Sweet Hope

by Tillie Cole

  Austin walked in the room shortly after Rome, and immediately his eyes began to search the suite. We all knew he was looking for Axel.

  Austin, seeing his wife clapping her hands at him in congratulations, laughed and, taking her face in his hands, brought her in for a kiss. As he broke away, he whispered, “Ti amo tantissimo,” in her ear, making her blush, then next took Levi in his arms.

  “You were fucking unreal, Aust,” Levi said proudly.

  “Thanks, Lev,” Austin replied, and just at that moment, the suite door opened and Axel stepped through carrying a bottle of water for Lexi.

  Rome, who had just hugged me, stiffened. But Austin, Austin’s whole face lit up as he crossed the room and threw his arms around Axel’s neck. Axel’s assessing eyes looked up to all of us watching, and he awkwardly pushed Austin back after tapping his back.

  “You came, Axe,” Austin said in relief.

  Axe tapped his hand on Austin’s face. “You know it, kid,” Axel replied. “Sei stato grande, fratello.”

  “Grazie, Axe, grazie,” Austin replied.

  Slinging an arm around Axel’s shoulder, Austin led him back toward us. “We having drinks here first, then catching dinner?” he asked, looking to Rome.

  Rome’s eyes narrowed and focused on Axel. Axel’s eyes were glaring at my cousin just as fiercely.

  “Axe,” Rome greeted coldly.

  “Rome,” Axel greeted back.

  Austin tensed as he looked between his brother and best friend, but Rome broke the tension when he turned to Austin and said, “Dinner sounds good,” and sat down, pulling Molly to sit on his lap. Lexi moved next to Austin where he immediately sloped his arm around her neck.

  Axel stayed next to Austin, drinking a beer, and listened to his brother’s rundown of the game. Levi watched on, unwilling to join them, but by the look on his face, clearly wanting to.

  “I hate that fuck,” Rome said from beside me, too low for Axel to hear and my heart fell at his words.

  “Rome,” Molly censured.

  “What? After everything he’s done, Austin just welcomes him back? No questions asked?”

  A sudden anger built within me as I listened to my cousin being so unforgiving toward Axel, and just as I was about to jump to Axel’s defense, someone walked into the suite.

  “Well, look at this, it’s like a friggin’ UA reunion!”

  My attention followed the voice and, there at the door, was Reece. I couldn’t help but smile as he stood there, beer in hand looking as preppy as always with his clean cut blond hair and thousand-dollar smile. He’d filled out some since college, but was still just as handsome.

  Reece entered and slapped hands with Austin, Levi and Rome, hugged Molly, then turned his huge smile to me.

  “Ally,” he said playfully. “You haven’t changed bit,” he added as he wrapped me in his arms. As I looked over Reece’s shoulder, loosely hugging him back, Axel was glaring at us, and in that glare I saw the real Axel Carillo. I saw the infamous ex-leader of the Heighters, the guy who took no shit. And this version of him, I actually feared.

  Pulling me back by my arms, Reece leaned forward, and taking me by surprise, jokingly planted a kiss on my lips.

  Pushing on his chest, I broke from the kiss. “Reece! Get the hell off!”

  Reece winked at me. “Shit. You’re still my dream girl, Al. Still just as hot as ever.” I shook my head at him in reprimand, but couldn’t help but laugh. At twenty-three, he was still a hopeless flirt. I kind of missed having him around.

  “Reece, get the fuck off my cousin, you horny little shit,” Rome said, amused.

  Reece laughed, holding out his hands. “I’m off. I just couldn’t help myself.” He turned to me and his eyebrows danced. I laughed again. He’d always made me laugh. The guy was as laidback as they came.

  Reece slung his arms around my neck and turned us to face all the old gang. “So, are we going out tonight? I fly back out to D.C., tomorrow and want to see what the Seattle nightlife’s like.”

  “We can grab dinner, but I’m taking Molls home after,” Rome said.

  “Same for us,” I heard Austin say.

  Reece sighed dramatically. “Y’all are getting real boring as you get old. I never get to see y’all and you’re already bailing on me.” He squeezed me tighter. “Just you and me then Al,” he joked and kissed my cheek again. “I’m sure we can figure out something entertaining to do.”

