Dark Illusion

by Daniels, A. J.

  We trade blow for blow. Blood drips from my nose, bruises form already on his face, both of our knuckles are bloody and cut up, but neither one of us would be the first to back down. It isn’t a matter of being too prideful to back away. It is a matter of a messed-up sense of tradition. As boys, when it came to blows between us, neither of us would back down until we knocked each other out, or our fathers ripped us apart. It seems nothing has changed. We are just older, and the hits hurt a fuck-ton more.

  Just as I’m about to deliver another punch to Braxton’s gut, I’m yanked back. The collar of my shirt tightens with the hulk-like grip.

  “There are women and children just on the other side of that wall. Do you think they can’t hear you fighting? Pull it together,” Alessandro demands, pinning my back to the wall.

  “How long were you planning on hiding this secret?” Braxton spits.

  I feel a small twinge of satisfaction when I notice the slightly pink tint to it. I struggle to get free, but Alex is a big motherfucker. He might not be much taller than me, but he has at least sixty pounds on me. They don’t call him hulk for nothing.

  “Let him go, Alessandro.” Braxton swipes a hand over his bloody lip.

  When Alessandro takes a step back, releasing me, I right my shirt and move toward the door. I need to get out of here while I can still walk. I’m not stupid enough to keep pushing Braxton but if I stay, with both of our tempers sizzling at the surface, I’m afraid it won’t stop at a couple of fist throws.

  “Give me twenty-four hours to get my affairs in order then you know where to find me.”

  I leave before I can see the confirmation in my best friend’s eyes. Fitting that the person I once trusted with my life above anyone else, will be the one who will end it.

  I take the long way home tonight and by long way, I mean a big detour to Niagara Falls. I stop at one of the hotels directly across from the Falls and sit facing the rushing water with a beer in my hand. I wonder how everyone could keep going about their lives while mine is coming to an end.

  Don’t they know that in a little less than twenty-four hours my best friend since childhood is going to end my life? Don’t they know that I failed not only my family, but the man I love? I’m convinced this is part of some sick plan the universe had been concocting for years. Make me fall in love after twenty years of hiding who I am, only to have it all slip through the cracks of my fingers.

  I wait in that bar until night descends, ignoring the buzzing of my phone. Once the Falls are lit up in shades of green and blue, I make my way outside and over to the railing separating the sidewalk from the drop to the bottom of the Falls.

  Gripping the metal pole, I lean over just enough to see the lake at the bottom. Briefly wondering if it will be less painful to jump to my death. There are stories of people attempting to successfully jump the Falls, only to never resurface. Hell, people have been crazy enough to go over in wooden barrels. I’m not a coward though, I’ll face whatever Braxton has planned for me with dignity.

  I have to laugh at the irony, of considering suicide by water. My life started that day on the beach in Caye Caulker when I met Kai. It didn’t escape my notice that I was contemplating ending it the same way. The only difference? Kai was there the day it started, but I don’t want his memories of me to be tainted, whether I decide to jump or not. I know half of the messages plaguing my phone are from him, but I already said goodbye to him before, I’m not going to do it again.

  Dropping my head, I stuff my hands in the front pockets of my jeans and turn away from the rushing water. Who am I kidding? If tonight is all I have left, I can think of no better way to spend it than wrapped in Kai’s arms.

  ***

  Kai

  As soon as I opened the door to a completely drenched, somber looking Toni. I knew. Don’t ask me how I did. You spend time with someone long enough, you get to learn their habits, their moods, get to learn how to read them. And right now, everything I’ve learnt about Antonio Moretti over the last few months are pointing to the fact that Braxton just found out his childhood best friend, his consigliere in the Famiglia has not only been hiding a secret for the majority of his life, but that secret has gotten lesser men killed. Hell, their fathers were the ones dolling out death sentences to anyone in the Famiglia who didn’t conform, including but not limited to their sexual orientation.

