Exodus

by Stewart , Kate

  “Trust you? Trust you? You gave me nothing, which is exactly what you left me with. Both of you.” I say, darting my eyes between them.

  “So, you fuck my brother?” Dominic speaks up, his voice lethal. “Pretty cold, baby.”

  “Watch it,” Tobias warns, as Dominic’s eyes drift over to him.

  “I suppose I should congratulate you for keeping it in the family.”

  “Don’t you dare!” I swallow in an attempt to wet my dry throat, unbelieving of the difference in the appearance of the two of them. They look every bit like soldiers. It’s only in their eyes and expressions that I see traces of the men I knew. “This didn’t start the minute you left, or anytime soon after. I grieved for you both for months and months without a single thing to hold onto, without a word from either of you!” I look to Sean. “One day didn’t come.”

  “What in the hell do you think this is?” He runs a hand down his jaw.

  “Too late! Too late. I had to move on. You gave me no choice. I was losing my mind wondering if I should even bother. You asked me not to look for you, but I did, and you moved out of the townhouse, quit the garage, you both left without a trace. What was I supposed to believe?”

  Neither of them speaks up about the necklace. Both would be hard-pressed to admit it now, probably because of the man standing beside me, and now I’m sure I’ll never know.

  Sean’s voice booms, scattering my thoughts. “We were fucking forced away! Cut off from the world for keeping you from him. For doing exactly what he’s been doing!”

  I turn to Tobias. “Is this true?”

  “It’s true,” Dominic snaps, his tone as cutting as his silver gaze. “And since when is his fucking word money over ours?”

  “Since you left me with nothing!”

  “Fuck this,” Dominic says, turning on his heel.

  “Don’t, Dominic,” I move toward him, and Tobias stops me, “please don’t go,” I beg. Eyes watering, I plead with him as he goes completely rigid, his back turned to the three of us. “Please, just tell me the truth.”

  “The truth,” he slowly turns, his voice hoarse. “The truth is, Cecelia, you and I have both been played, but me, by my own fucking blood!” He charges toward Tobias, the wrath in his face unbearable. Tobias steps between us, pushing me back a few feet, readying himself.

  This only fuels Dominic as he lunges for his brother, and Sean catches him around the chest just before impact, speaking rapidly in his ear. “Don’t. Not here. Not now. This isn’t the place. We’ll deal with this our way.”

  Chest fracturing, I look helplessly to Tobias, whose eyes are zeroed in on his brother. In them, I see shame and a hell of a lot of guilt. I shake my head furiously at the revelation. “You mean to tell me you’ve been waiting this whole time to come back to me?”

  Dominic fights Sean’s hold, ripping at the arms circling his chest, murder in his eyes for his brother. “Yeah, we’ve been fucking waiting, waiting for the okay to come home! Fuck you—” his face falls as he stops his struggle, and I crack in half at the agony in his eyes. He shakes his head as Sean steadies him, whispering to him furiously.

  Dominic taps Sean’s arms. “I’m good. Let me go.” When Sean releases him, Dominic grows eerily calm before he steps toward his brother, his voice filled with venom.

  “Notre mère aurait honte de toi.” Our mother would be ashamed of you.

  It’s then I note Dominic’s accent is heavier, more polished. Tobias’s was just as heavy when I met him.

  “France,” I speak up in a whisper. “You sent them to France.”

  All three of them turn to me as I look over at Tobias, who helplessly looks back at me as I piece it together. “That’s what you’ve been hiding.”

  That was his secret. And our relationship was always a ticking time bomb. He knew they were coming for me.

  He knew.

  “You sent them to France. You made them leave, leave me.”

  Tobias hangs his head. His voice defeated when he speaks.

  “I was going to tell you, tonight.”

  “How convenient,” I whisper hoarsely, feeling every bit the fool I am.

  Dominic speaks up. “You are no brother to me. Everything you stand for is a lie.”

