He snarls at me as Joe grinds his face into the wall. I walk close enough to smell his toothpaste-scented breath.
“You convened with the board behind my back to sell the company. We both know that that’s illegal. Did you really think that would work?”
“Get this fucking meathead off of me!”
“Not until you admit it!”
He breathes through his nostrils like a bull snorting. Blue eyes cut into me, the irises like the white-blue flame of a hot fire. “Yeah, I fucking did it. Only, it wasn’t illegal. You’re out.”
Joe pulls him off the wall and marches him into the living room, throwing him onto the couch. He stands up, but Joe forces him back down. Nathan gives me a look filled with livid fear.
“I don’t know what you’re trying to gain by being here—”
“What did you mean?” My voice grows louder. “What do you mean, I’m out?”
A jackal-like smile spreads over his lips. He sits up straight, gripping the edge of the couch. “You were voted out.”
A violent flush fills my cheeks as Nathan gloats with that sickening smile. They voted me out?
“Don’t look so surprised. You haven’t been living up to the boards’ expectations, and choosing to skip out on work all week didn’t do you any favors.”
His words cut deep into my soul. The ice-blue eyes follow me as I sit down on one of the horribly uncomfortable chairs. Joe’s face creases in sympathy and he makes a sudden movement, as if he wants to come to my side, but instead he grabs Nathan’s shoulder and squeezes.
“That’s complete bullshit. My associate has attended board meetings—”
“Oh, you mean Vincent? Yeah, the board took to him very well. Especially when everybody knows who he’s associated with.”
Joe’s swift fist comes out of nowhere, plying against Nathan’s face. He drops down to the floor and moans in pain.
“Joe, please. You got your confession. Can we leave, now?”
“No, because it’s all a lie.”
“It’s not a fucking lie!” he screams from the floor.
Joe shuts him up with a sudden kick to his stomach. His face reddens like a tomato and he makes a hideous sound.
Jesus, I can’t watch this. He’s still my brother—I don’t feel a shred of satisfaction from watching him scream in pain. Especially when it was all my fault to begin with.
“Tell me the fucking truth! What deal did you cut with Jamie?”
“That man is a better businessman than you Vittorio fuck-ups. He didn’t have to beat me to get me involved. Fuck you!” He cringes as Joe aims another steel-toed boot towards his gut.
“Nathan, don’t you realize what you’ve done? Dad was involved with the Vittorios. He got mixed up with the wrong people. I was almost killed because of the sale. It won’t go through. It can’t.”
Nathan looks up at me, unconcerned by the hysteria in my voice. “Jessica and I wanted out. Jamie gave me a pretty good deal, so I took it. I don’t give a shit what happens to you.”
The last piece of clinging hope drops away, quickly eaten by flames. Jessica might have just been a casualty. “Fine, you hate me, but what about your other sister? She has no idea what’s going on, does she?”
He smiles, and this time I feel a small thrill of triumph when Joe seizes him upright and smashes his fist against his face. Nathan’s nose breaks and blood pours out of his nose. He screams and holds his hand to himself, trying to stem the flow of blood.
I don’t want to be here anymore. I don’t want to look at his face for one more second. I turn my back on the two men struggling together.
“Marisa, where the fuck are you going?”
My feet hardly make a sound as I leave my brother’s apartment and walk outside. I sit down on the stairs of his brownstone, trying to escape the pain of his vicious words. There is a ringing of truth to them, which makes it all the more worse. I wasn’t good enough to be President. Dad made a mistake.
Who the fuck cares about Dad?
I jump at the sound of the door closing and feel a pair of footsteps jogging down the steps. He sits down beside me, his warmth no longer a comfort. All it does is remind me of how fucked up my life is.
“We should go before he calls the cops.”
His hands are smeared with blood, his knuckles slightly swollen from beating the shit out of my brother.
“I can’t believe they voted me out. I tried so hard.”
“Marisa, I don’t think he told us the whole story. There’s more to it than that.”
I stand up quickly. Right now, I can’t stomach any kind of reassurance from a man who only hours ago, tried to put a bullet in my head. “Take me to my apartment.”