  Antonio follows me into the kitchen. The air around us thick with tension. Words left unspoken hanging between us like a lifeline. They aren’t needed though. We both knew this day was going to be here sooner or later. We just never thought it would be here this soon. After rummaging around the nearly full liquor cabinet, I screw off the top of the bottle and pour us each five shots.

  “That shit’s disgusting,” he grimaces, and I laugh, taking my second shot of Mezcal.

  “It is. But not all of us can afford to keep our liquor cabinets stocked with Patron or whatever expensive shit you rich boys drink.”

  “At least that shit goes down smooth.”

  His words say one thing, but Antonio has already downed all five of his shots before I’m picking up my fourth. I move to pour us another round, but his hand hovering over the shot glasses prevents me.

  “No,” he says, slipping the bottle from my hand and placing it back on the counter. “I want to remember tonight.” He grips my chin between his thumb and forefinger, forcing my eyes to meet his. “If this is my last night with you, I want to remember everything.”

  “Toni.”

  That’s as far as I get before his lips descend onto mine. His tongue runs along the seam of my lips, coaxing me to open for him. His steel grip around the nape of my head, holding me in place as I willingly give him everything I have.

  This man came rushing into my life like a giant wave crashing into the shore, threatening to drown an entire city. Except, I was the city in danger of drowning in him. He might have been the one to be physically knocked on his ass that day, but it was me who had the wind knocked out of him. I used to pride myself on the fact that I had my whole life planned out. Caye Caulker was not planned. It was the one time I allowed myself to deviate from my grand plan, and I don’t regret a second of it because it gave me Antonio. Not when everything to do with the plan went to hell after that, not when I suddenly found myself up shit’s creek without a paddle.

  When I returned after those two weeks in Belize, suddenly the life I wanted, the life I spent years meticulously planning, didn’t sound so appealing. Suddenly, I didn’t want any of it. The only thing I wanted was to be wherever Antonio was. Even back then, without being fully conscious of it, I knew there was another, darker part of him. But I didn’t care. I’d take him all cleaned up and put together. I’d take him rough and tumble. I’d even take him when he comes home after a night of helping Braxton do whatever Braxton’s does, with blood on his hands and his clothes, his hair all mussed. My favorite was him naked.

  What I wouldn’t take was him dead. Antonio flipped my world on its head, and I’ll be damned if our story ends after tonight. There was still a lifetime worth of things I don’t know about him and I am determined to find them out.

  “You’re not allowed to die before me. Before we’re old and gray and have two-point-five grandkids,” I whisper as he nips and sucks down my neck.

  “What?” His head snaps up, almost hitting me square in the nose.

  “You heard me,” I say, running my palms down the front of his shirt. “You’re not allowed to die before me. Not before we get the happy ever after.”

  “Kai…”

  “No.” I press a finger to his lips. “No more talking.” Gripping his hand in mine I lead him back through the kitchen and down the hall to the master bedroom. If only I had taken the time to really hammer home how I feel about him because neither one of us is prepared for what’s about to happen next.

  Kai

  YOU’RE REGRET WHAT you did

  I’m expecting a text message from Toni, so when a message comes through f
rom an unknown number it takes me by surprise so much so that the content of the message doesn’t register at first. Nobody outside of Toni, my three best friends, and human resources at Luca Enterprises has this number.

  My blood runs cold when the text finally registers. You’ll regret what you did.

  Trick.

  There’s a lot of shit I regret in my past, all of which are related to him, but testifying against him is not something I regret doing. No, the thing I regret most is trusting the justice system to keep him behind bars.

  When I told Toni about Trick, he offered to order a hit on the guy in prison. I didn’t have the stomach to tell him that he had actually been released earlier that week. I know now that I probably should have but he already had so much on his mind with Braxton possibly discovering his secret and finding out about us. I couldn’t bring myself to add to his list of problems. That was over three months ago. Throughout that time, there hasn’t been any word from Trick, so why now?

  “Babe, you home?” I call out, closing the condo door behind me and dropping my keys next to the pile of unopened mail.