  Tobias scrubs his face, clear offense in his tone when he speaks. “I’ve done this one thing, for me, which doesn’t change the fucking thousand other things I did before it, for you. I’ve spent most of my life paying my dues, paving the way while you two had your fucking fun.” He steps forward, his eyes pleading. “Tout ce que j’ai toujours fait, c’est prendre soin de toi.” All I have ever done is take care of you.

  “Je te décharge de ça maintenant et pour de bon.” I relieve you of that now, for good. Dominic smashes his palms together as he speaks and separates them as Tobias flinches with the blow of his words.

  “Tu es en colère. Je comprends. Mais cela ne signifiera jamais que nous ne sommes pas frères.” You’re angry. I understand. But that will never mean we are not brothers.

  “It means nothing to you. You proved that.” Dominic eyes me, and I can feel the onslaught of his words before he speaks them.

  “Quand tu la baises, frère, sache que c’est moi que tu goûtes. Tu peux la garder.” When you fuck her, brother, just know it’s me you’re tasting. You can keep her.”

  “Elle parle français.” Tobias snaps. She speaks French.

  Dominic smiles at me, his eyes void of the soul I know and love. “I know she does.”

  “Of course you would go there, Dom. Of course, you would. That’s your go-to, isn’t it? Say it in English. You. Fucking. Coward. Call me a whore in a way I fully understand. That’s me, isn’t it? Nothing but a whore. Not the woman who loved you unconditionally despite the way you treated me in the beginning and deceived me before you left me in the street crying for you. I was faithful to you until I had no choice but to let go and move on. But that doesn’t matter, does it? Because all that matters is that I’m not yours to fuck anymore.”

  Dominic lowers his eyes as Tobias and Sean stare off. Sean’s eyes glisten when he speaks. “I didn’t think you were capable of this. Not you.”

  “I’m no more guilty than you are,” Tobias defends weakly. But he’s got no defense. He sent them away. He sent them away purposefully expecting to break us. He and I are the only ones who know he had no intentions of us happening, at least at first, and they will never believe him.

  But he did send them away. He sent them away to break our hearts because of his anger, his jealousy, and his agenda.

  It’s then I realize Tobias has been admitting this betrayal to me for some time now. The guilt he’s displayed, his words about his actions all have to do with this inevitable fall out. It brings me not an ounce of comfort. I’m still reeling as Sean’s eyes scour me, and I feel the need to cover myself. I’ve never been so ashamed to be in my skin.

  “Stop looking at me that way!” I say as tears glide down my cheeks. “Go ahead, call me a whore too, or better yet, don’t bother, I see it clearly in your eyes.” I clench my fists. “I was left dangling in the dark for damn near a year for you.” I lift my chin, “Fucking hypocrites, both of you. I played by your rules, Sean. No apologies, remember?” I look between them both. “And the fact that you can’t stand by what you preach doesn’t make me less of a woman. It makes you both less of a man. You are the ones who told me to take what I want when I want it. I guess the rule only applies if what I want is you!”

  Sean bites his lip, a lone tear falling straight from his eyes to the hand that now holds his ball cap, and I die at the sight of it.

  “I waited for you. I made myself sick. I cried for you both every night for months. I waited and waited, and you never came for me. And I didn’t know,” I glance at Tobias, who looks like he’s about to explode, but he keeps his eyes focused on his brother.

  “I didn’t know. Sean,” I plead with him, “you know me.”

  “I thought I did,” he replies hoarsely.

/>   “You couldn’t even trust me enough to tell me where you were going.”

  “That wasn’t the deal we made,” he swallows, eyeing Tobias, who’s deathly still as he darts his gaze between the three of us, swallowing repeatedly.

  This is what selfish does, Cecelia. This is the mess selfish creates.

  “Sean, I didn’t know,” I step toward him, and Tobias intercepts me, unwilling to let me past his barrier as he addresses Sean.

  “She was your toy.”

  Sean cocks his head. “You don’t know what the hell you’re talking about. And what is she to you? A means to an end? The ultimate revenge against Roman? And there we were feeling guilty, carrying out your fucking orders and you go and gut us like this? What was this meant to be? A taste of our own medicine? Nah,” he says, nothing but contempt in his eyes, “for you, it was misery loves company, right?”

