, and I couldn’t help but snicker. “Okay, Lucifer Morningstar.”
“What is a Lucifer Morningstar?” he asked.
“He’s a character from a show—like a TV—never mind.” I couldn’t deal with explaining it to him; I felt I’d spend hours doing that. “That, though, is a very dangerous question to ask a woman like me.”
“I think it’s a pretty normal question. Do you plan to be a thief for the rest of your life, or is there something more that you want?”
I parted my lips to answer the question, but nothing came.
Elio waited patiently until I sighed and decided to be honest about myself for the first time tonight. “Honestly, I haven’t thought that far yet. Maybe it’s because I don’t like to dwell on my future when I could just have it all in my present.”
“That’s careless thinking.”
“I never said I was careful.” I curled the side of my lips.
A small scoff left him as he raised his hand to my hair, and I stiffened. He stroked gently before tucking it behind my ear; the warm tips of his fingers brushed the skin at the back of my ear and down my neck. I couldn’t hide my visible shiver.
“Your actions show how very careless you are, Sport; you don’t have to say it in words that you’re not,” he said, his voice lower than before, gaze dropping to my mouth.
God … I wanted him to break that one rule, close the space between us, and just … do it.
Why the fuck was I waiting for him to do it?
Fuck this.
My palm rested flat on his chest, and I was genuinely surprised to feel how fast and hard his heart thumped.
I pushed him flat and settled atop him in a straddle. He didn’t stop me when I brought my head to his neck, breathing him in as I kissed his hot skin.
His hands came to hold my waist in a firm grip.
I kissed from his neck to his chin, then up to the corner of his lips, before I pulled away slightly, connecting my gaze with his—his hot breath fanning my face, his eyes showing how completely resigned he was to this situation.
He would let me kiss him. I knew it.
“I want to break a rule, Elio. I know you want it too.”
“I do,” he said, swallowing while his heart hammered against my palm. “But I can’t.” His whisper brushed against my lips.
“Yeah, I know. It’s a good thing that I can, then.”
Without thinking about what he’d do next, I leaned in to satisfy that ache in my chest and the desire to feel the warmth from a kiss and—
His phone blared up in a ring before I could even press my lips to his.
“Are you fucking kidding me,” I muttered through clenched teeth. “Don’t answer—”
He was already reaching for the phone, bringing it to his view while I got off him with a glare.
“Who the hell is it?”
“Angelo,” he said, watching the phone ring.
I rolled my eyes. “Why am I not surprised.”
“It’s almost three A.M. He wouldn’t be calling if it wasn’t important,” he said, sitting up.
Wow—did we talk that long into the night? It hadn’t even seemed like an hour.
Elio picked up, placing the phone against his ear. “This better be important.”
I couldn’t hear what Angelo was saying, but it sure as hell made Elio grow tense, though his face gave nothing away.
“How,” he stated in question. Angelo’s response came, and it made Elio completely stiffen.
“Is he okay?” he asked.
I bit the inside of my tongue.
Elio shifted away from me, getting off the bed. “When did this happen?” he asked, moving to the dresser while I sat there … just watching.
“Share the location; I’ll be there.”
Then he hung up, dropped the phone on the flat surface of the dresser, and took off the white sweater hurriedly before quickly fishing out a black one.
I got off the bed. “What happened?”
Elio slipped on the sweater, turning to face me with furrowed brows. “Casmiro was shot.”
“What? When?” I asked, putting on a concerned frown.
“About thirty minutes ago. He’s here in Turin.” His phone vibrated on the table, and he picked it up from the surface, glancing at the screen, and then he started heading towards the door. “Angelo just shared the location—”
“Let me come with.”
He paused, turning to look at me. I spotted the hesitation in his stare.
“I won’t get in your way. I just—don’t want to be here alone.”
His jaw worked as he scanned me from head to toe and said, “Change.”
“On it.”
“I’ll wait outside; do not take your time.”
“Got it.” I was already heading to the dresser when he left the room.
I found a black sweater identical to the one Elio had put on and then slipped on one of the pairs of sweatpants I found in there, grabbed my phone, and left the room.
A few minutes later, Elio and I were driving to the location.