His face darkens. “I don’t think that’s a good idea.”
“I want to go home.”
Joe stands up wearily. “Fine.”
The ride there is uncomfortably silent. Emotions broil inside me. I’m just waiting for him to say something wrong, so that I can lash out at someone. This is worse than the day my dad died. I just want to be alone and wallow in the misery of it all. I need to drown myself in cartoons and feel light for a moment.
I turn on Joe when he follows me to the door of my apartment. “Go home. Do whatever the fuck you people do. You have your fucking proof, and I’m not the head of the company anymore.”
He recoils as if I struck him. “I’m sorry. I’m ashamed of myself—”
A hysterical laugh echoes down the hallway. “Oh! You’re ashamed? Fuck, I would have never guessed that you almost killed someone for no reason.”
He stands there, looking like a browbeaten kid as I unleash my tirade.
“How about self-disgust, because you disgust me. I’m probably the biggest moron who ever lived. I actually thought you cared about me.”
Joe takes my hands and yanks me into his chest. “Marisa, I could have never hurt you. Please believe me.” His lips tremble, white and shaking. “They would have gotten to you anyway, I was just trying—”
“So death was my only option? I couldn’t have taken a train somewhere? You couldn’t have done that, you fucking asshole?”
“No. They were watching me. Jack knew I was too attached to you. He didn’t trust me to do the job.”
Still, the act was inexcusable. His mouth could run with all the reasons in the world, and I still wouldn’t forgive him. Utter devastation wracks through my limbs and suddenly, tears choke through my voice. I know what I have to do, but it kills me to do it. He’s the only man who ever understood me. He makes me feel like I’m incredible, and no one has ever been able to do that.
Joe destroyed all of that when he put that gun to my head.
“I never want to see you again.”
His face falls apart, and for a moment he looks like I’ve stabbed him in the chest. The emotion on his face takes the wind out of my sails momentarily, but then his face hardens. “I’m not letting you go that easily, Marisa.”
“Get the fuck out of my life,” I say between gasps.
I want to shove him out of my face, but he pins both arms on the sides of my head and against my will my skin tingles.
“You don’t want that. New Jersey might have backed off, but they still might consider you a threat.”
Tears rise in a lump lodged in my throat. I swallow them down. “I don’t have anything you want anymore. There’s no reason for you to give a shit about my life.”
Inches from my face, he speaks. “Yeah, there is. I’m in love with you.”
Nothing but shock radiates down my limbs. He loves me? No, the bastard thinks he does. He’s so fucked up in the head, that he can’t realize what a healthy relationship is. A sickening soaring sensation fills my chest. “You don’t love me.”
A smile twitches on his lips. “Yeah, I do. Otherwise I wouldn’t have gone through all this trouble to prove your innocence. I would have gotten rid of you and been on my way.”
“God, you’re fucking sick in the head.”
His eyes are
dented with pain. “I know, Marisa. I know that. I made a huge mistake, and I don’t deserve your forgiveness. I don’t want it.”
The feeling I get when I look into his eyes scares me. The tenderness in his eyes makes me want to forgive him.
“You’re more important than the family. You’re the one who made me feel that happiness was possible again. I realized that when I was—” His voice is tortured and he takes a step back, inhaling a shuddering breath.
“When you were about to kill me?” I supply, my voice filled with disgust. I turn around and unlock the door. “If you come here again, I’ll call the police.”
“Marisa, please!”
I take great satisfaction with slamming the door in his face. Then I crumple against the door, sobbing as I collapse.
* * *
It feels like a bad breakup, except my brain is too full of shit to process anything. My head rings with the words he gave me before I slammed the door in his face. He loves me. What a fucking joke. He’s either delusional or a liar.
The TV blares with an obnoxious cartoon that only serves to piss me off even more. I’m still in a towering rage—most of it directed towards myself. I throw a beer bottle at the LCD screen and it cracks. Seizing my dad’s portrait, I smash it against the marble countertop until glass shatters all over the floor. What else is there to break? It doesn’t fucking matter. I’m wealthy enough. I can always buy another one, and another one, and another one.
