Sweet Hope

by Tillie Cole

  My mouth dropped at the amount of money he’d given me. It must have been hundreds of dollars. I met Remo’s eyes again. “You wanna keep earning soldi like that?”

  Staring down at the cash again, I nodded my head.

  “Good,” Remo said. He flicked his chin toward Gio. “You know my little cousin, Gio, Axel?”

  I looked to Gio. “A little.”

  “I’ll watch out for him, Rem. I’ll show him how business is done.”

  Remo nodded his head. “Bene.” Gio took his arm from around my shoulder and Remo stepped away. “Be back here tomorrow after school, Axel, and we can get you earning a shit ton more cash than that.”

  Excitement washed through me at the thought of getting more cash. I could help my mamma. I could help my brothers.

  The Heighters all began to walk away except for Gio.

  “Why? Why are you helping me? I don’t understand?” I asked and Gio smiled.

  “You’re Italiano, fratello. We look after our own.” He shrugged. “And the way you took on your old man today shows you got balls. Ain’t afraid to fight for a cause. You’ll do well with us. We’ll take care of you, have your back.”

  At his words, I breathed out a long breath. “Grazie,” I said sincerely. “Grazie mille.”

  Gio came beside me and threw his arm around my neck again. We began walking toward my trailer, back to my brothers, when I looked behind me to my papa on the floor. “What about my papa? He’ll beat on us again after this. I’ll pay for what you did.”

  Gio laughed. “He ain’t gonna touch you again, Axel. He knows better than to fuck with the Heighers. You run with us now, ragazzo. If he even breathes wrong your way, Remo will make sure he never does it again.”

  “Papa ain’t gonna touch my mamma and brothers again?” I asked in relief.

  Gio shook his head and I felt a smile pull on my lips.

  Gio laughed at my reaction and nodded his head. “I’ll be with you all the way, ragazzo. Now, let’s go get those brothers of yours some new clothes…”

  *****

  Aliyana was silent as I finished speaking, my damn heart feeling bruised as I thought about that day. The day the Heighters changed my life.

  “They protected you from your drunk abusive papa…?” Aliyana said. “They helped you clothe Austin and Levi?”

  “Yeah,” I replied roughly.

  “Axel…” Aliyana’s watery voice said, “Your life was so sad. No wonder you gravitated toward them. They gave you hope that it would all be okay.”

  I shook my head. “It was more than that. They saved me. They kept my family going, they had my back… I fucking owed them everything.”

  “And your papa?”

  “Left two weeks later. Moved in with that slut that was on his lap. It was the best fucking day of my life. I knew it was Remo and the Heighters that had made him leave.” I huffed a laugh. “They saved us all.”

  “God, Axel. I don’t know what to say. You were so young. So young to be dealing with all of that on your own.”

  “I didn’t feel young back then. I was twelve but felt twenty-seven.”

  “And Gio? You became close?”

  I couldn’t help but still feel that bond I’d had with my best friend at her question. “He was always with me after that day. He never left my side. Taught me everything I needed to know to survive, to make money. He was the only person who never let me down. From the day we met until the day he died, he had my back without question.” My body tensed as I remembered the moment I’d heard he’d died… died at my hands. I’d felt like I’d been cut open remembering our friendship. I’d felt like the biggest prick on the face of the planet.

  “And I gave him up to our rivals to save Aust and Lev… I still ain’t made peace with that. Don’t think I ever will. I’ve never had anyone that close to me since, doubt I ever will again.”

  I heard Ally sniffing, and when I looked into her teary eyes, I felt every bit of sadness leak out of me that I’d kept locked away for so long over losing my friend.

  I was guilty of killing the guy that saved my life to save the blood of my blood.

  “And the scar?” Ally suddenly prompted. “On your neck.”

  I shrugged. “A fight broke out in the yard. Alessio and the rest of the Heighters used it as cover to come at me.” I winced, still seeing them all approaching, fucking eight of them against me. “I fought them off as best I could, but two of the fuckers pinned me against the fence. Alessio pulled the knife out and, just as the guards started filling the yard, he sliced the knife down my neck.” I gripped tighter onto Aliyana’s hand, for some reason, needing the damn support. “They ran while I dropped to the floor and started bleeding out.”

