Breathless & Bloodstained (The Chicago War #4)

by Bethany-Kris

  “He’s still your brother,” Damian said, softer than she had ever heard him speak. “You’re allowed to grieve for him. Or rather, what you could have had with him, Ella.”

  Abriella hadn’t thought of it that way. Maybe that was her problem; maybe that was the issue keeping her throat thick, her heart hurting, and her mind in a hazy bubble.

  “It’ll take a while, but that feeling you’re experiencing will go away,” Damian told her quietly.

  “Will it?”

  “Eventually.”

  Abriella stared down at her clenched fists resting in her lap. “Joel wanted me to make a choice this week. One was to be free, and the other was to free everyone else. Either way, he was going to take something from me, Damian.”

  “Tommas?”

  “Yes.”

  “You made the right choice,” Damian said.

  “But it wasn’t one of Joel’s choices. That was a choice that was given to me last minute and it was out of my brother’s control. And it hurts … in here,” Abriella said, pointing at her heart. “Because out of Joel’s options, I didn’t know which one to choose. I couldn’t make the choice.”

  “Ella, maybe you couldn’t choose because they weren’t really options for you. It was never a matter of what you would do, but how you wouldn’t do it. Do you understand what I’m saying?”

  “No.”

  Damian frowned. “Maybe when you wake up tomorrow with Tommas by your side, and the freedom that was offered in your hand, it’ll make more sense.”

  God.

  Abriella hoped so.

  “Damn, Tommas, it took you long enough,” Damian growled the second he answered his ringing cell phone.

  Abriella had just kicked off her heels and dropped the clutch she was still holding on the floor. She spun fast on her heel at the sound of her lover’s name, wanting to know where he was, what had happened, or … anything.

  She just needed anything.

  “Where is he?” Abriella demanded.

  Damian held a finger high, silently asking for her to be quiet. “Yeah, man, I’ll call the lawyer and get him down there for you.”

  Oh, God.

  A lawyer?

  She had heard the police sirens before Damian dragged her away and drove off, but she had stupidly hoped that was just her mind making up things. Apparently not. This was a problem Tommas, and the Outfit, didn’t need.

  Even worse, what about her?

  She held the gun, she shot it, and Tommas had taken it from her.

  “He’s … dead?” Damian asked, shooting Abriella a wary look.

  “What?”

  Damian turned his back to her. “So, they’re just holding you for nothing because Peter—”

  Something made Damian stop talking.

  Then, Damian said, “What do you want me to … Yeah, okay. I’ll get the lawyer down there, and I’ll come, too.”

  Once the phone call ended, Damian spun back around to face Abriella. A solemn, dark sadness colored the man’s features. Abriella’s stomach instantly felt heavier and sicker than it had the entire day. Damian’s face was a mask of apology—like his next words would cut her deep, and he didn’t want to do it.

  “Ella, I have to tell you something,” Damian said slowly.

  The numbness from earlier settled back into her nervous system again. Her body and mind wanted to protect itself, and Abriella didn’t blame her reaction a bit. Nothing about this day had been easy. It only seemed to get worse at every turn.

  Why should this be any different?

  “Where is Tommas?” Abriella asked.

  “The police are holding him, but they don’t have much of a reason to. The scene was pretty clear when they went in, and I guess Peter wiped the gun down enough to erase what was left other than his fingerprints. They’re holding Tommas because they want to get as much information from him on what was going on in the restaurant before the shooting, and why Joel is dead.”

  Abriella didn’t understand. “My dad? He wasn’t in the restaurant.”

  “He was after,” Damian replied gently.

  Her heart clenched painfully.

  “So, he’s at the police station, too?”

  “No.”

  “But—”

  “He took the gun from Tommas after the place cleared out,” Damian interrupted, stepping closer to Abriella with his hands outstretched like she might run. “The cops were outside, just a couple of cars at first. He pulled the gun on them.”

  “No,” Abriella mumbled, moving backwards.