  I went to open my mouth to cry off the entire night, dinner included, when I heard Austin call, “Axe? Where you going?”

  When I looked round I saw Axel heading out of the door, his pack of smokes clutched tightly in his hand.

  “What happened?” Lexi asked Austin.

  He shook his head in confusion. “No damn idea.”

  My heart pounded as the group all moved to sit around a table and the server brought us drinks. But I couldn’t take my mind of Elpi… Axel… whatever the fuck he wanted to call himself. I knew he’d left because of Reece.

  The air in the suite became suffocating. Needing to take a break and deal with the revelations of tonight, I excused myself and fled in the direction of the bathroom. As I walked out of the suite and down the long empty hallway, I rounded the corner to the bathroom, where Axel was heading my way.

  The two of us stopped dead.

  Our gazes clashed.

  He looked livid.

  Our chests were panting hard, and as I forced myself to shift to the left, Axel gripped my arm and dragged me into the bathroom, locking the door behind us.

  I backed away toward the farthest wall as his dark gaze turned on me; he looked liked the devil himself, his chest puffed up and lips pulled tight.

  “Who’s that fucker that was all over you?” he demanded, inching forward. I backed up against the cold tiled wall. “Who was that little blond prick? You fucking him? Why the fuck were his lips on yours?”

  “Who is he?” I whispered incredulously, anger lacing my voice at his attitude. “Who is he?” I shrilled louder. “He’s an old friend! Someone I haven’t seen in years!”

  Axel’s lips ran over his teeth, visibly shaking. I stepped forward as he stared me down, his eyes blazing with anger. “Who the fuck are you, Elpidio?”

  “Don’t,” he warned, icily.

  “Don’t?” I snapped, “Don’t? You’re Axel Carillo! Axel fucking Carillo! Jesus!” I ran my hand over my forehead when Axel didn’t say a word. “You’re the reason my friend almost lost his scholarship with the Tide. You ran away and left him to deal with everything on his own. You left him to deal drugs just to make money for your family! You threatened to ‘shut up’ my best friend who was battling Anorexia! And you hate my cousin, like you’d kill each other if you got the chance, hate each other! And…”

  I choked on the sob which was working its way up my throat.

  “And what?” he asked through gritted teeth. “Don’t fucking stop now when you’re laying all this shit at my feet.”

  I met his expressionless eyes and said, “And you’ve been in prison! Shit, Elpi! What we’ve shared these past weeks… what we shared last night… and you’re fucking Axel Carillo! You were meant to be Elpidio! You were the only guy that I’ve ever felt that fucking bolt of lightening in my heart with, and you turn out to be… him! You!”

  Axel reared back as if I’d slapped him and my breathing stuttered at the amount of pain etched on his face. “And you’re Ally Prince,” he said tightly, but I could hear the hurt radiating in his voice. I’d hurt him. Really hurt him.

  “I’ve heard of you, Ally. I know your fucking cousin, remember. I know what family you come from. Your rich-assed oil family.” I opened my mouth to speak, to tell him he knew shit about me, when he said, “You were meant to be Aliyana Lucia… the woman that I tried to push away, but you kept coming back anyway, fucking melting me. You were meant to be Aliyana, the only woman, no, the only person who knows what I’ve been doing with my life for the last few years while inside, trying to keep m
y head down and not fucking suffocate under my guilt. You were meant to be the woman who claimed to feel my work. And you were meant to be the woman that told me that I was worth my weight in gold even though I told you I had a fucked up past. I’d warned you! I’d told you I was less than scum.”

  My heart sank as he spoke those words, because I did say that. I was that person. But all this time, we were both pretending to be someone else. I wasn’t sure at this point if any of what we shared was real. I was so damn hurt… so shocked… so confused that I’d lost my heart to a criminal. A man I’d been led to believe was a ruthless, soulless prick.

  Our heavy breathing filled up the bathroom. And, after a stabbing expression flitted across Axel’s face, he turned on his heel and stormed toward the door, turning the lock.

  Suddenly panicking that he was leaving, my heart overrode my head and I called out, “Elpi!”

