by Blaire Drake
I followed Adriana up the rickety stairs, wincing every time my feet clanged against the metal steps. The sound seemed to ring out through the night, and the lights flickered furiously every time I stepped.
“Honestly, darling,” Adriana snarked at me. “Can't you even walk up the stairs without destroying the place?”
“Of course I can, sugar bum,” I shot right back at her, joining her on the small platform outside the doors. “But it's so much fun to annoy you like that.”
The ire that spits at me from her gaze is almost combustible. “Don't be a dick, Cacciatore.” She softens with the use of my nickname.
It rolls off her tongue smoothly, but it holds the heat of molten lava sliding down the side of a volcano, waiting for the final eruption.
I closed the distance between our bodies and drop the bags to pull her close. She sighed as her breasts pressed into my chest, but her lips quirked on one side. I looked down at her bright blue eyes, the fiery ire now a mere simmer. “Mi dispiace, Principessa,” I murmured, dipping my face and brushing my lips across hers.
“Mmmm.” She hummed into my mouth when I flicked my tongue across her seam of her mouth. “I'm sure you are sorry.”
“Yes. I am.” I plucked the key card from between her fingers and slotted it into the door. The light didn't blink green, so I did again, and again. Finally, on the fifth fucking attempt, it changed and the lock clicked. “Your boudoir, m'lady.”
“It's so hot when an Italian American speaks French and old English to you.” She rolled her eyes and looked through the door. “Well. It could be worse.”
“There's the optimistic Adriana I know.”
“You're so sarcastic tonight.”
“From you?” She quirked a brow before walking into it. “Smells kinda stale though.”
I half-nodded in agreement. “Just spray some of your perfume around.”
“Hunter, we're on the run. Why would I have perfume?”
“Because you bought some at the store yesterday morning.” I laughed and pushed her inside, then grabbed the bags. Pick up, put down, pick up, put down. It's all I was doing. “Yeah, I saw you take a bottle from the saleswoman.”
She sniffed in annoyance. “Well, I have to smell nice.”
“You're on the run. Why do you need to smell nice?”
“Do you need to throw everything back at me all the time?” She glared and dropped herself on the bed. She bounced and wrinkled up her nose. “This is hard.”
I closed the door behind me and nudged a backpack out of the way with my foot. “I thought you liked it hard.”
Her glare got colder. “And we're back to asshole mode.”
I rolled my eyes as she pulled a phone out of the bag she had sitting in front of her on the bed. It was a disposable one, but not in the box, and my jaw twitched. I didn't say anything as she hit the buttons, one after another.
Then she held it to her ear.
“What are you doing?”
She peered over at me through a thin curtain of dark hair. “Calling Gaige to let him know you didn't kill me yet.”
“Hilarious. You can't—”
“Hey!” she said, her voice suddenly lighter as she cut me off. “No, I'm good. How are you?”
“Whatever,” I muttered. “I'm going to shower.” And this time, it wasn't to jerk off.
Her laughter rang out through the room as I shut the bathroom door, pushed the lock, and turned to the shower. I didn't know what it was about Gaige—in fact, I didn't know a whole lot about their relationship other than it was strictly platonic by her insistence. But I did know that when she spoke about him, she smiled a lot, and whenever she spoke to him, she laughed a lot.
She didn't smile or laugh that much with me.
I got into the shower and let the warm water run over me. It didn't seem to be getting hotter, and any shower was better than no shower. I dropped my head and let the gentle spray hit the back of my neck. It took a few minutes to be effective, but when it did, I felt a little of the tension of the last few days leave me.
Shame it wasn't enough.
I stepped out the shower, pushing that fucking Californian assfuck out of my head, and dried myself with the hard, scratchy towel. Jesus. This place is a dump. I rubbed it over my head before wrapping it around my waist and securing it.
Adriana was sitting on the bed looking out of the window when I went in. She didn't turn to face me, but I noticed her death-grip on the phone in her lap. Her knuckles were bright white, and her jaw trembled lightly.
