Darkside Love Affair

by Michelle Rosigliani

  “How many times did my mother witness this type of scene?” I demanded, pointing the hand holding the now half-empty glass of cognac between the blonde and my father.

  “It does not concern you,” Isaac replied coolly, his blue eyes turning colder still.

  He stepped aside and wasted no more attention on his assistant. Stunned, she lingered uncertainly in the entryway.

  I pitied her for being put in that offensive position, but I pitied her more for my pitying her in the first place. Pity was the most demeaning feeling a person could inspire.

  “Leave us, Tessa.”

  “I—mm—”

  “Now,” Isaac snapped. “I will be with you shortly.”

  “You will use her shortly, you mean,” I muttered once Tessa disappeared from view. Isaac sat across from me on the sofa, quiet and expressionless. It was his complete composure and detached manner that enraged me.

  “I will not even begin wondering how you managed to get inside, but is there a reason for your unannounced visit?”

  “It seems I don’t know my own father,” I scoffed acidly, looking at the spot where mere moments ago my father’s lover had wiggled in his arms, a vulgar insult to my mother’s memory. Isaac followed my gaze, and for the shortest of instants, emotion entered his stony stare. “I won’t accept the deal unless I know everything.”

  It was finally the end of the week, and Hudson still expected an answer I hadn’t given. He struck me as the type of man who would not present his offer again if I didn’t let him know my answer by the time he had established. My father seemed to think the same. Interest and determination suddenly transformed his features into a warmer and more attentive expression.

  “What do you need to know?”

  “Everything, from the moment you started until today. Don’t bother with lies. I can easily walk.”

  He pinched the bridge of his nose and clenched his teeth. Whatever he was about to say would not be pleasant for either of us. But I needed to know. It wasn’t even because I was curious. It was because I needed to know how the job Julian Hudson offered would affect me, and implicitly, Charlotte.

  “You are not going to like what I have to tell you, Son.”

  “Try me.”

  “Very well then,” he muttered to himself, strolling absentmindedly to the wet bar to pour himself a serious dose of liquid courage. I was momentarily taken aback when he slammed the decanter back in its place and fixed me with a stern look that resembled a glare. “I’ve been working with them ever since I was nineteen years old, before I became a lawyer, before I even met your mother. In fact, I became a lawyer to better serve my undercover duties. Your grandparents never found out that I was an FBI agent, so you may quit acting like a disgruntled child. You were not the only one kept in the dark.”

  “Have you ever told Mom?”

  I couldn’t keep my tone even. I had always been aware that Isaac had deeply hurt my mother, but suddenly, I felt like I was still oblivious to the extent of that hurt.

  “She found out all on her own.”

  Regret filtered into his chilly stare, then he was once more the cold-hearted man who had become a father by mistake. With a full glass of liquor in his hand, Isaac sat on the sofa and resumed his speech without glancing my way.

  “I have told you several times that I do understand your instinctive rebellion. I have experienced it too, yet not for the same reasons. I rebelled against the meager condition of my family and the grim circumstances that I was raised under.

  “I do not come from a rich family of lawyers. Your grandfather was a cheap plumber who often returned home empty-handed, reeking of alcohol, and your grandmother was unable to keep a job because of her locomotor disability and because she needed to raise two children by herself. So you see, I rebelled against poverty because I despised it and was ashamed of it. I left that house before I became of age.”

  “You were ashamed of your own family, Father. At least have the decency to admit that.”

  I had a bitter taste in my mouth, and it had nothing to do with the alcohol I had just drunk. I had known close to nothing about my father’s family, but I had never expected this cruel depth to his story. I had never expected he had turned his back on a mother who had struggled to raise him and clearly needed her son’s help. I had never expected my disgust for my own father to grow.

  “I had recently graduated from high school when Agent White approached me and offered me a job. No, he didn’t offer me a job. He offered me a life. He was going to fund my academic education and all necessary expenditures.

  “Moreover, he was going to provide me with a decent salary and the possibility of climbing up the ladder. The only thing I had to do was befriend a certain elitist student, whose father was a remarkable businessman. He laundered money for the mob. I had to befriend the son, infiltrate into his home, eventually gain his father’s confidence, and get proof of his criminal activities.

  “That seemed a small price to pay for everything I received in return, so I accepted White’s offer. I didn’t care that he forced me to study something that I didn’t necessarily liked. I didn’t care about the danger. I only cared that I would never return to poverty. That was my first mission, and when I successfully completed it four years later, I was ecstatic, and I craved more.

  “By the time I finished college and a few other operations, I realized I was truly cut for being an undercover agent. Being a lawyer only happened to be a truly fitting persona that provided me with lots of useful contacts.”

  “When did you meet my mother?”

  “I met her accidentally. If I had gotten to the hospital half an hour later that night, we would have never met, she would have had a happy life, and you would have never been born.”

  My heart constricted painfully, longing for what it never had. In the absence of my mother, I had grown to love her so greatly that idols paled in comparison. She was the figure I worshiped, the woman I loved so desperately that if my nonexistence had spared her the heartache and misery she had been submitted to, I would have gladly chosen a world where she never met my father.