  Tobias steps toward him, his face riddled in a mix of jealousy and guilt. “I didn’t overstep. The punishment goes for anyone who fucks up. You know that,” he exhales. “It wasn’t my intention—”

  “That’s a lie. You wanted her the minute you saw her. Don’t forget, brother, I know you. You saw what we saw. Except you knew how we felt about her because we fucking told you.” Sean snaps out his arm, pointing at him to stay back. “You asked me if she was worth it, and I told you she was. If you take one more step toward me, I’ll forget our past, and I’ll fucking end you.”

  “Remember your place,” Tobias snaps, his tone molten.

  “You made this personal, and you lost my loyalty in the process.” Sean shakes his head. “This is on you.” I can physically feel the break between the three of them as Sean addresses me.

  “Cecelia,” he whispers, the lilt in his tone breaking me apart as he brings his hazel eyes to mine, drawing me back to a time when things were so much simpler. A time where I could love him freely, reach out and touch him. “You were the first goddamn person I thought of every morning and the only woman I have ever dreamed about. And if you would have waited for me, I would have given you the opposite of nothing.”

  Tears fill my eyes and spill over as my heart reminds me exactly which parts were mapped by him. “I wish I could have believed you.”

  “I wish you would have believed in me, too.”

  “Sean, I—”

  “You love him.” It’s not a question, it’s a statement, and I feel all three stares on me as I lower mine. A long, tense silence follows before Dominic turns and heads toward the gate. Finally able, I lift my eyes to see Sean glance at Tobias behind me before running his hand through his hair and pulling on his cap. He turns his red-rimmed eyes to me before he gives me a solemn nod. “I guess we both fucked up. Take care, Pup.”

  I cup my mouth, sobbing into my hand as Sean joins Dominic where he waits, sparing one last look at me before they walk out of the gate, the loud clang of it slamming behind them making me flinch. I push the tears away from my eyes, unable to move and nowhere near ready to take a single step in any direction.

  I stand there for endless seconds, unbelieving of what just happened before anger wins, seeping into my every pore as I turn and face Tobias.

  “They told you.” My voice rattles in my throat on the verge of explosion. “They told you how they felt about me. You knew it. They told you, and you sent them away.”

  “Cecelia—”

  “You led me to believe they were done with me. Why? Because you were jealous? As if that’s an excuse. Jesus, Tobias!”

  “You know I didn’t mean for us to happen. I stayed away for eight months before our run-in. I had no intention of laying a hand on you.”

  “Until you did. The whole time they were coming back for me. They wanted me! They loved me!”

  “And what kind of relationship would that be?”

  “It was up to us to decide,” I shake my head incredulous. “What have you done?”

  His eyes dim as he looks on at me, utterly lost.

  “I was going to tell you. I was trying to figure out a way.”

  “Oh, I know, you’ve been apologizing every day. I just thought it was something else, not this. Not this.”

  “I was going to tell you. They weren’t supposed to fly back until next week.”

  “And you telling me was going to make it all better? You’re nothing but a selfish, manipulative, fucking liar!”

  “I didn’t know we were going to happen.”

  “You made us happen. I’m so done with this. I’m so done with this. Please leave.” I point in the direction they went.

  He charges toward me and clamps his hand on my shoulders, his eyes firing with temper. “Stop, and fucking listen to me.”

  I jerk from his grip. “Get your damn hands off me. Fuck your rules. They loved me, and you knew it! You played us. All three of us. You did what you set out to do. And there’s no excuse good enough to justify what you did.” I fight his grip as he tries to pull me to him. Words catch in my throat as I freely bleed out. The looks on their faces will haunt me for the rest of my life. “If this is what happens to people who give you their love and loyalty, I’m going to have to pass.”

  “Stop it.” He felt that blow to his core because I can feel our foundation crumbling beneath our feet. We never had trust, so it’s giving easily.

  “I never trusted you fully, so there’s that.” I glare at him. “I don’t ever want to see you again.”

  He grips my arms, his voice barely audible. “If only you meant that.”

  “What did you do?” I whisper.