  “I’m sorry, Ella.”

  “No. My dad wasn’t in the restaurant, Damian. He wasn’t! He was outside waiting in the car.”

  “Your dad gave you the purse outside the restaurant. I watched him do it. The purse had the gun in it. He planned this, Ella. He knew how this was going to end. I’m sorry.”

  “You’re wrong,” Abriella said, her voice breaking on the final word. “He wouldn’t do that to me and Alessa.”

  They had already lost their mother.

  Peter wouldn’t leave them, too.

  “He did,” Damian said. “I’m sorry.”

  No.

  Abriella’s heart might as well have fell from her chest and shattered across the foyer of the Trentini mansion. Her pain came rushing out of her lungs in a sob that echoed as she tripped backwards, and caught herself on an end table.

  Why her father?

  She loved him.

  “But …. b-but …”

  Abriella couldn’t make the words form. Her throat constricted over and over, catching her grief and sobs as the tears stung her eyes. This was not how it was supposed to be. She didn’t make the choice given to her so that something else—someone she loved—could be taken away.

  It wasn’t supposed to be a give and take.

  “This isn’t right,” Abriella mumbled, staring at Damian through watery eyes.

  “I … I’m so sorry,” Damian said lamely. “I have to go and get Tommas his lawyer. I’ll have Lily come over, maybe she can get Eve and your sister, too.”

  “Just go,” Abriella forced herself to say.

  Her pain was enough.

  It was too much.

  She was breaking apart at the seams, and she didn’t want anyone else to see it. For the last week and a half, her days and nights had been spent in a perpetual head game that she played alone. She tried, failing miserably, to figure out what her brother was planning, and how it all might end.

  Abriella had made the right choice.

  She chose to let Tommas win.

  She still lost.

  The sound of the front door closing vaguely registered to Abriella’s overloaded senses. It was only then that she realized Damian had left.

  Her fingers tightened and loosened around the edge of the decorative table she held onto. Her legs acted as if they were going to give out on her at any second. When her stomach threatened to revolt from the churning sensation tying her up in knots, she barely managed to keep the bile down.

  Abriella’s heart and soul screamed out for people that weren’t there. People who comforted her, who had loved her, and would always protect her.

  Her mother.

  Her father.

  Tommas.

  She could have him now, couldn’t she?

  Freedom wasn’t free.

  This life came with a cost.

  Abriella had paid far too much for hers.

  Anger and agony rushed Abriella’s gut in a wave of hot lava. She swept the pictures and knickknacks from the table in one fell swoop, screaming her rage and sadness to an empty house.

  It would always be empty now.

  The sounds of shattering glass as the picture frames broke on the floor soothed her inner war for a moment, but it wasn’t enough. She grabbed the first thing she could, a painting on the wall of her great-grandfather, and ripped it down to throw it on the floor.

  This house had been raised and kept in a swamp of lies. Manipulation, control, and sh
ifting power had been a game they all played. It had started a long time ago, when her mother made an honest mistake, and then paid dearly for it.

  It was over.

  But it still made Abriella so goddamn mad.

  And agonized.

  God, the pain.

  She wanted to feel better, so she grabbed the next thing on the wall and tore it down, too. She tossed pictures from the hallway onto the floor, destroying memories that weren’t entirely true, and pictures of men whose greed had ruined so many lives.

  This was their fault.

  They made her choose, not just Joel.

  Shouting and crying her anger for no one to hear, Abriella tore through the wing of the mansion that had been her gilded cage for far too long. She let every broken picture frame, every ruined piece of history, hit the ground like the trash it was.

  She could start over, after all.

  She could be better tomorrow.

  She could be free with Tommas.

  It was worth it.

  The price was worth it.

  Right?

  Quiet murmurings from outside of the living room woke Abriella. Sitting up on the couch, an Afghan blanket fell around her waist. She hadn’t covered up before passing out. She’d broke the lock on the liquor cabinet after she trashed a few more family heirlooms and pictures, drank a bit of bourbon, and promptly drifted off to sleep quickly after.

