All He'll Ever Be

by W Winters

  Shaking my head, I brush away the tears from just under my eyes. “It’s not funny, no. And now it’s your turn.” He’s going to keep me here like this? He could keep me here forever.

  Even as I think the statement, the overwhelming loneliness consumes me. I have nothing and this prison is eating my sanity alive. Hours pass where I simply stare at the wall, praying it will offer me something different than the day before.

  He watches me as I sway from side to side slightly.

  “What does submit mean?” I talk over him just as he starts to speak. My words are harsher than I thought they’d be and he cocks his brow, not answering me and then asks his question.

  Rules of the game, I suppose.

  “What is your favorite food?”

  Dizziness overwhelms me for a moment and I rest my head against the wall. He’s going to win this game. And all the others. He’s cheating and I’m deteriorating.

  “Bacon, I guess. Everyone loves bacon,” I answer halfheartedly, partly because I’m tired of this game already and partly because I need a little humor in this situation. “There’s this sandwich from the corner store by my house. My mother used to take me there.” I stare at the ceiling while I talk, not really to him, but just to talk and think about something other than this. Although it’s nice to have someone around. I feel an empty hollowness inside of me. I’d rather that than the sickening feeling of defeat.

  Licking my lower lip, I continue. “She took me there every weekend. Coffee and pastries for her, but they had this sandwich I loved, and they still have it. It’s turkey and bacon with ranch dressing on a pretzel roll.” My head lolls to the side and I glance at Cross, whose usual stern expression has been replaced by a look of curiosity. “I think that may be my favorite.”

  The memory of my mother makes me smile and I almost tell him more. I almost tell him about the day she died and how we went there first. But she didn’t get her usual pastries or coffee, and we didn’t stay long. I was so upset that she didn’t get me my sandwich, but she promised we’d get it tomorrow.

  If I hadn’t been so young and foolish, I would have known what was happening. How my mother was running from someone she’d spotted. How she ran home for protection, only to find the monster was already there.

  God, I miss her. I miss anyone and everyone. I hadn’t realized how lonely I’d become.

  “Would you like to go home when this is over?” Cross’s question distracts me from the thoughts of the past.

  “When it’s over?” I ask for clarification and I only receive a nod from him.

  A deal with the devil. It’s all I can think. The war doesn’t matter, even if that’s what he’s hinting at. He’ll keep me however long he wants, regardless of what he tells me now.

  “You already know the answer to that.” They’re the only words I give him. It’s my turn once more, so I ask him again, “What do I have to do to leave?”

  “There is no leaving unless I want you to leave.”

  “Then why I am here?” The desperation is evident.

  “I’ve already told you. I want you to submit to me. To desire my touch and earn it by kneeling and waiting to obey me. To be mine, in every way.”

  “You know that would never happen,” I say absently. “I’ll stay in this room forever or wait for something else to happen. I have nothing but time.”

  “I’m going to make a change to your routine,” Cross says as if it’s a threat.

  Again, my head falls to the side to look at him, my energy waning. “Is that so?” I ask him, and he quirks a devious grin.

  “You’ll only eat when I feed you. Bite by bite.” His eyes flicker with a heat that should scare me, but it does other things to me that I choose to ignore. “You should have eaten before, songbird. Your defiance is only hurting you.”

  The thought of him feeding me is something that will haunt me for hours once he’s gone, I already know it. It’s not just the loneliness that attracts me to Cross. I felt it the moment I saw him.

  “I wasn’t going to eat anyway,” I tell him in a single breath rather than allowing my imagination to get the best of me. I’ve heard death by starvation is a horrible way to die and I know I’ll have to figure out another way. I know I’ll cave, just like I already have. As if reading my mind or maybe knowing better, Cross smirks at me, but it’s different from the previous ones. There’s something almost melancholy about this one.

  “You’ll eat,” he tells me and then stands up without another word. As he turns the doorknob, I close my eyes knowing the bright light is coming. Even with my eyes closed, I can see it. And then it’s gone, and once again I’m alone and trapped in the room.

  I should feel a touch of ease, knowing he’s given me some information I can hold on to. But all I can think about is my mother and the last day I saw her.

  She wanted to leave and run away. She begged me to understand. And I cried when she told me, “Ria, please.”

  I’ll never forget the wretched way my name fell from her lips that day. The fatal flaw of any mother is how much her love for her children will blind her. It’s my fault. Fresh tears leak down my face and I don’t even bother wiping them away as I crawl to the mattress.

  It takes a bit longer than usual for him to do it, but with the blanket wrapped tightly around me, the lights in the room go off. Loneliness is my only companion unless I give in to the memories. And I hadn’t realized how harmful they can be. My own past is becoming my enemy.

  I find myself filled with nothing but regret as sleep takes over.

  If only I could go back and not fight her.

  If only I could go back and tell her, we can’t go home.

  Chapter 11

  Carter

  It’s different when I’m in the cell with her. When there’s nothing but an isolated war between the two of us. I know she’ll break, and she’ll love it when she does.

  When I’m in there with her, staring her down and watching every small, calculated movement from her, all I feel is the need to bring her to that edge and watch her fall.

