Love and Lead

by Coralee June

  "They'll bring you food. We were scattered about all over the city, so it might be an hour. Do you think you can wait? Or do you want me to take you to the convenience store down the street? I would leave you alone, but I don't think I physically can have you out of my eyesight just yet," Blaise said with a frown before reaching his hand up to brush a black strand of hair behind my ear, pausing before his fingers could connect with my body. He snapped his hand back, and I wondered what was stopping him.

  "I–I…" I said before coughing and taking another gulp of water. "That should be fine.” I've been a lot hungrier in my life. I tried to give him a flirtatious smile, but it must not have had the intended effect, because he looked down at the ground and held his head in his hands.

  "I was so fucking worried about you," he said. His voice was muffled as he spoke through the gaps in his fingers. He then looked back up at me. I felt disgusting, covered in my own body fluids, dirt, and blood.

  "I know," I said. What else could I have said? I could see the evidence of his turmoil written all over his face. “Can you help me take a shower?" I asked.

  I wanted to wash off the evidence of my time at Lilly’s mercy and feel human again.

  "Of course," Blaise said before standing up with a jolt. He picked me up, cradling me to his chest once more before fast walking to the bathroom on the other side of the small apartment.

  He practically kicked down the door, and within moments, I was stripped bare, and the water was turned on. Steam filled the room, and he guided me under the jet spray.

  Tears filled my eyes as the water stung the cuts along my wrists and head, but it still felt good to be clean. There was only a single bar of soap in the shower, nothing more, which made me wonder what the purpose of this apartment was. There was no food. No sheets on the bed. For all intents and purposes, it was an empty apartment. Maybe it was just to cover up the scary room that I was being locked in?

  Nevertheless, I didn't think of the origins or age of the bar of soap as I slathered it over my body. Blaise stood outside the shower, keeping his arms held up as if prepared to catch me should I get weak and pass out.

  Once I was done, Blaise shut off the water and wrapped me up in a rough towel that was scratchy to the touch. I put a palm on the fogged up mirror to look at my face. A large bruise was on the right side. It was a dark shade of purple and covered almost the length of my cheek. My lips were cracked and dry. My hair was tangled but clean from my shower. I noticed how pale I looked. There was a haunted look in my eyes as I inspected my battered body.

  Blaise bent down to pick up my soiled clothes, and I grabbed his arm to stop him. He watched curiously as I sifted through them and pulled out the bracelet. “What’s that?” Blaise asked while watching me twist off the ball at the end as Lilly had taught me.

  “The evidence we needed,” I replied while checking to make sure it was still there. “Lilly gave it to me.” I clutched the towel tighter around me before going back into the main room and sitting on the bed. I stared at the SD card for a moment before screwing it back together and placing the jewelry that would change our lives on my wrist. I was sure it would burn my skin, but it didn’t.

  “Why did she lock you up like this? I don’t understand it,” Blaise asked while staring at my face. I wondered if he thought of his mother when he saw my battered skin, swollen and dark.

  “She’s distrusting. I had to earn the evidence, I think. She wasn’t normal. And when I mentioned Alessandro, she slapped me. I think she gave this to me because she wants to save her son, but I don’t know for sure. Either way, she was lethal. Seemed to know everything about everyone. She had me all figured out and was ten steps ahead of us.”

  Blaise let out a puff of air. “I would have killed her. I would have found her and ripped out her throat. Bled her dry.”

  I didn’t want to lose Blaise to the violence. I wanted my sweet, compassionate man back. The one that made me feel like Sunshine. Warmth. Despite the unbearable soreness and exhaustion, I shifted and straddled his lap, sinking my knees into the mattress as I cupped his cheeks with my hands.

  “Blaise Bennett. You found me,” I whispered before kissing his lips. It wasn’t a sweet, soft kiss. It was rough, demanding. It hurt in all the best ways.

  “Blaise Bennett, you always save me,” I whispered over his lips before nuzzling his neck and grinding into his lap.

