“I can’t stay.”
A lump forms in my throat. Swallowing it is harder than I imagine it should be. “What do you mean you can’t stay?”
I stare up at his closed-off eyes. They give nothing away.
He sets a large envelope on the table beside the bed.
“What’s that?”
“My promise.”
I look from the envelope to him. “What do you mean?”
“I’m sorry for what he did to you. For what happened to you because of me.”
“Damian, that wasn’t—”
“I’m sorry I couldn’t protect you like I promised but…” He gestures to the envelope. “I can keep one promise.”
“What are you talking about?”
“You can stay at the penthouse as long as you need. Details are in the envelope. Everything is taken care of. You don’t have to worry about anything.”
“Damian, I don’t—”
“I need to go.” He checks his watch.
When he takes a step away, I sit upright and push the blanket from me. “Where?”
He comes back to me, sits on the edge of the bed, and softly brushes hair back from my face. He gives me a sad smile.
“I’m finally doing what’s best for you. What’s really best for you. It’s the first unselfish thing I’ve done when it comes to you.”
He leans closer and I see is the sadness in his eyes. It runs deep. An abyss of it. And I feel the cracking of my heart.
I open my mouth to say his name, to tell him I understand. To say anything at all. But he cups the back of my head and presses his lips to my forehead.
Closing my eyes, I place my hand on his cheek as a tear slips down my face.
This is his goodbye. I know it.
He draws back, hand still on the back of my head. He looks at me for a long minute. And what I see in his eyes breaks my heart in two.
Regret. Sadness. Too much of it.
And me on the outside.
31
Damian
I need to keep my promise. I need to do one right thing.
And as hard as it is, walking away is the only way to do that. But it takes all I have to follow through.
I get up and walk out of the room. Closing that door behind me feels like I’m leaving a piece of myself behind. I think it’s my heart.
Coward.
Tobias falls into step beside me as we make our way out of the hospital.
“I have two of our best soldiers guarding her. She’ll be fine.”
I nod, not trusting myself to speak.
My promise to her, is it a lie? A selfish lie told only to protect myself?
“The Clementis are at the warehouse,” Tobias continues.
Business. I have to get to the business of my revenge. Show my enemies what happens when you cross me.
“Good,” I say, sounding a little harder as I feel the familiar stone walls erect themselves around me. As hard as it is, as painful, I have to keep thoughts of the way I found her at the forefront of my mind. Keep the image of her with that rope around her neck burned on my brain. Feel the weight of her limp body in my arms as I carried her out of that house.
I don’t have to work hard to remember the sensation of my heart twisting when I’d thought I was too late. When I’d thought she was gone.
And I can’t think about how she looks in that bed in the other room. Small and vulnerable and sad. I just have to remember the angry bruises around her throat and be grateful that Lucas was wrong. That I didn’t break her. At least not so much that she couldn’t be put back together again.
This is better for her. Safer. I need to let her go because nothing changes with Lucas gone. My business will be rebuilt. My enemies will not lessen.
This is best for her.
Coward.
“You sure about Valentina?”
Tobias has a very clear black and white outlook on life. You betray me, you die. Period. No second chances. Not reprieves.
He was right about Lucas. My letting him walk away without punishment led to this. Led to a destruction I didn’t imagine him capable of. So yeah, I understand Tobias.
But Valentina is her family. And that’s about the only thing that’s saving his life. I’ll be watching him, though. He goes within a few miles of her, and I will fucking kill him.
“He’s been dealt with.” He’s in the hospital somewhere too with two broken legs, a dislocated shoulder, and several busted ribs. “For now.” He knows he’ll be receiving another beating once he heals just to drive the message home.
Lucas’s plan succeeded, at least in part. Most of my ships are destroyed. Lucas, with the help of the Clementi family and Cristina’s uncle, accomplished that. That I can deal with. I’ve rebuilt out of nothing before. I can do it again.
But that’s not the worst of it.
In the study, I was too focused on Cristina and the fire and my insane brother to process what he’d said. Just a few words that I missed.
“…you and I and Father, we all burn. Like we should have.”
“My sister and Bennie?” I ask.
“Safe and sound. They’re staying in California until arrangements are made for your brother. Not your father, though.”
I nod. I understand.
The explosives weren’t only set at the shipping yards, and Cristina’s family’s home wasn’t the only one my brother burned to the ground.
The house Upstate is mostly gone. Lucas arranged for that, too. And my father went down with it. Strangely, the only wing that survived was Lucas’s.
“I can take care of the Clementis,” Tobias offers when we exit the hospital.
Three dark SUVs pull up and I walk to the second one. I open the back door and turn to him.
“I have no doubt, but I’ll be dealing with them myself. Especially the old man.”
We climb into the SUV and it takes all I have not to look back at the building inside which my wife, my soon to be ex-wife, lies.