  He stopped dead in his tracks, glanced back, and with pure pain in his eyes, said, “Turns out I was right, Aliyana. No fucker can forgive my past, no matter how hard I try to move on. Ain’t no redemption for me. You lied when you said I could be forgiven, Aliyana. You lied to my fucking face. Worst part is, I believed you. I believed you might be my light in this whole fucking mess.” Eyebrows pulled down, his facial expression became severe. “That’s what fucking hurts most.”

  He opened the door and left, before I could even summon the words to beg him to wait, to talk this out.

  Sliding slowly down the wall I slumped into a messy heap. I couldn’t holdback the heavy flow of tears.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Axel

  “Who the fuck are you, Elpidio?”

  Aliyana’s, no, Ally fucking Prince’s words haunted my mind. No, they had taken possession of my goddamn mind as I drove my Camino like a damn bat of hell toward my studio. I’d bailed on Austin and Levi. I hadn’t told anyone I was leaving. I couldn’t. I couldn’t face everyone in that damn rich-assed suite, everyone who wished I wasn’t there. The people who thought I was trash, looked at me like they wanted nothing more for me than to disappear… Aliyana and Molly looking at me like I was gonna walk up to them, pull out a gun and fucking murder them.

  Aliyana! Christ, how could she fear me now? Now that I’d shown her the real me?

  Did none of them fucking get that I did what I did in my past for my famiglia? I took the only path available to me and kept my famiglia going, I kept my mamma’s medication flowing in. And yeah, I fucking paid in blood, King blood… but what the hell else was I meant to do? I was a kid on my fucking own trying to fix problems I couldn’t fucking fix…

  Seeing a red neon sign for a liquor store, I abruptly turned right and screeched my car to a stop. Storming out of my car into the store, I headed straight for the rows of whiskey. And grabbed a bottle of Patron and Jägermeister while I was at it.

  I needed to drown in liquor for a while.

  I wanted to forget who I was for a while… at least for tonight. Forget it all. The last few weeks, the last few years… everything… just for a fucking while.

  But as I walked to the cash register, the damn Spanish record blaring through tinny speakers changed, the familiar Latino tune making me stop dead in my tracks.

  It seemed as much as I wanted to forget, God had other plans.

  Closing my eyes, I could still see Aliyana dancing to this song, “Amor Prohibito”, standing in her white shirt and pink Doc Martin pink boots, swinging her hips as she painted the wall of the gallery.

  Hearing the little Mexican guy unlatch something from behind the counter, I opened my eyes to find him watching me, a terrified expression in his eyes. His hand was tucked under the caged counter. I really had to work hard not to lose my shit.

  I’d tried real fucking hard inside to learn how to rein in my anger. But at times, I struggled, really struggled with it.

  Marching forward, the man’s face paled as I slammed the three bottles on the counter and pulled out some cash. He swallowed, then shakily reached out his hand to take the cash.

  Narrowing my eyes, I snapped, “Keep the change,” before grabbing the bottles and skulked out of the door.

  As the cool evening air hit my face, I paused, muscles tensing as I tried to calm down. Gasping for breath, I headed to my car.

  As I slid into the driver’s seat, I glanced to my right seeing a group of guys hanging out the back of the strip mall. My stomach churned. Everyone of them was dressed in dark loose clothes, crew tattoos covering every inch of their skin… and inked teardrops running down their cheeks, proving who they belonged to.

  Staring at the brothers laughing as they stood together, dealing coke or whatever the fuck it was they were pushing, I felt a moment of nostalgia. The only time I’d ever felt like I belonged in this life was with the Heighters.

  With Gio.

  A sharp pain sliced through my gut at the thought of Gio. He’d pulled me from my shit life and had given me something to live for. I spent every day with him, he was my best friend… and I’d had him killed. The fact of which fucking haunted me every minute of every day.

  I’d had to get my best friend killed to protect my brothers. No one knew what the guilt of that did to me.

  I huffed a laugh to myself. My brothers that I’d done everything for didn’t even want me. Gio’s death buried any ties to my crew. And now I had a price on my head… and a damn ugly scar on the back of my neck to show how close my old crew brothers came to cashing in on it.