I crossed the room and pulled a new pair of boxers from a bag and then looked at her. Her jaw wasn't just trembling—it was clenched, too, and it looked like her eyes were damp.
“Addy?” I asked softly when she didn't acknowledge me. I pulled on some clean jeans and buttoned them up. “Hey—what's wrong?”
Her throat bobbed as she swallowed, and an unsettling ache formed in my stomach. I'd seen her cry before, but this looked like she was doing her best to hold back whatever pain she was feeling.
“Why did you lie to me?” she whispered after a moment of silence, looking up. Before I could respond she stood and came to me. “Why. Did. You. Lie?”
That ache in my stomach dropped so fast it physically hurt. “You're gonna have to give me more than that, Addy.”
“My name is Adriana!” Her voice cracked halfway through, and she shoved at my chest. The tears that had been glimmering in her eyes now spilled over, and one trailed down her cheek. She wiped at it furiously. “Darien! Why did you lie to me, Carlo? He's not alive! He's dead!”
I wished I had an answer for her.
“Yeah? You think you could hide it? Gaige just told me!” She laughed bitterly and swiped under her eyes futilely. The tears were falling faster than she could wipe them. “I asked him if he'd heard from Darien and he told me. Told me Darien died. One of Enzio's little minions got him. And you knew! I know you did! Didn't you? Answer me, damn it!”
I took a slow, deep breath, and nodded my head once.
In her eyes, I saw her heart shatter.
Chapter Twenty-One – Adriana
The pain—oh, God.
It was like a disease, the way it filtered through my veins, slowly poisoning me with its truth.
I couldn't breathe as it took hold of me, threatening to paralyze me with its strength. I didn't know how to process the information Gaige had told me.
That he hadn't heard from Darien since the day before the shooting. Because Darien hadn't survived.
He hadn't even died quickly.
His wounds weren't necessary immediately fatal. But no one got there quick enough, and he thinks that Isaiah—the cowardly piece of shit—ran.
Cowardly.
Just like Hunter.
Because he couldn't tell me the truth.
Because he flat out lied.
My heart ached unlike anything I'd ever felt. It was lightning bolt after lightning bolt of raw pain that lit me on fire in the worst way.
“Answer me!” I demanded Hunter, my eyes burning with tears.
Slowly, he nodded.
Yes.
He knew. He lied. He didn't tell me.
“Adriana...” He reached for me.
I stepped back and threw my hands in the air. “Don't touch me. Don't fucking touch me, Carlo!”
He dropped his hands. “Sorry.”
“Sorry?” I gave up trying to wipe my tears away. “You're sorry? Sorry you lied to me and told me the closest man I've had to a father, the man who saved my sorry fucking life ten years ago, was alive, when he isn't? Do you have any idea how I feel right now? Do you? Do you?”
“No,” he said slowly. “I don't.”
“You wanna know what sorry is?” I narrowed my eyes and put every ounce of anger I had in my body behind my stare. I thought I needed to hurt him before—I was wrong. I didn’t. This was a need to hurt him; the ice-cold hatred that froze its way around my heart was the need to hurt him.
The w
orst part was, I knew what I was about to say was completely true.
“I'm sorry you ever came to California. I'm sorry you didn't pull the fucking trigger. I'm sorry I ever saw your goddamn face again.” I shoved him out of the way and grabbed the backpack containing my things.
“What are you doing?” He tried to grab the bag from me, but I swung it at him and hit him in the side.
“Leaving,” I snapped. My tears were still burning hot trails down my cheeks, but I was kind of numb to it. So many had fallen in such a short space of time that it didn't feel out of place anymore.
“You can't leave, Adriana! Jesus. It's not safe—”
“Because someone might kill me, yeah? Because I can't survive without you, right?” I spun on the balls of my feet and met his gorgeous, pained, silver eyes. “Because here's the thing, Carlo: I was doing just fine until you showed up. I wasn't in danger, no one was trying to kill me, and I was surviving perfectly okay. Until you. You.”
