Dangerous Beauty: Part Four: Beautifully Broken

by Michelle Hardin

  This was not his fight.

  It never had been.

  So why was it that he— the one who hadn’t had a choice in the matter— had been the one to suffer the most?

  ~*~

  It was the male figure in the darkness that had caused Anastacia to panic briefly, startled by his presence even though she knew, instinctively, who he was.

  “Cesare!” she shook her sleeping husband as she quickly sat up into seating position on the bed. “Cesare, wake up!” She hit his back once more, this time causing him to stir out of his slumber.

  “What, what, Anastacia!” he grumbled. “Non vedi che sto dormendo, mi amore …”

  She hit him again, harder this time. “Get up!” she yelled.

  “Ana!” he shot up. “What on earth—” Cesare’s words immediately cut off when he spotted the figure too. “What …”

  Quickly, and clumsily, he reached over to his bedside table in search for the lamp, his heart suddenly pounding in his chest. It took him a moment, but eventually, his hand gripped on to the lamps body, then slowly gliding his fingers over it, he found the switch, and flipped it on.

  It was Kyle.

  “Son?”

  He sat in a chair in the middle of their room, at the front end, staring down at his clasped hands, his heel tapping anxiously against the carpeted floor. He was quiet, not even attempting to say a word, but the tension surrounding him, as well as the veins stressing his tensed forehead indicated that something was very wrong.

  Anastacia went to move off of the bed, to run to him to see what it was, but stopped in her tracks, the moment he lifted his eyes—red, strained, and tired—and pinned her with a look that clearly said ‘don’t’.

  “Stay where you are, please,” he slowly raised a hand in her direction. “I don’t want you to get up.”

  Shaking her head at his words, she moved to get up once more.

  “Ana don’t,” he said again, his eyes pleading with her.

  “But Kyle—”

  “Just give me a moment to … do what I need to do, please.” He raised his hand once more, motioning for her to sit back down. “I won’t be long,” he gave a nod of his head, “I promise. Just … give me a second.”

  Anastacia hesitated, hating that her step-son had come into their room at such an hour so obviously distressed, then denied her when she only sought to comfort him, to ask what was wrong. It wasn’t until her husband reached over, taking her hand, and giving a nod of his head, signaling that she should adhere to Kyle’s wishes, that she sat down, and waited for their son to do or say whatever it was that he’d come to.

  It had taken him a few minutes. A few minutes of silently sitting in the chair, staring down at his hands as he fiddled with a black ring on his middle finger nervously, but eventually, he’d stopped. Stopped fiddling with the ring, stopped the nervous tapping of his foot, and he lifted his head, his eyes once again looking between them.

  With a long sigh, and a determined look on his face, Kyle stood up from the seat, reached into his pocket, and brought out something that neither Anastacia nor Cesare could see well enough to identify.

  “I just came here to give you this.”

  Confusion painted on their faces, they watched intently as their son walked forward in their direction, stopped at the head of the bed, and placed a black card that resembled a room key on the top of their comforter.

  Their mouths opened at the same time, most likely to ask the same question, but Kyle didn’t give them a chance. He explained. Told them exactly what the object was. And the words tore through their hearts so rapidly that, for a moment, they hadn’t even known if they’d heard him right.

  “It’s a key,” he said, his voice barely above a whisper. “It’s for the room … where I put Abrielle after she arrived in America earlier tonight. I know that you’ve been looking for her so here,” he motioned toward the key with a nonchalant point of his finger, “you found her—Don’t!”

  It was the first time his son had ever shouted at him. The first time he’d ever used such a tone, or looked at him with such anger in his eyes.

  All Cesare had done was take a step forward, desperately seeking to explain to his son why it was that he’d been so hesitant to tell him the truth.

  “It’s too late.” Kyle shook his head, his voice lowering as his red eyes filled with unshed tears. “Don’t explain anything to me now, Cesare. You had your chance, now it’s too late.”