  I can picture her beautiful hair a tangled mess as I fist it in my hand, taking my pleasure from her even if she’d give it freely. She’ll be on her knees, desiring the same things that I do.

  It consumes me when the four walls of the cell surround me, but the moment the steel door closes behind me with a finality that another day has passed where I don’t have control of her, the desire changes to desperation.

  She has to submit. To kneel when I walk into her cell and to wait eagerly for my command.

  And soon.

  I have other plans and I want her to be a part of them. She needs to give in. It starts with a simple kneel.

  I’m still reeling from seeing her sweet defiance when the door shuts tight. Slipping the painting back into place, I get a glimpse of my brother as he walks toward me in the hall.

  “You’re waiting for me?” I ask him, and he matches my pace as we head toward my office.

  “I think I know why it’s hitting heavier on the edge of the south side, closer to the Romanos.” He doesn’t waste a second to start talking business.

  “The supply?” I ask him for clarification. The drug market is predictable. That’s the best part about an addiction. It’s steady, rampant, and easily maintained. When demand increases in only one area, there’s a reason for it. And I need to know why this shift is so unexpected.

  “Romanos have their hands on it. They have to be producing it by the amount they’re selling.” My blood chills in response to Jase’s revelation. My jaw tenses as we make our way down the stairs. Each step only emphasizes the hollow pounding in my ears.

  He wanted an ally.

  He wanted to do business together.

  He’s nothing but a liar, a thief, and a spineless prick.

  But none of that is news to me.

  “He’s selling S2L?” I ask him. “Are you sure?” The drug is ours. Ours alone. It was only a matter of time before everyone else wan
ted it, but instead of getting the details, Romano stole it. The stupid fuck.

  “I’m positive,” Jase answers me and I imagine Romano’s ugly snarl of a smile as I punch his teeth in. I can practically feel the way the tight skin of my knuckles would split as his teeth broke under them. “I got a sample from their streets, took it back and it’s definitely our mix. A heavier version than what we got off Malcolm.”

  “Do you think Romano knows why the pharmacy pulled it and the side effects?” I ask Jase as I push my office door open.

  We acquired a banned drug, manipulated it, and just started selling S2L, street name Sweet Lullaby. It was designed to help with anxiety and insomnia. It can aid in weaning off an addiction to harder drugs. But S2L is the most addictive because of the way it calms you, assures you and your entire being that everything is just as it should be and lull you into a deep sleep. Thus, the name, Sweet Lullaby. The undesired side effects were too great to risk… for them. Not for us.

  “I think they know exactly what it is,” he says with a touch of anger, “seeing as how they fucked with the formula.” The door practically slams shut from the weight of his push. He doesn’t look me in the eyes until he’s seated in the chair opposite mine. It’s only when he says the next sentence that I finally fall into mine. “They made it more potent. It’s practically lethal with the way it numbs the senses, slowing the heart and forcing the body into a deep sleep.”

  My thumb brushes against my jawline as I consider what Romano is up to. “He stole our drug; he’s selling a version that’s deadly on his territory…” I think out loud, not bothering to hide my string of thoughts from Jase.

  Jase is the one who got a hold of the drug from an asshole who owed us a debt but had secrets within the industry. Malcolm was useful enough that we let him live. For a little while.

  “He’s selling on his territory. Sweet Lullaby but the lethal version is going by ST, Sweet Tragedy. He must not have enough, or else we wouldn’t see the increase in demand.”

  “The thing about demand is that those who are addicted are still living.”

  “Unless it’s being used on someone else.”

  “So, he’s selling it as a weapon? Not as a drug?” I have to admit the thought occurred to us as well, but until we have a preventative drug that renders the deadly version useless, I wouldn’t dare to even hint at the possibility.

  His fingers tap, tap, tap with a nervousness on the armrest. “The thing that doesn’t fit though… What doesn’t add up… is that there isn’t a rise in the death toll. There’s no sudden spike in murders or people dying in their sleep.”

  “They’re either buying and not using, or they’re selling it elsewhere. Maybe overseas?”

  “I think the Romanos aren’t keeping up with the production of S2L, they have a small demand, but word got out that we’re the suppliers. So, Romano decided to up the ante, make the potent version which got someone’s attention. Someone who wants control of the market. Whoever it is, he’s buying every drop he can of the potent version, and every bit of ours so he can make the change himself, concentrating it and making an untraceable weapon.”

  “How could Romano be so fucking stupid?” The words are pushed through my clenched teeth. We sold the drug as a relaxer, a way to ease pain and keep people from ODing on the deadlier shit. It’s the perfect way to make an addiction last. And Romano’s greed had to fuck it up.

  I’m silent as I consider Jase’s theory.

  “Whoever’s gathering it is on his side, not ours. Someone who wants his territory, maybe?” he suggests, and I can only nod in response. Whoever it is isn’t doing a good job of hiding their whereabouts and intentions. Unless of course, they wanted it to be known. My thumb brushes along my chin again as I consider every asshole I know who could want Romano’s place. Maybe they wanted us to know.