  “Oh, I could get to use to that greeting.”

  My hand pauses over where I just dropped my keys at the sound of the familiar voice that still haunts my dreams most nights.

  “You look good, Kai,” the voice says from directly behind me now, warm breath fanning my neck. “And that ass…” he makes an appreciative sound, but when I move away from him, he grabs me by my shoulders and slams me up against the wall, my cheek pressed against the painted surface. “You have a mighty fine place here.”

  “What do you want Trick? How did you even get up here?” Toni’s floor is supposed to be inaccessible to anyone without a key card. I struggle against his hold, attempting to push back, but Trick holds me in place with his arm pressed against the back of my neck.

  “You’ll know in good time. Right now, just you knowing that I can get to you no matter where you are, is enough. Your boyfriend won’t be able to protect you forever.”

  Trick shoves me into the wall hard one last time before releasing me and stepping back.

  “The next time I return for you, Kai, you’ll come willingly, or the world will know the truth about Antonio Moretti and Braxton De Luca.” With that last statement, the door clicks shut behind him and I’m left alone in the empty condo.

  Swallowing against the bile threatening its way up my throat, I push all emotions aside and start filling a duffle bag with clothes. Trick is right. If he can get access to Toni’s floor in a high security building, who knows what else he could gain access to. I am not about to put Toni’s life in any more danger than it already is. When Trick comes back, and I have no doubt that he will, I won’t be anywhere near Toni.

  My only hope is that Toni isn’t able to see through the bullshit I’m about to feed him. And in order to do that, I need to go back on my word and make it feel real.

  ***

  Antonio

  Home at last. The day felt like it dragged on and on, and no matter how hard I tried to avoid him, Reese was everywhere. I’m running out of patience and ways to tell him I’m neither interested in him, nor will I ever be.

  “Babe?” I call out for Kai but silence greets me. “Kai?” I hedge when I walk farther into the condo and see him sitting on the sofa with a glass of whiskey in his hand.

  He continues staring straight ahead taking sips from the tumbler. It’s not until I walk in front of him do I see the faraway look in his eyes. “Babe, you okay?” I ask, fearing that something may have happened. He never showed up at the office today and I found out from Lauren later that he had called in sick. In three months of working at Luca Enterprises, Kai has never called in sick. While doing reference checks, Lauren said even his previous employer said Kai never called in sick the few years he was there.

  “I’m leaving, Toni.”

  “Okay, give me a minute to pack an overnight bag and we’ll head to your house,” I say but stop when Kai shakes his head, standing up from the sofa.

  “No. I’m leaving, Toni. I’m leaving you.”

  I still, not wanting to believe the words coming from his mouth. “What?”

  Kai sighs, placing his glass on the coffee table before turning pained eyes on me. “Choose me and I’ll stay. Choose me over Braxton and I’ll stay, Toni.”

  “Please don’t make me choose. Not like this,” I beg, refusing to believe this is how we end after so many months. But I am naïve, aren’t I? Three months of sneaking around with a man, believing I could have it all and it is crumbling right in front of my face.

  Kai drops his head, averting his gaze and in a voice barely above a whisper, he replies, “I think you just did.”

  “Kai,”

  “No,” he shakes his head. “I love you, Toni. I always will but I can’t be your secret anymore. I want to walk down the street and hold your hand. I want to stop by your office in the middle of the afternoon to see how your day is going. I want to kiss you at the end of a long day. I know you won’t ever be able to tell me everything you do for Braxton, but I want to be there for you. I want what we had in Belize. I want to marry you, raise a family, and grow old with you.”

  “You knew this was how things had to be going into it. So, what? Are you telling me that it’s either my lifelong friendship with Braxton and duty to the Famiglia, or you?”

  “That’s what you got from everything I said?”

  It’s not. I heard his declaration of love, but I can’t focus on that right now. I’m already teetering on the edge of saying fuck it and abandoning Braxton, of giving it all up for this man. If I allow myself to focus on those three words, it would all be over.