I wear shoes throughout the house so that the broken glass doesn’t cut into my feet, but I leave it all there, reveling in the destruction. I think of Nathan attending the next board meeting with a broken nose and heavily bandaged face, and a small snort echoes in the house. A second later, I feel sickened with myself.
All I can think is: Now what?
What am I supposed to do with my life?
Hours of flipping through channels through my broken TV screen and browsing the internet give me no answers. A rumbling sound distracts me from my laptop screen. My phone blinks with a new text message. From Joe.
I’m seized with a desire to hurl the phone across the room, but curiosity wins over rage. I open the phone.
Check the news.
A cold feeling drips down my throat as I read his ominous message, and I check out CNN.
Violation of contract ousts new CEO of Worlds Casino.
What the fuck?
I click on the article and read through it, my stomach violently churning as I read more and more. The reasons for me being kicked off the company: erratic spending patterns, drunkenness, and drug use. All of them lies. Joe was right, Nathan falsified documents and had me kicked out. The whole board was probably bribed or threatened. My stomach clenches horribly.
He’s evil. He’s a monster.
My phone rings and I glance at the screen. Jessica. A rush of hatred builds inside me, and I snatch up the phone, ready to scream at her.
“Marisa,” her frightened voice garbles on the speaker. “I’m so sorry. I didn’t know what he was going to do.”
“You sure as hell didn’t try to stop him, did you?”
“I did. I voted against it.”
The phone slips in my hand and a wave of relief pours over me. “You did?”
“I never wanted it to go this far. This was a huge mistake. I’m sorry.”
I bite my lip hard. Don’t cry. “Thanks, Jess.”
“I don’t even go to board meetings anymore. I met with that Tucci guy in New Jersey with Nathan, and he scared the shit out of me. I don’t want to be involved anymore.”
“That’s probably a good idea.”
“Anyway, I was wondering if you wanted to hang out, or something. Talk about all this.”
I shake my head. “No, I can’t.” My house is in no shape and I can’t talk about it. Not with her, at least. The sound of her disappointment makes me tear up. I haven’t lost my sister after all.
“Okay. I just miss seeing everyone on Sundays, you know? Ever since Dad died…we haven’t really done anything together.”
“Yeah, well. I’ve been busy. I’ve got to go,” I say in a tight voice.
“All right. Sorry, again. Bye.”
The phone goes black and I see other text messages from Joe, but I don’t look at them. Nothing can help fill the emptiness inside me. That casino was my life, and now he’s taken that from me. He stole it, and I can’t even fight back. My fists tremble at that realization.
What can I do?
I look at the black screen of my phone. The suffocating walls of my apartment. It was once a safe haven, now it feels like torture. I’m tired of being in here, but beyond that—I’m just really fucking pissed.
I’ll go to my brother’s apartment, and I break whatever semblance of a nose he has left.
I grab my purse on the counter and my jacket, shrugging it on as I leave my apartment and slam the door shut. Fucking coward. It wasn’t about my performance at all. No, he had to make all of that shit up to get me canned from my own company.
I won’t let him get away with this.
The violent thoughts swirling in my head surprise me. I’m not like this. I hate violence. It disturbs me. The murder I witnessed shook me to my very core, and I’ve tossed in bed just thinking about it. The guilt swells in my chest every now and then, even though I know he was dangerous. It still felt wrong.
Right now, though, I feel like a fight.
A group of reporters chase me in the parking lot. A woman with a microphone follows me as I approach my car. How the hell did they even get in here? “Ms. Toffoli, do you have anything to say about—”
“No!” I unlock the door and climb inside, their camera flashes blinding my vision. It makes it hard to back up, let alone see where I’m going. Eventually, my car parts through the crowd even though I’m seized with a sick desire to mow them all down.
Once I weave out of the traffic in Midtown and enter the bridge, I allow myself to scream. The car vibrates with the sound of my high-pitched voice. My throat tickles and I choke, and the harsh screams stop.