  “That night the mission had gone from bad to worse, and I arrived at the ER with a serious laceration between my ribs. I still bear the marks of that night.” My heart was in my throat as he fell silent and squeezed his eyes shut. “Your mother had a nasty sprain, and she was treated in the cubicle next to mine. By the time the attending on-call came to check on me, your mother had worked herself into a state of worry, so she stuck around until I got out of surgery. She was that kind and that caring. The next morning, she visited me, and it was all it took to infect me with an obsession that spread like a virus through my system.

  “I know you are unable to believe it, but I loved your mother. I also hated her for making me love her so wildly. Until I met her, I never imagined there could be something or someone who could deter me from achieving my goals. Then she came around, and I was suddenly unable to concentrate on my missions like I used to or fulfill my duties like I was supposed to.”

  “How did she find out about who you truly were?” I hissed.

  Although how his hidden life had affected my mother interested me the most because it was a clear reference point of how it might affect Charlotte in the future if I accepted Hudson’s offer, hearing Isaac speak about my mother hurt more than I expected.

  “You got your impulsiveness from your mother,” he replied then sighed when he saw me frown in confusion. “She found out who I truly was because of her foolish impulsiveness.

  “I was having dinner with a woman. She had a statuesque figure and was about ten years older than me but fascinating nonetheless. What fascinated me, and your mother failed to understand, was her involvement with the prime suspect in a case with multiple murders. Your mother showed up at the restaurant and threatened to ruin the connection I had managed to build with my target.

  “So I chose what, at the time, seemed the lesser of two evils. I told your mother the truth. I
explained to her that the wonderful blonde waiting for me at the table was only wonderful because she served a purpose. She was too angry to see reason. She said she couldn’t share me. She was irrational.”

  “But she chose to remain married to you?”

  “We went through a—tough period, but we eventually sorted out our differences,” he retorted, tight-lipped. Anger rose in me like a wild flame.

  “Do you mean you forced her to stay in a marriage she stopped desiring while you had your fun with countless other women?”

  “Like I said, I loved your mother. It was she who refused me, who put a wall between us, who didn’t want to accept that my missions did not affect the feelings I had for her. But I still wanted her, and most of all, I wanted her to be safe. Divorcing me wasn’t going to accomplish that, so I opted to keep her where I could protect her.”

  “But you failed, didn’t you? For someone who accuses his son of being a failure, you failed at what should have been your greatest mission.”

  “Yes, I failed,” Isaac shouted, catching me off-guard as he jumped to his feet. His eyes were glazed, almost demented. “But it was her damn fault as well. She should have never gone against my orders.”

  “She was not your property to order around. She was a woman who you neglected for most of your marriage.”

  “She was my wife. She was supposed to listen to me.”

  He grabbed a handful of his hair then downed the contents of his glass in a single gulp. I hurt for my mother, for the loneliness and emptiness she might have felt next to a man who had yet to understand how much damage he had done.

  “I was in Dallas, under a different identity, carrying out the plan White and I had crafted. You see, when you work with drug dealers and the worst of criminals, you cannot afford to deviate from your plan. But of course, your mother had a different opinion about that.

  “She followed me to Dallas, expecting to catch me while I cheated on her. What she actually got herself into was an armed exchange between rival bands of drug dealers. I tried to protect her, to drag her out of there, but it was too late. They had seen her, and that would have been enough for them to discover her identity. They would have realized that I wasn’t a foreign businessman, willing to invest in their illicit affairs if I hadn’t introduced her as my mistress.

  “Ironic, don’t you think? She thought the same, and she was furious. But no decent mobster would have tolerated the involvement of a wife in their business. They are oddly built. While they run a cruel, unlawful business that results in countless deaths, they are religiously protective of their families and never involve them in this aspect of their lives. A mistress, on the other hand, seemed innocuous enough. That served a double purpose. For one, they didn’t have reason to suspect and dig farther about us. Then, since a mistress was replaceable, they didn’t have reason to believe that I was too attached to her, hence your mother remained protected.”

  “You involved her in your affairs, you bastard!” I grabbed the lapels of his jacket and shoved him forcefully onto the couch. A gasp left his lips, but otherwise, he didn’t say or do anything to defend himself.

  “She involved herself,” he finally growled, the blue of his eyes darkening to pitch black.

  “The instant she set foot in Dallas, you should have pulled the plug on your mission. You should have taken her home and never allowed her to get involved with mobsters. That’s how you should have protected her.”

  “I couldn’t step out. There was the mission involved and—”

  “And you failed her,” I shouted. I understood right there and then that I would never be able to choose a mission over Charlotte. “Is the story about her accident true?”

  “Yes. It happened a week later.”

  “You are to blame. You are the only one to blame, Father,” I spat disgusted, aching to my core.

  I felt so repulsed, so raw and unbalanced that I couldn’t tolerate another second of seeing his hard face and cold stare. I marched to the door but found myself halting in midstride. A mundane curiosity unexplainably stopped me.

