“I’ll tame him eventually.” I say it, but I doubt it, and it’s thrilling in more ways than one. There’s stability here. He’s very protective of me, and in a sense I feel safe, but every day is new and I never know exactly what waits around the corner. I had wild teens and then buried myself as Chloe. Luci dug up Christine again, or parts of her, and I’m still working on finding the middle ground.
“Yeah,” says Ivan as I hold up the rolls, flattening them against the wall as he pins them in place. “I’m sure you will.” It’s clear he doesn’t believe that for shit.
When we’re done, I tilt my head, studying the colors and patterns.
“There’ll be a party here tomorrow by the way,” says Ivan. “There’ll be a lot of people. I believe Christian will be here. Just thought I’d give you a heads up.”
My mouth goes dry in an instant. It’s been so long, but I still have a visceral reaction to merely hearing his name. He frightened me on such a primitive level that I’ve never been able to cope with it. Ivan always lets me know, and I’m eternally grateful. One day I’ll probably need to face this, but tomorrow is not the day.
“Thanks.”
Like Ivan said, the house is full of people the next afternoon. I’ve spent hours on a sunbed on the patio in our private part of the garden, AirPods plugged in, greedily soaking up the pale sun. It’s autumn on the calendar but today is almost like summer. I haven’t been able to entirely cancel the noises from the party. The sounds of children playing, the scents of food, and a low constant murmur of people talking finally drives me to pull on my dress over the bikini and go take a peek. I’m terrified of seeing Christian, but at the same time I also think that maybe I need to get used to his presence.
Tiptoeing through the house I finally reach the ballroom. It’s completely transformed. There are bright colorful decorations, flags, balloons in gold and pink, a lot of people I don’t know, and a few I recognize. Kids run around the legs of the adults, laughing, chasing each other. I’m transfixed by the unusual sight before me and stop in the doorway, taking it all in.
A petite woman with shoulder length, flaming red hair, catches my gaze. She has her back to me, but she feels familiar somehow. Suddenly she turns and fixates her eyes on me. Her mouth falls open as I widen my eyes.
Kerry! It’s fucking Kerry Jackson! Here!
A billion emotions flash across her face, then she dashes through the room and throws her arms around me. “Chloe!”
“Kerry?” I gasp, putting my hands on her shoulders, holding her at arm’s length, taking her in. “Kerry! Oh my God! What are you doing here?”
I lift my gaze and look over her shoulder. My stomach clenches and the air is knocked out of my lungs as I see him. Christian Russo is watching us from afar. Our eyes lock and I want to vomit. I look at Kerry and then back at Christian, connecting the dots. They’re here together. They’re together.
“Me?” squeals Kerry. “What are you doing here? Where have you been? I’ve missed you so much! Your parents! Do they know you’re back? Where have you been?”
Parents. That’s what I told everyone. I forgot how many lies I used to surround myself with.
“That’s… a very long story. Kerry… are you and Christian…” I chew on my lip and glance over her shoulder again. She turns her head and looks behind her, at Christian, whose eyes are dark and unreadable.
Her head snaps back to face me. “No! No, we’re not,” she says quickly.
I exhale with relief. Thank God!
“I heard what he did,” she says softly. “I’m so sorry.”
“That was a long time ago.”
We look at each other in silence. I have so many questions, but I don’t know if I want to go poking. If I do, she’ll ask too, and I’m not ready to talk about anything that I’ve been through. Some little part of me still blames her. If she had just shut up that day, all those years ago, if she hadn’t gone poking around in Luci’s business, then none of this would have happened. I’d have lived my accountant life, we’d have hit the clubs, giggled, flirted with boys and just… been somewhat young and innocent.
I also lived a lie.
“What happened to you?” she asks. “Where have you been?”
“Here. And away,” I say, avoiding her gaze. I lift my gaze and Kerry turns her head. Luciano stands right behind her, towering over her, locking Kerry between him and me. Tension crackles, thickening the air surrounding us, and suddenly Kerry explodes, her little body tensing.