He froze at my words. They hung in the air like a thick storm cloud, and the tension that clung to them was the thunder and lightning, ready to break free from behind it.
Carlo stared at me like they were the last words he’d ever expected me to say. I saw the exact moment they hit home, because his soul, his black, dark, twisted, fucked up soul shone in his eyes. Just for a tiny moment, there was something other than the guilt and regret he carried like a cloak.
There was a flicker of white hot pain.
I wanted it to burn.
Consume him.
Destroy him.
There was no doubt in my mind that his lie had destroyed me.
I pushed past him toward the door, and he grabbed me. He was quicker than me, and stronger, even when I beat at his chest with my fists.
I needed him away from me.
I didn’t want him touching me.
His touch burned my skin.
It hurt.
A scratchy yell ripped from my throat, and strength I didn’t know I had made me propel him away from me. He staggered back several steps, putting a few feet between us, and I took my chance.
I grabbed the door handle and tugged it open. I slammed it behind me as I ran out of the room. The need to be away from him was greater than my need for safety, because in my head, he was danger. He’d brought this.
I was scared. I was hurting.
No.
I was terrified. I was heartbroken.
And I didn’t know which pain went up and which fear went down. Or whatever was happening. I just knew my stomach clenched in agony and my heart ached so hard that each beat it forced itself through was a tiring slog.
The sound of the door echoed, even as my feet rattled against the metal steps that suddenly felt all too loose beneath my feet. I gripped the handrail tightly as I ran down to the bottom floor, the keys securely in my bag.
I knew because I’d seen him tuck them in there earlier when he dumped everything.
I fumbled in the front pocket of the rucksack and pulled them out. They clinked as I struggled to grab the key fob and hit the button, but thankfully, I did it. The headlights on the car flashed as it unlocked, glaring brightly at me, and I ran across the lot to where he’d parked it.
I yanked open the door, my heart pounding painfully in my chest, and threw the bag on the passenger seat. A handful of things spilled out onto the floor as it fell over, but I ignored them as I slammed the door behind me and put the vehicle into drive.
That was what I needed to do.
Drive.
I didn’t care where. I didn’t care how long it took. I just needed to go, leave, get the hell away from this fucking stupid motel with that stupid fucking guy who’d just broken my heart in so many ways I didn’t know how it could ever be whole again.
Tears blurred my vision as I reversed out of the parking spot and looked around for my escape. Left. It was left. That was the way out.
I turned the steering wheel and drove left. The lights in this place were bad, and my blurry sight didn’t help me as I attempted to navigate my way out of the lot. I was so emotional I felt more than a little out of sorts—I almost felt drunk. Adrenaline and sadness and pure shock filtered through my body over and over until nothing I saw made sense.
Darien was dead. Hunter had lied.
Nothing made sense.
Everything was falling apart.
The wounds from Mamma’s death were still so raw, but with Gaige’s words tonight, they’d been ripped right back open. They were bleeding… I could feel them. Bleeding all over me.
I pulled over at the side of the road. It was dark, completely unlit, and I had no idea where it was. Where I was. I could have crossed the state line for all I knew. My phone was ringing, and when I picked it up, I had thirteen missed calls. Twelve from Hunter and one from Gaige.
How long had I been driving? How numb was I? That’s what I was. Never mind that my shirt felt damp from my tears, the same ones that were still slowly trickling down my cheeks.
Pain.
It was everywhere.
Sadness.
It was consuming.
Loss… It wasn’t a strong enough word. Four tiny letters.
My quiet laugh was drenched in bitterness. Four tiny letters… They were so ridiculous, weren’t they? Letters. They were nothing when they stood alone, yet when they were put together, they had power. Destructive, life-changing power.
Love.
That was one of them. Alone, l, o, v, and e were simple. They were meaningless little things, but together? They could make you or break you.
