CHAPTER 13 MAURO
I've been sitting beneath the windows of Mark Ferguson's mansion for days now.
Well, ‘beneath the windows’ is a bit of an exaggeration.
To be precise, I'm perched high in the crown of a tree, hidden so completely that no one in the house could ever see or hear me.
When I decide to disappear into the trees, they never find me, that much is certain.
Mark brought Jared here that very day, but as far as I can tell, nothing has happened between them yet.
That surprises me because Mark doesn’t strike me as the kind of man who enjoys waiting, yet with Jared he’s showing an almost unbelievable amount of patience.
I can’t help wondering if he has some long-term strategy, if this is all part of a game designed to draw Jared in before he closes the trap around him.
I watch them through the floor-to-ceiling windows overlooking the garden.
Mark never tries to force himself on Jared.
They spend hours talking, sitting together on the living room couch, and every now and then they leave the house to have dinner somewhere in the city.
The worst part is that I have no chance to approach Jared.
Mark takes him everywhere and never leaves his side.
Today, though, something feels different.
Mark has arranged a candlelit dinner for Jared, straight out of a romance movie, and it’s almost unbearable to watch. I can’t shake the feeling that the ground is crumbling beneath my feet, that the faint chance I had is fading away with every passing minute.
Compared to Mark, I have nothing worth offering Jared.
I'm a mute, a barely twenty-year-old low-ranking member of a mafia family who handles surveillance at the mafia stronghold and during operations.
I'm a relatively new fighter competing in illegal underground MMA matches, only beginning to climb the rankings and make decent money.
Everything about my life is dirty, shady, touched by the criminal world…
the very world that brought Jared so much pain.
So why do I obsess over him when the odds are stacked so completely against me? I don’t even know if what I feel is real or just a fantasy, some desperate illusion that he’s my True Mate because I wanted it badly enough to convince myself.
But if that’s all it is, then why does it hurt so much to watch the connection between Jared and Mark grow stronger every day? I should walk away. I should let him go instead of torturing myself like this.
At one point Mark asks Jared to dance, and they sway together to the soft music. Watching Mark’s hands resting against Jared’s back feels like someone scraping shards of glass across my own skin.
What am I supposed to do?
Walk up to him and type on my damned phone, Hey, I’m the brother of the man who raped you, but I’m a different kind of mafioso, okay? Pick me instead.
I doubt Jared would even recognize me after that single brief moment when our eyes met while he lay naked and terrified in Rocco’s bed. It was Ennio and Luca who saved him. He has no idea who I am.
Eventually dinner ends, and deep down I already know how tonight is going to end. The moment I see them share their first kiss out on the terrace, something inside me shatters into dust.
I failed. I missed my chance. I shouldn’t have stayed back that first time. I should’ve let him see me, let him feel what I felt the instant I looked at him. I still believe he would've sensed the same pull.
Instead, I made the biggest mistake of my life, and now I’m paying for it.
Later that evening they curl up together in front of the home theater, watching some romantic comedy. Before long they’re kissing again, holding each other… and eventually they disappear into the bedroom.
Still, I don’t even know why I keep doing this to myself, but I stay in that damned tree all night long, letting every passing hour carve another wound into me. Half asleep, I sink deeper and deeper into myself, crushed beneath the weight of my own despair.
Morning finally comes.
Jared and Mark step out of the bedroom… holding hands.
Stupid, stupid me. I blew it. Idiot! I'm too late.
I feel tears sliding down my cheek. I never cry. But this time it’s stronger than I am.
My fingers close around the pendant hanging from my neck, one half of a heart-shaped leaf.
And then…
Jared is wearing a loose shirt, open at the collar, and for the first time I see it.
Around his neck hangs the other half of my pendant. Sitting beside Mark on the couch, he absently plays with the little golden leaf I gave him.
The sight is unbearably bittersweet.
I lower my head, swaying slightly, so dizzy that it feels as though I might lose consciousness.
Someday… someday I might still find my way to you, Jared.
One day.
Or maybe… you'll be the one who finds your way to me.