  “I wish you didn’t need it,” he murmured while running his fingers up and down my spine.

  “I could be safe”— I kissed his collar bone—“at our home.” I kissed his neck and moved the towel to give him more access to me before continuing, “With you rubbing my feet, and I’d still need you. You save me from myself. Save me from my self-destructive thoughts. You find me when I’m lost in my bullshit, Blaise.”

  Blaise groaned before kneading my breasts. He was gentle with me as he moved. “You’re making me hate myself right now, Sunshine. You were captured and tied to a chair, and yet you’re trying to comfort me?” He held me close, the hug we shared feeling like home and everything I needed to feel whole after everything that had happened.

  “Don’t hate yourself,” I whispered. “I need this.” I kissed his lips while running my fingers through his rust-colored hair. I danced my tongue along the seam of his lips while grinding against his lap. Each touch, each kiss, a little piece of me was locked back into place. Soon I wasn’t the girl that battled her demons anymore. I was the girl that loved being in Blaise’s arms.

  The door opened, but I didn’t stop kissing Blaise to see who it was. “Sunshine,” Ryker sighed in relief. I pulled away to give him a dazed smile before Blaise pulled me back into his embrace, peppering kisses along my neck as he hip thrust up, rubbing the tented denim of his pants against my sensitive nub.

  I moaned. “Sunshine? Do you need a doctor?” Ryker asked, his voice tentative as he watched us. I could only moan a simple “no” before wrapping my arms around Blaise’s back and biting his lip.

  “I love you, okay?” I said as he braced both his hands on my hips and locked me into an intense staredown. The door opened again, and the smell of food wafted towards me, making my stomach growl once more.

  “Sunshine?” Callum’s voice said, but still, I kept my eyes on Blaise. He needed this. I once read that it’s impossible to give one hundred percent of yourself to one hundred percent of the people in your life, so you pick the people that need you most. Blaise needed reassurance that I was okay. One heartbeat. Two. I counted the breaths between us and lingered in the adoring look in his eyes before pulling away to greet my other men.

  Gavriel arrived just as I got off of Blaise’s lap. The towel I was using had fallen to the floor, and Gav immediately unbuttoned his shirt, not caring about the scars on his back, to wrap me up in his button down. “Oh Love,” he murmured before walking forward and placing the wrinkled cotton over my shoulders. Ryker stepped beside him and started fastening the buttons for me.

  Callum just stared, taking in every injury, every look. “Sunshine, are you okay?”

  I felt like Gavriel, gritting my teeth at the well-meaning question when all I wanted to do was revel in the feel of my men and remind myself that I would never be alone again.

  “I’m fine.”

  I pulled the bracelet off my wrist and moved from Ryker’s and Gavriel’s intense stares to give it to Callum. “What’s this?” he asked.

  “Proof. I passed Lilly’s test. We’re going to ruin Santobello.”

  Twenty-Four

  The video of Santobello was anticlimactic. Callum slid the SD card into a dated, dusty laptop he bought at a skeevy pawn shop near the apartment Lilly kept me in.

  We decided to stay there for a little bit. Lilly obviously didn’t want Santobello to know where we were, but if she could find us at the hotel, then that meant Santobello could, too. When the screen turned on, the first thing I could see was a dark, unrecognizable room. The camera was at an odd angle, making me wonder if Santobello knew it wa
s there.

  Did Lilly plant it?

  A skinny man covered in colorful tattoos was on his knees on the tile floor. He was sobbing while staring up at Santobello. There was no sound, no warning. Just an explosion of brain and guts before Santobello handed the gun to someone else and wiped his hands with a handkerchief.

  “That’s it?” I asked in disbelief, breaking the silence in the room. Blaise snapped his head to look at me. I guess it was a bit callous of me to brush off the murder I’d just witnessed. Was this who I was now? A girl desensitized by death and destruction? I wasn’t sure if I was stronger for it or weaker.

  “Well. That’s it,” Callum said before standing to reach for the laptop. Ever since I’d told him that a video of my father was included on the drive, he’d been adamant about me not watching it. I didn’t miss the avoidance tactic. Nor did I appreciate it.