  “I want Mick’s crew on the south side, tracking the information of every buyer and to find a connection. I want to know who’s fucking with it and if they’re selling anywhere else.”

  “It’s expensive shit, this potent version. And whoever is buying in bulk has to be waiting to resell.”

  “Maybe they think Romano will lose the war, and they’ll come in to a territory with a built-in high demand, already supplied with the drug?”

  Jase nods at my prediction, clucking his tongue and still tapping his finger on the chair. “That’s not a problem for us,” he adds.

  “You think they’d stop at the Romanos?” I question him and like the intelligent fucker he is, he shakes his head, the small grin ticking up his lips. Jase loves a challenge. He lives to snuff out those who think they can threaten what we’ve worked so fucking hard to build.

  “So, we don’t tell Romano?” he asks me.

  “Not a word. He stole from us.” I look him dead in the eye as I come to the conclusion with my brother.

  “You still want to do the dinner next week?” he questions me.

  Romano thinks it’s a celebratory dinner.

  Talvery is weak. It’s almost a letdown at how easily everything is crumbling around him. There’s already a crack within his own factions, or so says the word on the street. Half his crew is taking bribes from Romano. I’m reluctant to let my guard down. Looks from the outside can be deceiving. I know that all too well.

  Nonetheless, Romano will come here to this celebratory dinner. And I’ll have the utmost enthusiasm as his host and partner in celebrating the fall of his longtime rival. Long enough to lure him in at least.

  “Yes.” I can’t stress my words enough as I stare at the box under the bookshelf on the right side of the room. “Next week he’ll be here, at our table, in our home.”

  “It’s not about the war or the drug though, is it?” Jase’s question brings my gaze back to him. “It’s about her?”

  His intuition freezes my blood. I have to remind myself that he’s my brother, that he would know because he’s been so close for so long. I have to remind myself that there isn’t a way another soul could even begin to guess the truth.

  “Yes,” I reply cautiously as our eyes lock and I wait for his reaction. Once again, I fall prey to the ticking of the clock as he carefully chooses his words. “She’s part of it.”

  “We could give her money and let her run,” he offers. And he assumes wrong.

  “She’ll run right back to her father, and you know it.”

  “Then let her,” Jase says and shrugs as if it’s no concern to us if she were to retreat back to her father.

  “And have the Romanos and everyone else think we’re so weak that we just let a girl walk away?”

  “Since when did you start caring what they think?” he asks me, still feigning that this conversation is a casual discussion that means nothing.

  “They need to think that I don’t care what they think. But how they see us matters more than anything. For us to control what they do, we have to know what they think. We have to be able to manipulate it for us to know what they’ll do next.”

  “You can say you grew tired of her.” Jase continues to make suggestions and this time it spikes my anger. I’ve grown tired of him pushing me to let her go, to eliminate her from the equation. She’s too valuable to me.

  “Never,” I answer in a single breath without thinking.

  “Never?” Jase asks questioningly, only now dropping his guard, his grip tightening on the leather armrest and letting an inkling of anger show.

  “I wanted her… before.”

  “Before Romano offered her?” Jase’s interest is piqued.

  I only nod in response, feeling the confession so close to coming to life.

  “Why?” he asks me, and I don’t answer him. I can’t. Instead, I offer him a small truth. “He didn’t offer her. I told him it would be her or no one,” I say softly, to ensure the words will vanish by the time he can hear them.

  “What are you going to do to her?” he asks me again. My brothers keep asking me that and it only pisses me off.

  “S
he has to fear me… for a while.” My thumb nervously runs along my bottom lip. “It won’t always be like this.”

  “You need to give me more,” he demands, and I quickly spit back, “I don’t need to give you shit.”

  A beat passes and the rage slips into my blood. The memories and everything I’ve worked for, everything we’ve become turns to hate and ruin.

  “This conversation is over,” I tell him. He only smiles. A coy knowing smile, and nods. The tension evaporates and without another word, he leaves the office. Although I know he’s left with far more than he gave.

  As I watch him leave, the ticking of the clock won’t stop. Tick tock. Tick tock. Tick tock. My gaze moves from the box to the laptop with a black screen staring back at me.

  Deep breaths. In and out. Deep breaths bring me back to her.

  When I flick the monitors back to life, to see what my little songbird is doing, she’s already asleep.

  It’s been so long since these memories have haunted me, but they come back slowly as I turn off the lights in her cell.

  Memories that made me. Memories she’s a part of, even if she doesn’t know.

  The memory of the day I learned who Talvery was and what fear could really do to a person.

  There comes a point when it doesn’t matter what the last punch broke or how much blood you’ve lost. It’s a point where you can’t feel anything anymore.

  Your vision is blurry, and you know death is so close that you pray for it. It’s the only thing that will take it all away.

  Nothing makes sense. Even as my head snaps back and more warmth bubbles from my mouth, the pain is nothing. And knowing the end is near, it provides a comfort. The chains holding me to the chair fade away and I can hardly feel them digging into my skin.

  But even in all of that, she meant something. I knew it instantly. She had the strength to destroy the hope that it would all end soon.

  Her small fists banged on the door that was so close but so far away.