  But she hadn’t covered up.

  “Thank you for coming over,” Abriella heard a familiar voice say out in the hallway.

  Tommas.

  “Of course,” said someone else.

  Lily.

  “We’ll be back tomorrow afternoon,” said another.

  Evelina.

  “And we’ll bring Alessa,” Lily added quickly.

  “Adriano demanded she stay home, just in case something went crazy,” Tommas explained. “I don’t blame him. I’m sure she’ll want to come over tomorrow with you, but maybe let Abriella have some time to herself. She needs to … I don’t know.”

  “Absorb things,” Evelina said quietly. “I know the feeling.”

  “Me, too,” Lily agreed. “But she’s the toughest one of us all, Tommas. Give her some credit.”

  Tommas laughed. “I have always given Abriella her dues, believe me. You’ll both make it home all right?”

  “I called Theo to come get me,” Evelina said.

  “Damian said I could drive my car home,” Lily said. “He’s … out, I guess. He didn’t tell me where he was.”

  “Thank you for coming, really. I’ll make sure Abriella gives you both a call. For now, just stay quiet, let this mess blow over, and then I’m sure she would love to have her friends close.”

  “Absolutely.”

  “Sure,” Evelina agreed.

  Abriella listened as the footsteps faded down the hallway. She was surprised that her friends had come over, and had stayed with her, yet she hadn’t noticed a thing and slept through it all.

  Pushing off the couch, Abriella padded out of the living room and down the hall. She made her way to the front of the house just in time to see Tommas shut the front door. With a sigh, her lover pressed his palm on the door, and leaned forward like a weight had just fallen on his shoulders.

  Still … he seemed calmer than he ever had before.

  Like it was over.

  The war, the fighting, the blood … over.

  Just like that.

  Tommas dug in his pocket, pulled out a cell phone, and hit a number. Putting the phone to his ear, he didn’t turn around as he waited the call out.

  “Hey, Ghost,” Tommas said. “Where are you at?”

  Abriella knew she should probably turn around and leave him to his private conversation, but she didn’t want to. Being closer was better, especially after the day they had.

  “Good,” Tommas replied to whatever Damian had said. “I need you to finish him out tonight—Darryl, I mean. He was working something with Joel, I know he was. I don’t know what, but it doesn’t matter. Loyalty is what it is, right?”

  Swallowing the lump forming in her throat, Abriella leaned against the wall and wished the sudden coldness in her bones would leave. It didn’t.

  “Check around his place a bit and maybe see if there’s anything that’ll explain what Joel was up to,” Tommas continued, oblivious to Abriella’s presence. “Give me a call if anything comes up. The official side of things is going to be hot and heavy on us for a while, especially with me being here at Abriella’s place. I don’t care, but we might as well expect it. I have to stay quiet for a bit, maybe a week. Keep an eye on shit for me … Yeah, and besides, she needs me more.

  “All right, later, man,” he finished.

  Tommas ended the call, shoved the phone back into his pocket, and spun on his heel. Abriella waved two fingers the moment his gaze landed on her quiet form.

  “Hey,” she whispered.

  Tommas smiled an honest, brilliant sight. It quickly faded. “You trashed this place.”

  “How do you know I did it?”

  “Because it screams of you, baby. You’ve been angry for so long, Abriella. Bottling it up, keeping tabs, and marking the score of everyone’s wrongs around you. Eventually that has to come out, sweet girl. It’s never pretty when it does. Inside your heart and deep in your soul, you’ve been like black ice waiting to kill somebody when they slipped on you.”

  She flinched at his choice of words.

  “It just … hurt,” Abriella said lamely.

  Tommas nodded. “Your dad?”

  “And Joel a little. My whole family mostly. Everything, Tommy.”

  “I love you, Ella.”

  Abriella glanced down at the floor. “I wanted to choose you.”