  Moving my bottles of liquor to the passenger seat, I reached into the glove compartment and took out a roll of fifties I kept in there.

  I stared at the crew again, and before I talked myself out of it, I headed in their direction.

  A member of the crew clearly saw me coming, and pushed to the front of his brothers, his face stern and ready to take me on. I smirked as he did. The asshole had no idea who I was, who he was fucking with if things went south.

  “What the fuck do you want?” the pint-sized punk asked as I joined them in the shadows.

  Smiling coldly at the little Hispanic leader’s ballsy attitude, I reached into my pocket. All the brothers staggered back, reaching to the front of their jeans to pull out their guns. Without flinching, I pulled out my roll of fifties and held it up.

  “Snow,” I said coldly. The leader relaxed and gestured, calling off his boys.

  Handing me a couple of bags filled with white powder, the leader pressed them into my palm, the feel of those plastic packets so familiar that, weirdly, it soothed me. Turning on my heel, the leader shouted, “You with a crew? You got enough markings that say you are.”

  Stopping, I glanced back, seeing the camaraderie amongst the guys standing protectively around their leader. I missed that. That shit was family to me. That was life.

  “Not no more,” I replied sharply, feeling that long scar at the back of my neck burning like the day it was made.

  Walking quickly, I got to my car, shoved the bags of coke into my jeans, cracked open the Jim Beam and drove back to the studio.

  Kicking open the old wooden door to the studio, I pounded through holding the stash of liquor to my chest, whiskey already open, half empty from my ride home. The amber liquid was warming my chest, giving me a perfect fucking buzz. The studio was dark and cold and completely silent.

  Silence… I couldn’t stand fucking silence.

  Stumbling through the hallway, tripping over old boxes and lumps of discarded marble, I eventually reached the entrance of my studio, but not before stumping my foot on a large box just beside the doorway.

  Frowning in confusion at what it was, I staggered to the workstation beside my work-in-progress, dumped my liquor on the wooden top, pulled out half of my coke, leaving the other bag for later. I threw it down beside the glass bottles of mind numbing perfection.

  Flicking on a lamp on the workstation, I walked back to the hallway, picked up the strange box and brought it into the studio. Dropping the box next to my current sculpture, I grabbed the bottl
e of whiskey and slumped down to the floor. Taking four long gulps of Beam, I placed the bottle beside me and ripped the box open.

  The contents immediately came into view and chased the breath from my lungs. The titles and text boards for my show.

  Closing my eyes, I inhaled through my nose and used my hands to push myself to my feet.

  Silent… it was all too fucking silent.

  Reaching into my back pocket, I pulled out my phone, attempting to open my music, when all I could see were a shit ton of missed calls and text messages from Austin…

  AUSTIN: Where are you, Axe? You still here at the stadium?

  AUSTIN: Been looking for you all over. Where are you? Want to take you out for dinner.

  AUSTIN: Back home now. I’m worried. Why did you take off without telling me? Did something happen?

  Feeling a rush of guilt pass through my chest, I pushed it from my mind the minute I pictured that blond Redskins punk kissing Aliyana on the lips, her fucking bright smile and huge brown eyes looking up at him afterward, and her hand pressing on his chest. Then…

  You were the only guy that I’ve ever felt that fucking bolt of lightning in my heart with, and you turn out to be… him! You!

  Feeling like I’d taken a hit to my stomach at the replay of her words, her words that were right on the fucking money, I plugged in my speakers and let the heavy bass beats of Linkin Park pound through the studio.

  Looking at the box sitting on the floor, I made my way forward, grabbing the Patron as I did so. Dropping my ass to the tiled floor, the room beginning to spin, I ripped off the top and took a long drink like it was water and not real good fucking Tequila.

  Lining up the Patron next to the whiskey, I reached into the box, pulling out the title reading ‘Exsanguination’. My stomach muscles involuntary tightened seeing the title of one of my pieces there in black and white.

  It somehow made all this shit real.

  Placing the title plaque by my feet, I then picked up a larger board. The lettering was the same non-descript font, the color scheme black against white. But there was a lot more writing, and I began to read…