  “No. I want to see the video of my father.”

  Once more, the room went deathly silent. I knew they were waiting for someone to speak up and tell me it was a bad idea. It was all still too fresh. I was still recovering. I knew the words they’d spew to try and comfort me.

  But instead, my ever controlling Gavriel shocked me. “Okay. Let’s watch it, Sunshine.”

  I blinked. Was this some sort of test? A challenge to see if I’d follow through on my need to know the kind of monster my father was?

  “Thank you for understanding,” I replied before glancing at Ryker. His mouth was dropped open, and I wanted to close the distance between us and shut it, but I remained in my spot on the couch.

  But when it was time to click on the little file that held all my father’s secrets. I froze. My finger lingered over the mousepad. I knew that just on the other side of a click was a truth I might not be strong enough to handle. My heart was racing. My chest felt like a cave, holding back the fear and anxiety.

  “You don’t have to do this, you know,” Blaise whispered as he placed a hand on my shoulder. I wanted to bark back that I did have to do this. He was wrong. I owed it to myself. Closure was fluid. You never really let go of the things that haunted you. Closure was just a decision. It meant you were determined to push away the demons clawing at your soul whenever they made themselves known.

  I craved knowledge. And more than that, I wanted to analyze my response to my father’s evil. I wanted to know if I was like him—if my heart raced at the sight of his kill.

  But I didn’t say this. I merely replied, “I know I don’t have to, Blaise.” Gavriel was watching me with stoic silence. His hair was still wet as he had just gotten out of the shower, and I breathed in his clean scent, grounding myself at the moment.

  The tiny screen of the laptop was challenging to see, and we had to crowd together on the small couch to make sense of what was on the video. With Blaise on my right and Callum on my left, I pressed play, letting out a shaky exhale when I saw the dark screen. It was the basement. I recognized the concrete floor and the table in the middle of the room. A bright blue tarp was on the floor.

  My father entered the screen wearing a pressed suit. It was one of the suits he wore for campaign events. I recognized it as the same one he wore to the benefit dinner Blaise rescued me from. His greasy hair was slicked to the side, and he pulled up a rolling office chair coated in leather before sitting down.

  One. He’s dead.

  Two. He’s dead.

  Three. He’s dead.

  “Four. He can never hurt you, Sunshine,” Gavriel counted for me, placing a hand on my shoulder. Was I counting out loud? I reached for Joe’s knife. Blaise had brought it with him. I’d left it at the hotel the morning I went to the prison.

  My father reached across to a nearby table for a book, grabbing it with shaky hands. He licked a bead of sweat on his upper lip before opening the book and reading. I recognized the book immediately. The moment his words formed on his lips, I found myself mouthing along. It was something he used to read to me as a child.

  Dante’s Inferno.

  “Through me you pass into the city of woe;

  Through me you pass into eternal pain:

  Through me among the people lost for aye.”

  My father’s voice was powerful and commanding. I leaned forward, speaking the words with him as tears flowed down my cheeks. I could feel his eyes on me, like the ghost of my father was in this very room, watching and blowing cold air down my neck.

  “Justice, the founder of my fabric, moved,” I said with him.

  “To rear me was the task of power divine,

  Supremest wisdom, and primeval love.

  Before me things create were none, save things

  Eternal, and eternal I shall endure.

  All hope abandon, ye who enter here.”

  My father looked up and reached his hand towards the screen, turning off the camera.

  “What the fuck was that?” Blaise asked, jarring me out of my trance. I snapped back, bouncing my spine along the back of the chair.

  “The Divine Comedy. He used to read it to me when I was a child—every night, sometimes making me recite that last line out loud. He stopped though when I got older, and I never understood why. But the words stayed with me.”

  “Fuck, Sunshine,” Ryker said while balling his fists at his side.

  “Why do you think he didn’t wear a mask? Or why did he even make this?” I asked as the screen cut back on, revealing the table in the center of the room where a still body lay. Oh fuck.