Nope. Didn’t work. I’m still pissed.
My hands shake as I recklessly park in front of Nathan’s apartment, almost smashing into a car I vaguely recognize. My feet stomp up the stone steps, rage heating my limbs. I feel so much stronger, with all this blood pumping through my veins. I smash my fist into the door, hurting it. Then again, and again.
“Come out, you fucking coward!”
I raise my leg and kick it hard. A strangled laugh tears from my throat when black scuff marks from my shoe smear on the door. I’m there for at least five minutes, swearing at the door at the top of my voice, but nothing happens. A neighbor peeks out of her door to stare at me. I ignore her and jog back down the steps, almost bumping into a man standing on the street.
Move out of the way, you fucking jerk.
In a blind fury I grab one of the loose rocks sitting next to a tree and I bounce it in my hand. I hurl it at his window, and to my surprise it blows a fist-sized hole through. The glass splinters and cracks, and I bend over to seize another rock. There’s a pair of shoes right beside them. My eyes travel up two legs covered in jeans and up to a trim waist and leather jacket, all the way to his jutting Adam’s apple and sinful brown eyes, wrinkled in amusement.
“Never would have pegged you as a hooligan.”
He stands in front of me as brazen as brass, even though I told him I never wanted to see him again. A leap of happiness soars in my stomach, but anguish drowns it almost immediately.
“Never would have pegged you as a murderer. Have you been following me?”
That wipes the amusement from his eyes. “Yeah. I knew you were probably very upset, so I wanted to keep an eye on you.”
I haven’t forgotten the confession he made the other day. That he loved me. There was a time when I would’ve been overjoyed to hear something like that. Now?
“Did you forget that I never want to see you again?”
He looks aw
ay and his face burns, as if I’ve struck him. His hand grabs mine and suddenly I feel very tired. It’s comforting to feel his touch, and hating him is exhausting.
“No, I didn’t forget.”
Am I insane?
Yes, you are.
I slip my hand out of his grasp.
“Take a walk with me,” he urges. “Before the fucking cops show up.”
“Fine.”
His footsteps rush to catch up to me as I toss the rock aside and walk down the sidewalk at an extremely brisk pace.
“I’m really sorry for everything in the papers.”
I grit my teeth. “What are you going to do? I have a brother who would rather see me smeared in the public than win the right to be President fairly.”
“Jamie is probably behind it. Jamie Tucci. He’s done shit like this.”
That man in the restaurant with bullet holes. We stop at the street and I pound the crosswalk button. Joe leans on the streetlight pole leisurely, looking downright sexy as the wind plays with his hair and jacket. It hits me hard, and I suddenly feel morose. I’m supposed to be furious with him.
He takes my hand and I let him. God, I just want to be normal. Is that so much to ask? Hand in hand, we cross the street and enter a small park. I sit down on the first park bench I see and Joe sits beside me.
“What are you even doing here?”
His arm extends over the park bench, his hand resting right behind my head. He brushes my hair with one finger, and I feel the light touch like a jolt of electricity. “You’re not getting rid of me that easily, Marisa. I meant what I said, and frankly, I don’t feel okay with leaving you alone. I know you must be really upset.”
Yeah, I am.
The cold stings my eyes and they burn. I can’t trust a word that comes out of his mouth, as much as I want to.
“You were willing to put a bullet between my eyes a few days ago. I can’t forgive that, I’m sorry. I think I deserve someone better.”
A light touch of my shoulder as he parts my hair sends a shudder down my body. God damn it. Heat travels to my chest from his fingertips. Clearly, my heart hasn’t gotten the memo from my brain. This man is bad for me. I don’t want him. I shouldn’t.
“You do deserve someone better. Well, too bad, sweetheart. I got here first. I love you and I’m not letting you go.” His fingers brush over mine as silence falls between us. I don’t know what to say to him. Part of me is vehemently opposed. I want to fight him. The other, stronger part just wants to give in and let his words seep into my skin.
End Game (A Dark Romance) Page 21