I shift my gaze to my hands instead, peeling off my wedding band. Without a word, I drop it into my pocket, the one closest to my heart. The one inside which hers sits.
32
Cristina
Five Months Later
* * *
The house is gone. Everything inside it destroyed. With all the gasoline Lucas had used to fuel his hate, he wiped out every last remnant of my family. Every single memory of us.
We were happy once, all of us. Happy in our home.
I look up at the treehouse. That survived, at least.
Five months have passed since the fire, but I swear I can still smell the smoke while standing in the cleared lot.
Damian lost his ships and his house Upstate. His father is dead. Burned in the fire. Lucas killed him, too. At least Michela and her son are safe.
I know the only reason my uncle is still alive is because of me, because he is my uncle and Liam and Simona’s father. No matter what kind of man he is, I know losing him would devastate them.
When I was discharged, I went to see him. He could barely speak he was so heavily medicated, but I needed to see him. I had one question to ask him and after he answered it, I needed him to know that I didn’t forgive him. I was finished being manipulated and used by him.
He knew Lucas had the doctor insert that tracker in my arm and did nothing to stop it. Did he know what Lucas intended to do to me? He said no when I asked him. Said he’d never have gone along with that.
I’m honestly not sure I believe him.
I don’t feel sorry for him or the shape he’s in. I’m not really sure what that says about me, but I’ve buried my head for so long I just can’t anymore. If this is who I am, a woman who knows right from wrong, who understands that blood doesn’t exempt one from betrayal and looks with eyes wide open on the violence done to a man and doesn’t feel remorse, then that is who I am.
I was young when this started, a child when my uncle took me into his home. He used me. He used me all my lif
e, and even as I got older, even as questions came, I never asked them. I accepted the life I was given. Even the roses that arrived like clockwork on my birthday. I never asked. I stole the notes and the ribbons out of the trashcan and never asked why someone hated me enough to send me dead flowers to mark each passing year. Never asked about the men who were in my house the night of my father’s murder.
I was too afraid of so many things but mostly of losing him too. Him and Liam and Simona.
After the accident, I’d been alone, really. My father was dealing with his own guilt, his own pain at the loss of them, and he couldn’t take care of me, too. He couldn’t take my pain. I understand it.
But I’m done walking through my life with my head down. I’m finished being weak.
Inside the envelope Damian left that day were divorce papers. He’d already signed his name. The settlement is a very generous one. I’d be stupid not to take it.
Along with that was the deed to this ruined house. The land. Damian signed it all over to me contingent on the divorce. I don’t know what I’ll do with it, though. I don’t want to rebuild here. I don’t want to be here. Not now. But I also can’t leave New York City. It’s where Damian is, even though I haven’t seen him once. It’s where I feel closest to him.
I haven’t gone back to school, although the semester started several weeks ago. Everything just feels so different. So much less important.
Liam thinks I should see a therapist to talk about it all, but I don’t want that. I guess in a way, I want to keep a little part of Damian inside me. A piece of him for myself now that he’s gone. Disappeared from my life.
I guess he let me go like he promised.
I touch the spot where my wedding ring was for the hundredth time. Even though I only wore his ring for days, it feels strange not to have it, not to feel the weight of it on my finger. It never occurred to me I’d miss it.
Miss him.
Giving a shake of my head, I walk toward the treehouse. It’ll be dark soon, but I’ve put this off too long.
Dusk has turned the sky a deep, somber blue. It fits.
I reach the base of the tree. It’s singed but the firefighters managed to save it. I stand on tiptoe to reach the rope ladder that’s tucked on a branch. I jump to try to get to it, but it’s too high. I’m just looking around for something to stand on when I hear footsteps crunch the blackened, dead ground behind me.
With a gasp, I spin, not sure what to expect. A ghost? Another monster? But when I see him, see this union of ghost and monster and man, my heart skips a beat and my breath catches in my throat and I have to try hard to quash the hope that swells inside my chest.
As the last of the sun disappears into the horizon and the moon casts a silvery light over us, I’m sure my face registers a myriad of emotions.
But Damian’s expression doesn’t change.
I shudder with a sudden chill.
He strides right up to me, extending an arm to release the rope.
I stare up at him. I’d forgotten how tall he is. Forgotten how I feel around him. How my body aches to lean into him. Was it always like this?
We stand like that for a minute. Him just inches from me in his dark suit, hand around the rope. His smell so familiar, making my heartbeat kick up like he used to do.
His eyes are locked on mine and I wonder if he’s missed me, too. If he looks over his shoulder for me like I do him.
For a moment, I indulge the thought that maybe he has.
I count the fresh scars on his face, cuts from the glass when he used his body to shield mine. Even for the ruined skin, he’s still beautiful. More so.
But I know this isn’t the worst of the damage. That’s on the inside. I think his heart must be covered over in scar tissue.
“You haven’t signed the papers,” he says. I remember now how deep his voice is, how it seems to vibrate right inside me.