  “It’s not, son,” Cesare begged, his voice cracking with emotion. “Just let me—”

  “Let you what, Pop?” he asked, a humorless laugh shaking his voice. “Let you tell me that you’re sorry? That you never meant to keep me in the dark? Or perhaps you were just trying to protect me, which actually would have been a good thing had you managed to do it.”

  “I did try!”

  “And you failed!” He shouted, tears now falling from his eyes. “Again …”

  The words rendered Cesare silent, a wave of guilt, grief, and sadness washing over him at the sight of his son’s pain.

  “One promise, Cesare.” Kyle held up one finger. “One thing I asked of you after I forgave you for abandoning me. For forgetting about me …”

  “I never forgot about you …”

  “You did,” Kyle nodded his head. “You forgot because you wanted to.”

  Cesare said nothing.

  “You wanted to forget everything after she left you, am I right?” His brows rose in question. “Forget the life that you had together, and the son … that you were supposed to raise together.”

  Cesare inhaled a deep, shaky breath. “Kyle—”

  “Why would you still want me after that?” Kyle cut him off, ignoring the plea in his eyes as he continued to cut deeply with his words. “I was just a reminder of what you lost, Cesare. A mirror of your pain. Another Stone … And it was too much for you to see me every day, so you threw me away, and went to start a new life elsewhere …”

  “I was—”

  “Coming back for me?” Kyle laughed humorlessly again, even as more tears fell from his eyes. He shook his head. “No you weren’t. You called to check in, but never did you talk to me, never did you even make a trip to see how I was …”

  “Kyle—”

  “For years, Cesare!” he roared. “For years, she tortured me …”

  Cesare flinched, taking a step back from his son.

  “For years she abused me! Broke me— a child— until I was praying every night for her to just fucking kill me. And she did it because of you! And you!” He motioned to Anastacia. “I did nothing,” he yelled at the both of them. “I was just fucking born! But I still forgave you,” he looked back to Cesare. “I forgave you because you were remorseful, because I believed you when you cried to me, when you apologized for abandoning me. And even though I was suffering, even though I was a child, I knew that you were all I had and I needed you … to be my fucking father.”

  “I am your father, Kyle!”

  “But it was guilt that brought me back into your life, guilt that made you remember that I existed, guilt that brought you to my bedside the night Abrielle tried to kill me. Not love!”

  Cesare closed the distance between them and took his son’s face in his hands. “You are my son.” He shook him forcefully. “My son! All of my love belongs to you. My whole heart belongs to my children. How do you not know that? How do you not know that I love you?”

  “I do know,” Kyle whispered, bringing his hands up and placing them on Cesare’s. “Now.”

  He removed Cesare’s hands from his face, then took a step away from him.

  “I know you love me,” he spoke softly, looking into Cesare’s eyes. “And I know you’re sorry.” He nodded. “You’re a good father … Not at first, but you have been ever since you promised me that you would be.”

  Cesare shook his head, but he didn’t say a word. He couldn’t, he didn’t feel as if … he’d deserved to.

  “I’m not angry with you,
papa. Nor am I angry with Ana.” Kyle brought his hand to his heart, swallowing as his eyes filled with more agony then Cesare could bear. “I’m hurt,” he murmured, then he shook his head. “And I don’t think I can move on from this as easily as I did the first time.”

  “Time then?” Cesare asked, willing to do anything to ensure that his son never looked at him the way he was looking at him now again.

  Kyle nodded, running a hand over his face as he looked away from him. “Time.”

  He turned away from Cesare and Anastacia then, walked straight to the door, opened it, and left them in the silence.

  Behind him he could hear Anastacia’s sniffling, and the wiping tears from her eyes, but Cesare couldn’t move. He could only stare at the door that his son had just exited, his words running on an endless loop through his head.