  “My God…” Aliyana said. “How did you not die?”

  My chest tightened. “It was close. Had surgery and spent weeks and weeks in the infirmary.”

  “Christ, Axel… And Austin and Levi? Why were they not told? I can’t believe they wouldn’t care.”

  My vision lost focus as I stared at nothing.

  “Axel, please,” Aliyana pushed. Seeing her face needing the answers, I cussed under my breath.

  “When I found out Alessio was being sent down, I cut off all ties to my brothers. Claimed I had no next of kin to the prison, everything.”

  “I don’t understand?” Aliyana said. Her cute ass face was all scrunched up. Lifting my hand I ran my tattooed finger down her cheek, circling a deep dimple and said, “Alessio is a sadistic asshole, one seriously crazy motherfucker. Killed for more than just turf, that bastard killed for fun. And I’d got his boy, his little brother, shot. That guy was gonna be coming for me, in any way he could.”

  “Austin and Levi…” she trailed off, getting why I did what I did.

  “Lev had stopped coming to see me by then, he was just a kid and hated me, but Austin was still coming whenever he could. I knew him and Levi and Lexi were living a good fucking life in Cisco. Lev was at a good school, Austin was starting for the 49ers, Lexi was eating better and started her own treatment center…” Water filled my eyes and I coughed to straighten my voice. “I was so damn proud.”

  “Oh Axel,” Aliyana said and kissed my shoulder.

  Gripping onto Aliyana’s hair, I finished. “There was no way I was gonna compromise all that they had now, the life my mamma wanted for them, so I cut all ties. Alessio and his fucking boys wouldn’t get any chance to get at my brothers unless they crossed the country and I knew the fuckers didn’t have the funds to go that far. If they got my brothers, it’d be when they were coming to see me. That shit wasn’t gonna fly.”

  “So Austin never knew you stopped seeing him to save them?”

  I shook my head to indicate ‘no’.

  “They also never knew you were harmed… that you could have died?”

  “No, and they never will,” I said sternly.

  Edging closer, Aliyana pressed her lips to mine, kissing me three times. Lifting just above my face, she asked, “They should know what you went through to save them, Axel. If they only knew, if Lev knew—”

  “I didn’t save them, Aliyana, I condemned them. When they were kids, I made deals with the Heighters to get them fighting beside me in the street war, thinking it was fucking important. Like a damn piece of shit trailer park was ever fucking important. But my brothers, nah, they weren’t like me. They were smart, they were talented… they were going somewhere in life. That is, once they got the hell away from me.”

  Aliyana’s face darkened. “Axel, you’re the most talented person I know, look at what you create,” she said. I had to fight a smile at the conviction in her voice as she pointed to my work in progress.

  But that smile quickly dropped when I cupped her cheeks and said, “I’m not a good person, Aliyana. I’m fucked up. I’ve got a real dark soul and more sins piled at my door than the Devil himself. You should be running away from me, not willingly running into the darkness holding my fucking hand.”

  “It’s too lat
e,” she said quietly, “You’ve already consumed me. There is no turning back from you, not now. My hand’s never letting go of yours, eternal darkness or not.”

  “Then I pity you.”

  Aliyana’s mouth parted and she sucked in a sharp breath. I pulled the pad of my thumb over her bottom lip and said, “I’ve killed people. Do you get that? I’ve put men in hospital. I’ve ruined lives… ain’t no redemption out there for me. There’s no beauty, no fairytale to be found by being fused to me.”

  Aliyana shook her head and a determined look spread on her face. But then, something passed over her face as she looked to my marble boy crying bullets, and facing me again, she said softly, “The most beautiful art is often born from the most desperate of circumstances.” And in that one sentence, she obliterated my stone heart to pieces.

  “Fuck, girl,” I growled, fighting over-emotion, but Aliyana pressed her finger on my lips before I could say anything else.

  “Your art is your redemption, Axel. Elpidio is your rebirth, your second chance at life. You are a victim of circumstance, not a sinner by choice.”