  “What?”

  The pain and confusion of the last week and a half locked up in a wing of the Trentini mansion came spilling out of Abriella in a rush of words. She explained what her brother had told her, the options he gave, and what had followed. She told Tommas how she cried, how she felt like she had failed, and the final choice that came at the last moment.

  “I wanted to choose you,” Abriella repeated, “but Joel didn’t give me a choice that would leave me you, Tommy. And then when my dad did, and I realized what he wanted me to do, it was so fucking easy, like breathing. Just pull the trigger and it’ll be done. I got you, and everyone else gets peace. For a split second, it was easy.”

  “But it’s not easy,” Tommas said gently.

  Abriella shook her head. “No.”

  “I’m sorry, baby.”

  “My dad …?”

  Tommas dipped his head down. “Desperate men are dangerous men, Ella.”

  Was that how Tommas had been for all these years?

  Desperate. Craving. Without.

  A pain settled deep in Abriella’s chest. She pressed her hand over her heart, willing it to go away, and needing it to stop.

  “God,” she mumbled, “I don’t want to feel like this.”

  Tommas glanced up as he took a few steps forward, closer to her. “Like what?”

  “Aching in my heart. When I was angry and breaking things, it went away. When I was screaming and crying, I was distracted.”

  “And when you drank a quarter of a bottle of bourbon?”

  “I was numb.”

  Jesus.

  A quarter of a bottle?

  Why wasn’t she still drunk?

  “What time is it?” Abriella asked.

  Tommas frowned. “Five in the morning.”

  Time just slipped through her fingers.

  “When will the police be coming here?”

  “Soon,” Tommas answered. “For your father’s death and your brother’s. For you, however, they’ll need nothing. No one knows you were there. No one will say a thing. It looked pretty clear about what had happened. Your father shot Joel, his fingerprints were all over the gun, his hands were full of gunpowder residue because he fired the weapon at police, and he got himself killed in
a shootout. No one is looking at you.”

  But they should.

  She was guilty.

  “Ella?” Tommas asked.

  She stared up at him, realizing he’d come to stand right in front of her. His hand came up to graze her cheek with the softest touch.

  It was still enough to light a fire on her skin.

  In her soul, she was calmed for a moment. In her heart, she was at home. Only Tommas had ever done that for her.

  “I still hurt,” Abriella told him.

  Tommas nodded. “It’ll get better in a while.”

  “I don’t want to feel like this right now with you.”

  “Then you don’t have to.”

  Abriella didn’t get to ask why or what he meant. Without warning, Abriella found herself wrapped in Tommas’ warm, strong embrace. A blink of time later, and his mouth was crushing down on hers with a wicked intent.

  She wondered if this was the right time.

  Shouldn’t she let herself wallow for what she had done?

  Shouldn’t they …

  Abriella decided she didn’t care when Tommas’ tongue swept the seam of her lips, demanding more. When he wanted something from her, she always gave it to him. Allowing Tommas entrance to the heat of her mouth, he wasted no time claiming it with nips of his teeth to her bottom lip before his tongue tangled with hers. His hand slipped into her hair and grabbed tight at the nape of her neck, holding her in place.

  With every bite of his teeth, she felt better. With every sweep of his lips, she was hotter. With every strike of his tongue, her pain was forgotten.

  “Oh, my God,” Abriella breathed when Tommas began a trek down her neck.

  His lips kissed a burning path over her skin.

  Promising.

  Sweet.

  Need.

  She needed this man.

  Abriella’s head fell back, and her body sang the harder Tommas’ hands held her. He knew what she needed without asking, and he was giving it to her.

  “More,” Abriella demanded, tugging on Tommas’ hair to make him look at her.

  His heated gaze met hers, and in that one second, Abriella was lost and found at the same time. Tommas was capable of making her forget, taking her to the greatest heights, and grounding her with just a look.

  Nothing more.

  “I love you,” Abriella whispered.