It takes me a moment to find my voice. “You disappeared.”
He literally vanished off the face of the earth. It was impossible to get in touch with him. I even drove to the house Upstate, but that was a waste of time. It was locked up so tight and under such heavy guard, I couldn’t get past the gate.
“That was the point. You haven’t signed, Cristina. I can’t keep my promise if you don’t sign.”
“How did you know I was here?”
“You also haven’t been back to school. The semester started. Why aren’t you at school?”
“How—”
“Why?”
“Are you having me followed?”
“For your safety. I still have enemies and you’re still my wife.”
I raise my eyebrows. “Are you doing that—having me followed—for my own good?” I ask, suddenly angry. “Like when you walked out of that hospital room before we could even talk about anything?” I hadn’t even known about my uncle being there too until Liam told me. And the whole hanging experience, it still gives me nightmares. I wake up feeling like I’m choking to this day.
His jaw tenses, and his hand around the rope tightens, making his bicep flex and the suit jacket hug his arm.
“You just left me there to process it all on my own. To try to make sense of it alone.”
“I didn’t leave you alone, I—”
“Fuck you. You left me alone. Soldiers don’t count. So, fuck you, Damian. Stop having me followed. You walked away and you can just keep walking. We’re done.”
“Then why haven’t you signed the divorce papers?”
I bite the inside of my cheek and glance away momentarily because I don’t know. It’s what I wanted, to be free. He was giving me what I wanted. All I had to do was sign.
“You almost died, Cristina. I left to protect you.”
“No. You left so you wouldn’t have to face all the shit. All the messy feelings. Your brother is dead. Have you even talked to anyone about that?”
“Like a shrink?”
“Yeah, like a shrink.”
“Didn’t realize you were so positive on them. Liam says you refuse to go.”
I feel my eyebrows creep way up on my forehead. “You’re talking to Liam?”
He clears his throat and shifts his gaze momentarily like he didn’t intend on giving that away.
“Since when have you been in contact with my cousin?”
“Cristina—”
“Since when, Damian?”
“I needed to be sure you were all right.”
“Well, I’m not all right. And I’ll deal with my cousin. You stop talking to him and for the third time, fuck you. Give me that and go away.” I try to take hold of the rope ladder, but he tugs it out of reach and chuckles when I jump to try and grab it.
“What’s so funny?”
“You.”
“I’m done being your plaything.”
“You’re not my plaything. You were meant to be, but you never were.”
That takes me aback, but I force my eyes to narrow. Force myself to feel anger. “I said give me that and go away.”
“No.”
“You’re on my property. I’ll call the police.”
“It’s not your property until you sign the divorce papers.”
He’s right. “Technicality,” I say, jutting my chin out and folding my arms across my chest.
“I don’t want you out here on your own, Cristina.”
“I’m not yours to worry about anymore. And besides, I’m not on my own. You have men following me, remember? And also, you’re here.”
“I’m here to talk some sense into you. Or I was.”
“You’re here to clear your conscience.”
He considers for a long minute. “You’re right. If you’d done as you were told and signed the papers and moved on with your life, I would have a clearer conscience.”
I’m surprised. I guess I thought he’d deny it.
“I’ve never been good at doing as I’m told. I thought you knew that,” I retort.
His gaze sweeps my face
, and one corner of his mouth curves upward. He licks his lips and gets a familiar glint in his eyes. It’s the one that makes him look dirty.
That makes me feel dirty.
“You know what? I change my mind,” he says.
“Change your mind about what?”
He tugs the rope ladder, testing it, then extends it out. “After you.”
I drop my arms. “What’s your game?”
“No game. Go on.”
“You’re coming with me?”
“I told you I don’t want you out here on your own.”
I study his face in the moonlight. “What are you doing, Damian?”
“You know what? I’m giving you a choice.”
“What do you mean?”
“Do you want me, Cristina? Because this time you should choose for yourself.” He pauses for a long minute. “Do you want me to stay or do you want me to go? Truth.” His face is serious again, eyes dark as they study me intently.
Do I want him? That’s what he’s asking me.
I look down at the ground, then slowly back up at him. That swelling inside me is back and it brings tears to my eyes. God, I missed him. I missed him so much.
But isn’t it best to tell him to go?
My hands tremble to touch him for the first time in too long, fingertips just brushing his stomach through his shirt, his chest, feeling the muscle beneath, that strength that feels so good. That feels like home.
I shift my gaze up to his.
Do I want him? Do I want the man who stole me from my life? Who plotted for almost a decade to punish me for the sins of my father?
This man who warned me about monsters when I was just a little girl. This man who was meant to be my monster.
Do I want him?
33
Damian
“I want you,” she says.
Relief.
It’s like my lungs just opened up and I can breathe again.
Cristina seems different. No, not that. She’s more. More herself, maybe. Stronger. She’s always had defiance in her, but this is something else.
Unholy Intent Page 19