“You fucking bastard!” she screams. “You didn’t tell me Chloe was here! Why didn’t you tell me!” And then tiny Kerry Jackson slams her fist right in Luciano’s face. “How—”
She screams as he spins her around and pushes her face first into the wall. Then he snatches her with him into the next room.
I throw myself after them. “Luci! No! Leave her alone!” I grab his arm, trying to pull him away from my friend but he just shrugs me off him, his face white with rage.
“You—” he snarls in Kerry’s ear, “have just overstepped every fucking line I have! I won’t have anyone punch me in my own home! I don’t care that you’re Christian’s!”
All hell breaks loose. I keep pleading, Christian comes darting and tears Luciano off her. The two men face off, their fists tightened, then everyone comes rushing, yelling. People step in between Luciano and Christian. Kerry cries and cradles her hand.
Mrs. Russo glares daggers at Kerry. “You’re quite the little troublemaker, aren’t you?” she says, her voice cold. Kerry’s eyes widen and fill with tears.
Anna Raymond steps in between them. “She didn’t choose this, ma’am.” Her voice is just as stern as the older woman’s. I was dead wrong. There’s nothing meek about her whatsoever. “I’ll take it from here.” She lays her arm around Kerry’s shoulder and pulls her along.
I look at Luci, dazed, rage rising in me. Our eyes meet and I narrow mine. His lips tighten, then he inhales as if to speak, but I’m not fucking interested. I spin on my heels and run back to our room, locking it behind me, fighting to keep my tears in check.
Late afternoon has turned into evening and the sun has set when there’s a knock on the door. I’m still furious. The doorknob twists and snaps back.
“Open the door, Chloe, or I’ll kick it down.” His voice is low, measured, like ice cold steel.
I might as well open. I have some things to get off my chest. When I swing the door open, he stands with his fists clenched, towering over me. There’s a red swelling on his cheek, below his eye.
“What the fuck’s wrong with you?” he growls.
“Me? Kerry is back. How long have you been hiding that from me? You fucking asshole!”
Luciano steps forward, forcing me to back up. “You’re fucking begging for it.”
I refuse to take another step back and we end up chest to chest. “This is not a game! This is not the time or place for spanking or discipline, or whatever the fuck you think you wanna do.”
He clenches his jaw, oozing lethal strength and power. Normally I’d cower before his rage, but I can’t quell my own fury.
“I’m not playing games,” he growls.
“You’re playing me. I thought we were past that, but you’re just the same as you always were.”
“Why are you bitching about this? It’s nothing. I just haven’t had the fucking time to think about it. I forgot you were fucking friends.”
I slap him. Hard. Same cheek that Kerry hit. “Forgot! That’s the whole fucking reason I ended up here in the first place.” I scream as he grabs my wrist in a vice grip and I jerk to get free. I push at him with my free hand and he grabs that too, curling his lips as he looks down on me.
“I. Am. Not. Playing,” he roars in my face. “I didn’t fucking think about it. I didn’t hide it from you.”
“I don’t believe you.”
He lets go of my wrists and backs away, spreading his arms. “What the fuck do you want me to do?”
“I want out,”
I say, shocked at my own words, but now they’re out there and I can’t take them back.
Luciano looks stunned, for a moment sadness flashes across his face, then he closes it off.
“Fine. Go.”
I want to take it back. I want him to fight for me to stay, but he doesn’t, and I don’t call for him when he stomps off, both of us too proud to budge.
The tears finally come when I pack up my things. I have things now that I count as my own. A phone. A credit card. His money, but he fucking owes me. I’m guessing he’ll close the account now, but whatever, I’ll manage. I leave my heart behind as I walk up to the cab that awaits me outside the gates. My chest aches, empty and desolate.
It’s been a little more than a year since I came here in a cab, much like this one, beaten but not broken. I’ve fought so hard to stay sane, to make a life, to find a way to live with this rough man in his cruel world. Now I leave. My wounds have healed a long time ago, but my heart breaks.