  “I did what thieves do. I stole you!” he roars, gripping me tighter. I refuse to look at him. I can’t because I played my part in this too. My knees start to give out as the image of the two of them flash through my mind.

  “Watch it, Tobias, you’re getting emotional,” I say lifelessly. “That’s bad for business.”

  I can feel his pain, his devastation, but I refuse to acknowledge it.

  “Just…give me a chance to talk to them.”

  “Go. Talk to them. Handle your business. But say your goodbyes now, I won’t be here when you get back.”

  “Don’t even fucking think about it,” he whispers so vehemently that I feel the weight of his threat, but it’s desperation that leaks from it.

  “You don’t deserve them. You don’t deserve any of us. You said you would up your game. That’s what I’ve been thinking in the back of my mind this whole time. Remember? I told you that you were getting predictable, and you said you would up your game.” I shake my head. “And boy, did you deliver.”

  “This was not a game. And we are not fucking business.” He grips my chin, his jaw set as his eyes flame with determination and hurt as he forces me to face him. “Twenty minutes ago, you knew all too well who you belong to, and with and you still do. Tell me I’m a fool to believe it.”

  “You said we can never be.”

  He presses in. “We. Fucking. Are.”

  I glare up at him, my eyes overflowing. “I’ll never forgive you. They’ll never forgive you.”

  “I know.” He bends to catch my gaze. “I may be the villain you fell for, but that doesn’t make me any less the villain. Stay. I’ll be back.”

  I stand in the middle of my yard as he disappears into the house. A heartbeat later, I hear his Jag turn over. He speeds away as my legs give out where I stand in the yard, utterly destroyed.

  It strikes me then that I’ve never known all-consuming love until this day, until him, and I’m positive, I will never know it like that again. I found my truth in love just seconds before it was ripped from me. A curse, a damning fate, to be in love with a man I was supposed to view as my rival who instead stole my heart.

  And he’s just destroyed any trust I might have had for him by laying down all of his cards, and only because his hand was forced.

  After hours of staring up at the clouds, I pull myself from the ground, walk upstairs, and begin to pack.

  I wake up in a haze surrounded by drawers ful
l of clothes. My French doors clang against my bedroom wall as the summer breeze drifts through. With the next wind-induced crash against the wall, it’s clear why I woke. They’re still wide open because I spent the majority of the night blaring George Michael’s “Father Figure” throughout the house and back into the woods. I’d been furiously tackling my task of packing when it popped up on one of my playlists, one of my mother’s old favorites. As I listened while ripping through my belongings, it occurred to me just how fantastically fucking fitting it was. A song so utterly symbolic of my relationship with the man who deceived me to my very core, who preyed on my weakened heart at just the right moment, claiming my weakness as his own. And for a brief time, gave me everything I felt I’ve been deprived of. Everything I’ve ever wanted. He played into every one of my romantic fantasies, declared us kindred spirits, worshiped my body, took great pains to handle my heart with the utmost care, pulled me into a living dream and kept me there until I was completely saturated with him, in him, while permeating himself into my fucking soul.

  So, for the man who played me so well, I turned it up just to acknowledge his victory. I spelled it out with each lyric that I knew exactly on what level in which he deceived me.

  The deepest.

  I might not ever have fully trusted Tobias, but I believed enough in his lie to give him the rest of me.

  But play he did. And he won with a checkmate to shame all others.

  Whether it was deception or not, I may never know, but what I do know is that man now owns it wholly—in a way I can never get it back.

  “I did what thieves do. I stole you!”

  And oh, how he succeeded.

  Leave, now, Cecelia. Now.

  This time it surprises me how effortless it is to check out. I won’t fight it. In fact, I embrace it. I’m no longer capable of holding my own in these types of high stakes games. And with him, it seems I never had a chance.

  Groggy, I shift in bed, wincing at my discomfort.

  I don’t, at all, remember falling asleep, but I lay amidst my destroyed room filled with nothing but open bags and newly purchased suitcases I’d ordered last week in preparations to move home. I’m determined not to leave a single thing behind, because once I cross that threshold, and drive out of the gate, it will be for the last time.