  “Are you working on an operation at the moment?”

  “Yes.”

  “Which is?”

  “I am not at liberty to discuss that with you. If you are remotely considering accepting Hudson’s offer, you should understand that.”

  Then I was gone.

  As I rode the elevator to the subterranean parking lot, I experienced a poignant need to straddle my motorcycle, to throw myself into a mindless race, but for now, the Jaguar had to do. The car purred to life, then it became a ghost down the streets.

  I had stopped at a traffic light when I grabbed my phone and dialed a number I didn’t expect I would dial.

  “I was beginning to think you would never call,” Hudson answered, his voice formal yet quietly pleased.

  “I know that you know about Charlotte and me,” I stated bluntly. At the other end of the line, I heard a soft chuckle then silence. “If you wanted to use this information against me, you’d have done it already, so you don’t have any leverage on me.”

  “If you are trying to imply that I wanted to blackmail you into accepting my offer, you are mistaken. On my team, I want people who are loyal, not afraid or coerced.”

  “Then you’ll take my answer better than I thought. You see, Hudson, to be loyal, I need to trust you, and just yet, you have done nothing to earn my trust, so my answer is no. I can’t accept your offer.”

  I didn’t add that the actual reason was my fear and not the lack of trust. I feared that I would put Charlotte in danger just like Isaac had done with my mother. I feared history would repeat itself.

  Charlotte was already much too involved in Mayor Stewart’s business, so I wasn’t going to tempt fate and hurl her into the dark side of the world, where the only way out was dead and cold. What I was going to do was stick to her side until all this madness with Jack Stewart came to an end, then we were going to forget all about them.

  “Look, Marcus,” Hudson sighed heavily. He sounded like he was straining to remain calm. “We are running out of options, and we’re definitely running out of time. If Jack Stewart is acquitted before we can find proof and a link between his father and his business, we won’t have a leg to stand on. Mitch Stewart will walk free.”

  “I cannot accept an offer that will put Charlotte in danger, and don’t bother to tell me it won’t because we both know that it will.”

  He paused. I appreciated that he had the decency not to contradict me. Reluctantly, I liked him a little for that.

  “You said you don’t trust me and I guess that’s fair,” he continued with the resolve of a man who was not used to giving up or being denied. “What do you say I do you a favor and we’ll revisit this discussion in a couple of weeks?”

  “I don’t need you to do me a favor so you can call it in later.”

  “You are a smart man, Marcus,” he chuckled. “But I’ll do this whether you accept my offer or not. The final decision is up to you. Tomorrow you’ll receive a package from me. Have a good night.”

  With thoughts about my mother and my miserable childhood racing in my head, about how my father had hurt us repeatedly and how all the hurt could have been avoided, I hardly knew how I got there. Roughly an hour later, I was knocking on Charlotte’s door, breathing heavily, feeling an immeasurable tension pounding in my veins.

  I knocked again, unable to get rid of my growing impatience. Behind the door, soft footsteps approached. Half of me didn’t want her to see me in this unstable state, but my only choices were coming to her or going racing, and somehow, I just knew she would not be pleased by the latter.

  “Marcus?” Charlotte breathed as she opened the door and watched me uncertainly.

  Still leaning against the doorframe, I took in her appearance, and as usual, the sight of her left me mute and breathless, but for once, her light failed to disperse the darkness inside me.

  She was wearing my black shirt, which she had developed a
fondness for lately, mainly when we were not together. The crisp material hugged her curves, and the creamy skin of her bare, supple legs stood out against the dark fabric.

  My attention lingered on the shape of her breasts and the mouthwatering cleavage I could peek behind the parted collar. When I realized I could hardly meet her eyes, I ground my teeth in frustration.

  She padded closer and placed her small warm hands on my hips, ushering me inside her apartment. “Marcus? Are you alright?”

  I knew I had to settle down before I exploded like a firebomb. Charlotte was the last person I wanted to witness my wild side, but my grip on control was running so thin that only letting go could appease the fire burning inside me.

  “No, I’m not,” I mumbled.

  “What’s wrong, baby?”

  Her voice was so soft and soothing that it nearly hurt. She framed my face between her hands and nudged my head upward until I had no other choice but to meet those searching, chocolate gemstones. There was no escape from her stare, and suddenly, I didn’t want one. I was compelled to drown in the depths of her gaze. I was compelled to let go.

  When I groaned, an unexpected primitive sound that reverberated across the room, Charlotte’s eyes widened, and her mouth parted. Then I surrendered to my desperate craving for affection, and she surrendered to me—a small, fragile bird caught between the greedy claws of a scorpion.

  I fisted my hands in her hair and took her mouth roughly, knowing her lips would be swollen and bruised by the time I had my fill, which was unlikely to happen any time soon. She moaned in surprise, but neither rejected me nor scolded me for my uncontrolled roughness. If anything, she responded warmly, comforting without a word as she wrapped her arms around my body and held me tightly. And I went on, pillaging her mouth and absorbing the sweetness of her taste until our blood started boiling.