  Feeling my throat clog so tight I felt I would choke, I fought to gasp for air, only to whisper, “La mia luce,” as I stared at this woman beside me, completely fucking astounded by her defense of a loser like me.

  Aliyana’s face blushed and she dipped her head to my chest, her arms wrapped around my waist. Reaching out to my side table, I picked up a smoke and lit it. I took a long a drag.

  “I can’t smell smoke now without thinking of you,” Aliyana murmured. I ran my hand through her hair and she asked, “Why is there a crucifix now covering your Heighter star?”

  Stiffening, I took another drag and said, “A couple of years after I went into prison, my Heighter inmates came into my cell and scrubbed it out with a needle and ink. They’d heard Alessio was coming in and didn’t want him to think they’d let me off for two years without some form of payback. I didn’t even bother fighting back, just let them erase a gang I no longer wanted to belong to anyway. After the shanking a few months later, I got a needle and ink off my cellmate and changed it completely.”

  “But why a crucifix?” Aliyana asked carefully.

  Sighing, I said, “Mamma used to cross my forehead with holy water every night when I was a kid. I don’t know why, but when I picked up that needle that had erased my past, the image was in my head and before I knew it, a cross was on my face.”

  “Axel,” Aliyana said, and lifted her head. “About your mamma—”

  Covering her mouth, I shook my head. “No more. Fuck, girl, I can’t take no more talking about all this shit tonight. I’ve told you more than I’d ever planned to ever tell anyone. I need you to leave it alone now.”

  I just couldn’t go there about my mamma. It was one part of my locked heart I never wanted to open. I wouldn’t be able to take the guilt.

  Aliyana nodded, getting I couldn’t talk no more. My head was spinning with whiskey, but more than that, it was spinning that Aliyana came back to me knowing who I was.

  Smoothing back the lines on my forehead Aliyana confessed, “I can’t believe that I am completely and utterly infatuated with Axel Carillo.”

  I froze at her confession, my heart slamming against my ribs and, smiling, she peppered kisses all over my neck. “No one will be happy about us. They won’t understand. But I can’t bring myself to care.”

  She might not. But I did.

  I could hear the sadness in her voice when she thought of her friends, of her fucking cousin finding out she was my woman. They wouldn’t go for it.

  Needing to protect her, I said, “They can’t ever know, Aliyana. It’s better all ‘round if they never know ‘bout us. I don’t want them thinking bad of you for wanting me.”

  Aliyana nodded, then her head tilted to the side and she smiled. “I do want you, Axel. Flaws and all. And call me Ally, okay? Outside of work only my mama calls me Aliyana.”

  I took one last drag of my smoke, flicked the cherry to the floor then rolled Ally onto her back, working my hips between her legs. “No more talking. I want in that wet pussy again.”

  Chapter Fifteen

  Ally

  One month later….

  “You good, darlin’, you don’t look too well?”

  I’d been standing in the hallway waiting for Molly to come down the stairs to go to Austin and Lexi’s, and I frowned when she appeared at the top of the stairs looking weak and frail.

  Molly batted her hand in front of her face. “Ally, I’m fine, just tired,” she said, but my eyes narrowed in concern. Over the past few days she’d been real quiet and tired. I was worried, and by the way Rome wouldn’t leave her alone, fussing twenty-four-seven, I knew he was too.

  “You ready to go?” she asked. I nodded my head, not wanting to push my concerns. Molly didn’t like to be fussed or pitied.

  Cassie and Jimmy-Don had arrived from Texas for a visit and they were staying with the Carillo’s.

  The Carillo’s… including my Carillo. My dark and tortured Axel Carillo. The man I had fallen head over heels for.

  Tonight, Lexi was throwing her best friend and husband, Cassie and Jimmy-Don, a small party to welcome them to Seattle. Of course I was going, they were some of my best friends after all, but after not seeing Axel in nearly two days because of work commitments, I also couldn’t wait to go to see him… to hopefully steal a moment to hold him… to just be in close proximity.

  After weeks of being almost nightly in his bed, I was addicted. More than that, I was captivated, obsessed and completely enamored.

