Chapter 40
My door opens and slams and I don’t have to look up to know who just walked in.
No one would have the audacity to do this but Cassius.
I get it, we’re still mad at each other but it doesn’t change the fact that we still love each other.
He’s my brother and brothers fight. Sometimes over the same girl.
I want to know when he even wanted to defend Juliana but at the same time, I needed to calm that jealousy in me. It didn’t make sense.
“Realized you don’t want to lose your job?” I taunt him.
Cassius chuckles as he sits opposite of me while I’m behind my desk.
“I’ll lose my job when one of us is dead and gone. No time soon.”
This has me smirking and looking him in the eye.
“Three weeks was long enough for your bitch fit.”
“Three weeks wasn’t a long enough vacation, you asshole. We had words. I needed time to not kill you every chance I saw you.”
“What are brothers for?” I shrug.
“Exactly and since I’m your brother, I need you to wake the fuck up.”
“What do you mean?”
“You brought Juliana here? Knowing how they would isolate her, didn’t you? You’re still being a vindictive bastard?”
“I never said I’d stop being vindictive but I didn’t bring her here for that. She used to work for us, I saw her file, granted it wasn’t anywhere where I could see her but still. I thought she’d want some sort of normalcy. Is that a bad thing for me to do?”
“You don’t do anything half-assed or because you felt like it, Ric, what the fuck is happening?”
“Fine.” I sit back on my chair and unbutton my suit jacket. “I want her to learn the business. She’s not going anywhere and it’s better if she’s not sitting in the house idly staring at the fucking walls all day. Let her be of some use.”
“How do you know what she’s doing?”
“How don’t I know, is the question. It’s like saying I didn’t know when she was off running or that I wasn’t following her when she did that? I wasn’t that damned distracted.”
“She tasted freedom then, Ric. I told her you would know but who listens to me? Not you or her.”
“Quit your whining, Cas.”
Cassius laughs and shakes his head, growing serious.
“You need to protect her, Ric. Anyone can come after her here. Sure she’s tough because she survived prison and survived you everyday but she’s still a person. Someone connected to you through bad shit but it doesn’t mean she deserves those who don’t know her to treat her like that.”
“What are you saying? You’re saying you forgive her for what she did?”
Cassius rolls his eyes before running a hand down his face.
“It isn’t about forgiving her, Ric. It’s about realizing there was no stopping for her.
It was a domino effect of shit. She was running from an abuser.
That fucker beat her and raped her. How can someone who says they love you, violate you like that, huh!
They can’t. You know how many times I wanted to kill him with my bare hands? ”
Cassius knows how close I was to doing it when that bastard sat across from me just from hearing that he beat her and from seeing the way she shook around him but hearing out loud again that he ra—, violated Juliana makes me downright murderous.
Knowing that I let myself be distracted for a moment with Mia coming along and everything else, knowing how much I want to make Edwin bleed, enrages me.
Without thinking, I react. Standing and pacing doesn’t calm me down, neither does repeatedly pounding on my desk not caring what breaks. My anger hasn’t calmed down and it’s a side of me that Carmen wanted no parts of but I can’t let it down. It won’t go down or disappear.
“Admit it, Ric.” Cassius says to me and it stops me from destroying something else.
“Admit what?”
“That you care about her. That you’ve somehow got yourself obsessed with her without realizing it. You almost swung at me and you said shit to me that you would’ve never said unless you felt some way about her.”
“I can’t, Cas.”
You can’t, what?”
“I can’t do that. I can’t feel any way about her but anger. She doesn’t have that right in my life, don’t you get it?”
“I get it, Alaric. I do. She’s not replacing your wife just because you care about her. That’s not gonna happen.”
This has me shaking my head.
“Of course it’s not. Carmen was the love of my life. You can’t just replace that.”
“The question is, who is asking you to, Ric? It for sure ain’t me nor is it Juliana. She wants out so give her that.”
The calm I thought I was feeling towards thinking about Carmen, dissipates as fury took over.
“No.”
“No?” Cassius repeats.
“ No, I’m not giving her freedom. I can’t.”
“Why not?”
“It doesn’t fucking matter why not, I just won’t do it, Cas. Don’t ask me to do that.”
Cassius doesn’t say a word for a while but I know he’s going to say something, the second he stands.
“Then don’t let other people fucking hurt her.
Before you and before everything that happened, she had no beef with anyone.
If her life was perfect then I would’ve felt nothing towards her situation but it’s not that simple, Ric.
She didn’t just run a fucking red light.
She was running. She was injured that night too.
Ricky almost didn’t fucking make it, do you get that? ”
“I know, Cas.”
“Then protect her because she is going to be destroyed at your hands. Save her from the other little scary things because you are the monster in her life. Make sure no one else makes her cry because you’ll bring the tears to her eyes.
She’s Ricky’s mother, when he finds out, let him find out that you at least did that. ”
“I’ve never once forgotten that, Cassius.
I know who his mother is but I for damn sure won’t let that sick son of a bitch’s poison be anywhere near my son.
Even if others tell me we don’t share the same blood, I know we do.
He’s mine. No one else can claim him to be anything less or more than a Crowne. I’d die for him.”
“And I’d protect little Crowne with everything. He’s my nephew, I love that kid and because I love him, I have to reassess the way I treat his mother and so do you.”
“Fine.” I say as I walk towards the office door.
“Where are you going?”
“To protect his mother and remove the monster that she fears from her life. The only devil that should make her quake at his sight, is me.”