I can’t love him. I shouldn’t. But I do.
Chapter 34
Chloe
I call Charlie. I have nowhere else to go except to a hotel, but maybe I won’t have any money come morning.
There’s Kerry, but I don’t know if Christian is with her and I can not stay under the same roof as him. Gayle and Rebecca don’t even know that I’m alive. They must think I left without a word. I’ll try to pick up those pieces one day, but showing up at either of their homes in the middle of the night, trying to explain my sudden reappearance… I can’t do it.
“Sis?”
“Are you awake?”
“Sure.” There’s music, voices and laughter.
“Are you having a party?”
“It’s Saturday, dude.”
“Can I come over?” My voice breaks on the last word.
“Hang on, I can barely hear you.” The background noises disappear. “I’m in the staircase. Something wrong?”
I inhale on a sob. “I need a place to stay.”
“Of course. Mi casa es su casa. You’re not with the man anymore?”
“I… don’t think so.”
“Shit. Fuck, I’m high as a bat. Know what, I’ll kick everybody out. You on your way?”
“Yes,” I sniffle.
“Good, good. Just ping when you’re outside. I’ll come down and get you.”
“Thanks.”
Charlie and Chad come through for me like I’d never have expected. For the first time it’s not me taking care of them, but the other way around. They make sure I eat, that I get dressed in the morning, that I get a pinch of fresh air every day.
A week and one day after I left, I get a text. It’s Ivan.
I’m coming over with a key to your storage. All your things should be there.
It sends me into a new fit of sobs as I text him back that I’m home. I’m not home. I don’t have a home anymore.
I pace the hallway, waiting for his arrival, excited about seeing him. It will be like seeing a little sliver of Luciano. A tiny part of me hopes it is Luciano, but the rational side of my brain knows that won’t be the case. The knock almost has me flying through the roof. I pull open the door, out of breath. It is Ivan. I glance behind him. Alone.
“Come in.”
He holds up a key and a piece of paper. “This is for you.”
I take the items and clutch them in my suddenly sweaty hand. “Do you want some coffee?”
He doesn’t move. “It’s good to see you.”
I rake my hand through my hair as I chew on my lip. “How is he?”
“He’s not a man of many words.”
“But you know him better than anyone.”
Ivan cocks his head in acknowledgement. “It might be so.”
We stand in silence, everything we’re not saying building between us. Finally, I step closer and throw my arms around him, burying my face against his broad chest. “I’m not doing so well,” I whisper to his shirt, my eyes filling up with tears.
Ivan is strong, safe, and so achingly familiar. Everything about him reminds me of Luciano: how he smells, how he breathes, his voice. He puts his hands on my shoulders and gives me an awkward squeeze, then a pat.
“Neither is he. I should go. Take care of yourself Chloe Becker.”
Don’t go!
He’s my last connection with Luci. But I don’t say it. How can I? I’m the one who left.
A few days later there’s a knock on our door. I have my nose buried in my laptop, trying to make a list of things I need to do to get back on my own two feet. Chad and Charlie are on the PlayStation, screaming so loud occasionally that they make me jump. I’m closest, and they don’t even seem to hear the knock. Outside stands Kerry.
My mouth falls open from the unexpected sight. “Hi!”
She twists her hands and looks behind her and then back at me. “How’re you doing?”
I cock my head and half-shrug. I don’t know what to say. Everything is shit.
“I have someone here who needs to talk with you. I… think you should talk to him too.” She chews on her lower lip.
My mouth turns dry and dread fills my chest. I have a very bad feeling about this and when Christian Russo appears behind Kerry, lit from above by the fluorescent light in the ceiling, his every feature enhanced, demonic in their rough planes, I scream and throw myself back. I fall on my butt and scramble backward.
Kerry holds up her hands. “Chloe. Please. It’s all right!”