Dead.
That was another. So much power in something so small.
Liar.
Maybe the most devastating of all three words.
In the last twenty-four hours, I’d been face to face with all three of these things. And they’d all in come in the form of one person.
The ink that stained his skin on his upper arm had never been more accurate. Angelo della morte. Angel of death. After all, he was sent to kill me, and he had. Just not in the way he’d originally planned.
He’d killed me in a far worse way, because this was the kind of heartache I would have to live with. There would be no escaping this.
Everything I’d ever been taught about the mafia had been proven.
Trust no one.
People will hurt you to help themselves.
Blood doesn’t lie.
I was alone. I had no one.
If I wanted to carry on with this, I had to do it myself.
I wiped my eyes with the heels of my hands and then pinched the bridge of my nose. I took several deep breaths in quick succession and tried to get my emotions under control. They were still running rampant through my body, but they slowly became manageable.
“Okay,” I said out loud. “Come on, Adriana. Pull yourself together.”
Which was easier said than done, given that I had no idea where I was, for a start. Looking around didn’t help me either. It really was pitch black—
Headlights illuminated the road, and I took my chance. I saw nothing but bushes and trees. Shit. That gave me nothing. I could have been anywhere from the local playground to a national fucking park.
I could have been in Canada for all I knew.
The car pulled up behind me, and instinctively, I hit the lock for the car. I hoped whoever was driving the one behind me wasn’t going to stop—but if they did, I’d say that the recovery vehicle was on its way. Yep. That was the plan.
Don’t open the door. Don’t unroll the windows.
Of course, driving away would make more sense than staying here like a sitting duck.
They stopped.
I froze in my seat. I should have put the car into drive and gone away, and done it quickly, but I didn't. I was still too paralyzed by Hunter's betrayal, and I wasn't entirely sure that Darien's death had sunk in yet. A piece of my soul felt numb, like it was defiantly refusing to admit that he was gone.
Just like my hea
rt.
No part of me wanted to admit it.
Something knocked against the trunk, and I inhaled sharply. I stared at the keys—I should have turned them. I knew that. But I didn't. Still didn't. Couldn't.
I held my breath as a face appeared in the passenger side window. I fought to stay looking forward, even when the person there knocked, but curiosity got the better of me and I turned my face.
Isaiah.
The look in his eye was... terrifying. It was a glinting mixture of satisfaction and anticipation that leered at me. My skin crawled as I froze under his gaze. I didn't know how'd found me, but my gut coiled in realization.
He wasn't here to help. He never was. I was right not to trust him.
Except he didn't look like he wanted to kill me. I wasn't exactly a mind reader, but it wasn't hard to tell what he wanted. For the first time, I doubted my father—who wanted to sell me? Did his most trusted friend have an input?
Because that was how I felt. It was part Isaiah. The lustful wave that flowed over his expression as I gripped the steering wheel gave it away.
“Adriana.” He knocked on the window. “Are you okay?”
“I'm fine.” My words came out much stronger than I felt inside. “I just got lost on the way to the store.”
“Ah. Can you roll down the window so I don't have to yell at you?”
“No.” It came out a little shrill. “I mean, no. It's okay. My phone is loading up the GPS.”
“Where is it?”
I looked around. Shit. “It must have fallen on the floor,” I lied. I leaned forward in an attempt to make him believe I was telling the truth and looking for my phone. I wouldn't find it, of course, but my lungs constricted in fear as I blindly fumbled around on the dark floor. “Maybe I put it back in my—”
I stilled as the hazy orange glow from his headlights behind me illuminated the gun he had pressed against the window. I swallowed hard, but my mouth was dry, so all I did was make myself cough.
“You know what'll happen if I pull this trigger, Adriana?” Isaiah shouted through the window, his tone deathly threatening. “This window will shatter into a million pieces. If the first bullet I put into your head doesn't kill you, the second one will.”