  “Then tell me what the fuck you want, Kai? What do you want?”

  He runs his hands through his hair and my fingers twitch with the need to feel the silky strands. “Answer me this, if Klara or Jessika called their husbands, would Braxton and Alessandro drop everything for them?”

  I snort, “Of course they would.”

  “Would you go running if Siobhan called and needed your help?”

  “She’s a friend so, yes, I would.” I already have, I think. He was the one who told me to go find her.

  “Would you do the same for me?”

  And that’s when it hits me. The hurt swimming behind Kai’s eyes tells me exactly what his words don’t. He doesn’t want me to choose my family over him. He just needs to know that if he needs me, I’d drop everything for him. That he is just as important -- or more so -- than my family. He wants all of me, not just the parts I chose to show him when we are hidden away in Belize or my condo, or at his house in Hamilton.

  “Can you give me that, Toni?”

  “I-” for fuck sakes, Antonio, just say yes. Yes, I can give him that. Fuck, I’ll give him anything he wants as long as he never leaves me. I’ll give him the fucking world. But I don’t say any of it. My mouth opens and closes to form the words, but no sound comes out.

  “Antonio?”

  His eyes plead with me, but all I can do is stare at him. My body is rooted to the chair.

  “Got it,” he says, pivoting on his heels and heading for the door.

  The sight of him walking away from me finally has my body kicking into gear. Jumping up from the recliner, I race to catch up to him. Gripping his arm and halting his movements before he can twist open the door.

  Pushing him up against the door, I crowd in behind him, pinning his body with mine.

  “I’m sorry,” I whisper, my lips brushing against the skin of his neck with each word. “I’m sorry,” I repeat with an open-mouthed kiss to the curve of his shoulder. “I’m sorry.” Fingers curl around his hips, pulling him against my pelvis.

  “Toni,” he moans, and I know I have him. He won’t leave me, not tonight.

  Spinning him around, I push him back against the door, cup his face in my palms and kiss him. Kai resists at first, his lips refusing to part for me, but when one of my hands finds the bulge in his
pants and begins rubbing him through the denim, the gasp he lets out is all I need to claim his mouth.

  Kai moans when my tongue wraps around his. His fingers fist the front of my shirt and for a second, I think he’s actually going to push me away and end this, but he doesn’t. Kai pulls me in, crushing our chests together, our breaths work in tandem with each other. When he inhales, I exhale. When he exhales, I inhale.

  I don’t know how long passes with us standing at my front door, foreheads pressed together, lips inches apart, breathing each other in, but neither of us says a word. Neither one moves. I’m afraid that if I do or say the wrong thing, he’ll turn around and stride right out that door and this time he won’t be coming back. I close my eyes and swallow hard. If that were to happen, I’d gladly take death at the hands of the Famiglia because I can’t image a day I’d have to life without Kai.

  But you run the risk of that anyway, the voice in my head reminds me.

  My grip around Kai’s hips tightens as I drag him closer. I need to have him in my arms. I didn’t care either way if we do or don’t have sex tonight, I just need him. Just for tonight. Because I’m going to lose him no matter what I decide.

  Kai must sense my inner turmoil because he takes my hand in his. “Come on.” And leads us back toward the master bedroom.

  “We don’t-”

  “I know,” he cuts me off. I shiver when he slides his hands under my shirt and presses his palms against my chest. The thin material follows as his hands glide up my pecs, then he’s pulling my shirt off.

  He reaches for my belt buckle next, then the buttons of my jeans. I moan when the tips of his fingers brush against my hips as they curl around the waistband of the denim to slide them down and off.

  Leaving my boxer briefs on, Kai moves and begins turning down the bed. Not like there’s much to turn down since I never did make the bed this morning.

  Stepping up behind him my hands find his hips again, pulling him back into me. This seems to be my favorite position with him. His ass pressed against my front. I know I said I’d be okay with not having sex tonight, but the sight of him in those ass-hugging jeans and bent over my bed has my cock standing up and taking notice.