  He was my fast becoming my everything—my sun, my stars, my moon, everything. Although I believed he felt the same way about me, I was never completely convinced. Axel Carillo was a fortress, an enigma. His cold demeanor spoke of him being one way but with me, in bed, when he stroked my hair or pulled me close after making love into the shelter of his thick arms, I felt it in him more. He still didn’t open up much, had never again talked of his past, kept his feelings buried deep, but I knew I made him happy, and on occasion, I was able to make him smile…

  There was nothing more beautiful than a smiling Axel Carillo.

  I yearned for him to open up to me. I could see he was haunted. He barely slept. He worked every hour God sent on his heartbreaking sculptures, as if purging his past. I knew that if he just shared his demons with me, he could perhaps begin to heal, but for now, I was content to just have him in my life. I knew, that to many, the idea of being in this man’s company would be a living nightmare. But, to me, being in his strong arms was the sweetest of dreams… my heartfelt wish come true… my bolt of lightning.

  “I’m ready, darlin’,” I said to Molly. I tried not to show my growing excitement at seeing my man in a matter of minutes, as we walked outside toward my rental underneath a drizzly Seattle sky.

  Striding slowly next to Molly, we got in the car and my heart began to race as I pictured his hard stare penetrating mine. Only the two of us aware of our forbidden relationship. It made everything we shared so much more intense, like we knew every moment spent kissing, discussing art and joined to one another was more because it was solely for us.

  “You look beautiful tonight,” Molly said, her head leaning back against the leather headrest, her hand running gently over her growing stomach.

  I blushed as I ran my hands down my knee length black high-waisted pencil skirt; my white three-quarter sleeved crop top showed about an inch of flesh between it and my skirt. My hair was down and curled, pinned to one side, and on my feet I had my four-inch black painted leather Louboutins.

  I had dressed for Axel. And literally couldn’t wait for him to see me. I wanted to see that flare of desperation in his eyes, the one he shows when I’m naked before him, his sculptor’s hands stroking every inch of my body as though I was a muse.

  “Just thought I’d make an effort,” I said with a nonchalant shrug when I caught Molly curiously watching my face.

  Molly smile
d in reply, but I could tell by her assessing gaze that her genius mind was working overtime. I changed the conversation to the latest developments at the gallery, trying to throw her off the scent. In ten short minutes, we arrived at the Carillo residence.

  It made me laugh when I realized weeks ago how close they lived to Molly and Rome. Not that Axel stayed here much now, he’d practically moved into his studio, running from his unresolved problems with Levi… but mainly so we could be together. I knew Austin and Lexi questioned where he was most nights, I’d heard them talking in hushed whispers, worried Axel was up to no good again, but they didn’t push it. I think Austin was afraid if he did ask, Axel would close himself off completely. He was probably right; Axel's shield was about as easy to break into as Fort Knox.

  I wished he’d tell them about his art, about the fact that he’d changed his life and was an exceptional man, with an unrivaled talent, but he wouldn’t. Instead, he’d rather they think he worked at a fish market, paying back society for his illegal wrongs.

  He kept himself in such a state of self-loathing that it broke my heart. He deserved the world, but until the day came that he welcomed that world in, I bestowed on him all the grace I could muster.

  As Molly and I got out the car, the front door opened and Rome came hurrying out, his eyes immediately seeking out his wife. He’d been at Seahawks training with Austin, then came straight here. Jimmy-Don had gone with them, and I’d agreed to bring Molly.

  “Baby, you okay?” I heard Rome ask Molly as he helped her out of the car. “You don’t look so good.”

  “Rome, don’t start. I’m fine,” Molly remarked in exasperation, but Rome flickered a concerned look toward me. I shrugged. Honestly, I didn’t think she looked well either, but she was one stubborn woman who insisted she came.

  Hanging behind Molly and Rome, I scanned the windows for signs of life. We slowly entered the house, and as soon as I did, my eyes sought out Axel. My stomach dropped in disappointment when he was nowhere to be seen. I was like an addict, craving just a glimpse of his brooding form.