  “He thought he was a god. He didn’t think he’d ever be punished for what he did. He’d gotten away with it all. He was cocky,” Callum answered for me. My father entered the room again, this time wearing a jumpsuit made of plastic over his suit and goggles on his face.

  “Into the eternal darkness,” my father began before pulling a sharp knife from the workstation near him.

  “Turn it off,” Callum said, his fingers trembling.

  “No!” I shouted. I needed to see this. Callum had his demons, but he didn’t have to stay and watch.

  My father aimed it at the boy’s chest, dragging it down the center of his torso. “The more a thing is perfect,” he began, quoting Dante once more. “The more it feels pleasure and pain.” He whispered over the body.

  And then the boy woke up.

  His screams blasted through the laptop’s speakers and filled the apartment we were in. It was a bloodcurdling yell that shook each nerve in my body. When I was little, I’d have nightmares about the hell my father used to describe to me in his books. And the sounds coming from this boy were the things of nightmares.

  His blood pooled on the floor, spilling over the table like a river. “Why?” the boy screamed, his voice shaking as he lost consciousness. It wouldn’t be long now.

  My father didn’t reply. He merely stroked the boy’s blond hair, coating each strand with blood. Opening his mouth, he whispered one last quote of Dante’s, making it the last ominous statement the poor boy ever heard.

  “I found myself within a forest dark.”

  My father started cutting through muscle and bone, likely preparing to pull his organs out. But Callum shot up and grabbed the laptop before shutting it off. He pulled the USB drive from it then threw the laptop across the room. It slammed against the wall, breaking into pieces as he charged it and stomped on the remaining parts with his boot.

  “I hate him, I hate him,” he cried over and over, screaming into the room as he sobbed. I stood and wrapped my arms around his waist, resting my cheek against his back as he slowed. I moved with each of his breaths.

  “He’s gone,” I replied.

  “Promise me we’ll share that everywhere,” Callum said to the silent room.

  “Yes,” I replied.

  He then spun around and cradled me to his chest, kissing my forehead as his breathing slowed. “All this time. I studied shit like this, and no one knew. I want the world to know,” he said.

  Gavriel picked up the USB drive from the floor and put it back in the bracelet compartment. “
The world will know,” Gavriel said once more.

  Gavriel pulled the burner phone from his pocket and started dialing a number. “What are you doing?” I asked while spinning around to face him.

  “Hey. It’s Moretti. You tell Santobello I’d like to meet him at Maggiano’s Italian Restaurant tomorrow night; I have something he wants.”

  The person on the other end of the line must have been talking more because Gavriel went silent. My chest felt like Paul Bright had taken one of his campaign signs and was pounding it into my chest, boasting a bright future with each hammering blow into the soil of my soul.

  “I don’t give a fuck. Tell him I saw Lilly.” Gavriel then hung up the phone. I rushed out the breath I was holding. This was real; we were ending this.

  But how?

  “Callum,” Gavriel said before turning to face him. “You still want to do this your way, or are you okay with doing it mine?” Gavriel asked, and I knew what he meant. “We can bring this to the cops. Lock Santobello up for a long time.”

  Callum squeezed me tighter, so tight it made my ribs hurt, and I knew that for sure bruises were forming on my skin. “Let’s kill him. He has too many men in his pocket and a team of lawyers. It’s airtight evidence, but there’s still not a guarantee that he won’t pay a judge to get off. I know the plan all along was to put him away, but I say we tease him with a deal before driving the knife into his chest.”

  I swallowed. “He’s been hiding behind everyone, letting everyone else do his dirty work. What makes you so certain that he’ll even show up?” I asked Gavriel.

  “I have the one bit of evidence that proves he hasn’t always let others do his dirty work,” Gavriel replied with a frown as I pulled away from Callum to go sit on the couch.

  “We’re going to need more men. He’ll come with an army,” Ryker said.

  “I know,” Gavriel replied before pacing the floors and dialing on his phone.