My brothers come rushing from the living room, taking in the scene. “What’s wrong, sis?” Their eyes dart between the three of us, with Kerry and Christian standing calmly in the doorway, and me on the floor, acting like a maniac. Charlie extends a hand and pulls me up. I huddle close to him, my whole body shaking. That night, that eternal, infernal night flashes through my mind. The raw fear, the pain, my helplessness. No one, nothing, has ever frightened me on such a profound level like Christian Russo did.
“Chloe. We… he just wants to talk. You don’t have to say anything. Can you just listen, please?”
I look at my brothers, helplessly, and Chad steps up next to me as well. “We’ll be here. What’s this all about?”
I don’t answer him, but sandwiched between my tall, broad, and more than capable brothers, and with Kerry standing so calmly next to Christian, I know that whatever this is, he’s not here to hurt me.
I barely make my mouth cooperate. “Okay.” I shuffle back a little, letting them into the hallway. Christian holds my gaze as Kerry closes the door. I nod toward the living room. “We can sit in there.”
Chad runs ahead and when we get there, he’s clearing the couches, dropping clothes and old fast food packages on the floor, out of sight. “Sit,” he says. “Can I get you something?”
“I’m good,” says Christian, his voice a deep, rough rumble that I remember all too well.
Kerry shakes her head, and so do I. I couldn’t hold something without dropping it anyway. They sit on one couch and I squeeze in between my brothers on the other, eternally grateful for them being here.
Kerry licks her lips and looks up at Christian. He gives her a glance and then fixates his dark eyes on me. I force myself to not shrink back.
“I came to tell you how sorry I am for that night. I wish I could say that I wasn’t myself, but that’s probably exactly what I was. My head, my heart… I was in a bad place. I had hurt—” He gives Kerry a glance. She takes his hand and squeezes it. “—so many people. Especially Kerry. My actions were the reason for her disappearing and I just couldn’t cope. I turned that pain into a rage that consumed me. It made me lash out and you got in the way.”
“I moved out,” I say stiffly, pain stabbing through my heart yet again at the thought of Luciano. “We’re not gonna cross paths again.”
He gives Kerry a glance and she looks at me, pain in her eyes. “I was hoping that you and I could meet up sometime,” she says. “I have… We have a daughter, Cecilia, and I’d love for you to meet her. Christ
ian doesn’t have to be around but… I was hoping you could at least know that he has changed. A lot. And he’s an integral part of my life. For better or worse.”
I inhale shakily, looking between them. I take in Christian, really look at him for the first time ever, trying to see the man and not the monster. A long time has passed. A long, long time. I’ve been through so much shit, and I’ve come to terms with all that. Why does this still hurt so much?
“I—,” I chew on my lip and fight to control my breathing. “I’ve never been so scared in my entire life. And believe me, scary things have happened to me.”
Kerry frowns and winces.
“I appreciate you coming here, Christian, but you hurt me bad. Really bad. Do you know what you did to me? Between my broken arm, my broken nose and ribs, the bruises, the brain hemorrhage and the nightmares, you made a lasting impression. I haven’t been able to get past that.”
His face falls and he looks away. “Chloe,” he says and turns back to me. “I’m so fucking sorry. From the depths of my black heart, I wish it had never happened. I don’t know how to make it up to you. I can’t ever make it undone. I just want you to know that you’ll never have to worry about me hurting you again, or Kerry.” He gives her a quick glance, and again she squeezes his hand. “I don’t know if I dare to ask you to forgive me. I don’t want to force you to do anything. But I really am sorry.”
Does it help me to hold on to this? It keeps hurting me. I might see him again, if not at Luciano’s, then with Kerry, like she says. I look at him, and at how honest he actually seems, so different from that night and the threat, the promise of death he radiated. I see nothing but tenderness toward my friend, and she is so at ease with him.
Not tonight. Not right away. I need to process this. But maybe one day?
“I hear what you’re saying, and I appreciate you coming here. Can we leave it at that for now? I think we should meet up again. I do want to see your daughter.”
Kerry’s face lights up and then splits into a smile. “I’d love for you to come!”
Capo Page 28