  All that he’d suffered, all that he’d endured as a child because of Cesare and Ana’s actions. And he’d only asked Cesare for one thing when he was but a child, and had finally spoken to him for the first time …

  “Promise that you’ll never let her hurt me again.”

  A promise that he had made to the son that he’d wronged, and he’d broken it. For the moment Abrielle reappeared into Kyle’s life and blindsided him, was the moment she managed to hurt him again after all these years.

  Cesare had failed his son … again. He should have warned him, been honest with him as Anastacia had warned him. But he hadn’t. And now he had no choice but to wait. Wait for his forgiveness, wait to re-earn his trust, and to once again prove to his son that he would never be the man that turned his back on him the way he’d done in the past, ever again …

  “Call Salvado,” Cesare said to his wife as he ran his hand over his face, wiping away tears that he hadn’t even known had fallen. “Tell him to get to America now … I want Abrielle out of this city, and away from my son as soon as possible…”

  Chapter 29 Healing

  Healing.

  To heal.

  There were many definitions of the word itself, but not one of those definitions described how it really … felt. To heal. Not physically, but to heal emotionally. Kyle knew how it felt to physically heal; he’d done that before. But emotionally. That was an entirely new experience.

  It had started immediately after leaving his father’s home. The healing. Kyle had felt it. It was as if for all this time his more emotional wounds had still been raw, uncared for, and neglected, and he himself had been the one responsible for neglecting them. He was responsible for leaving the wounds untended to, and as a result of his failure to care for them properly, they had become infected.

  That infection spread through every area of his life, negatively effecting the way he felt about himself, as well as the many people he’d come in contact with along the way like poison.

  It kept him from fully embracing and accepting his family’s love for a long time. Caused him to act out in his childhood, to push his loved ones away well into his adult years; nearly causing him to lose some of the most important people in his life.

  It kept him from embracing his daughter the first time he’d learned she’d existed. Made him believe he wasn’t capable of doing the one thing that had been the easiest part of raising his little girl. Love her.

  It kept him away from the woman he loved for years. Forbade him to admit he’d wanted her, deserved her, needed her. And enabled him to continuously give himself excuses and justifications for hurting her for far too long.

  This fear. This infection made him deathly afraid to live, to love, to embrace happiness all for fear that something, or someone far more powerful than him would come along one day and take it all away from him.

  It held him back.

  Kept him from reaching his full potential in literally every area of his life. Kept him from being open to his own ideas, to possibly being more, doing more than what was expected of him. It hid away his ambitions, convincing him that his dreams were both impossible and out of his reach, thus damning him to a life of never really becoming who he could be. A life of unhappiness.

  This fear. This … infection.

  Every day, for as long as he could remember Kyle had felt so weighed down, so heavy, like he was carrying around the weight of the world. It was … exhausting. He was tired. Always tired. And trying. Always trying. And so fucking sick. Always so sick and tired, and exhausted; it was an endless loop of madness that he’d never really learned how to get rid of, only to manage. To live with it. To hide it. He never knew he could heal. Never knew it was possible. That was … until he’d met someone who’d done it before.

  Reanna.

  She’d done it. Been through the deepest fiery depths of hell, and still managed to make her way out, all while fighting against the perceptions of the world, and carrying a spoiled little girl on her back. She’d been abused, violated, and used over and over again. She was dragged through the darkest areas of life, and yet, she was still here. And that light, the one on the inside of her, that one that called to the darkness inside of Kyle, beckoning him to her, enticing him with her … hope, her smile, and her ability to just make him feel so free; that light was impossible to snuff. It still burned ever so brightly, guiding her effortlessly, and fearlessly through this dark, twisted world.

  She inspired him.

  Made him want to … try harder. Made him want to be more … made him want to be better. For her. For Sofia. For their future.

  Healing.

  What did it feel like?

  Like running down a road that seemed endless surrounded by nothing, and at the beginning, his body was heavy. Almost too heavy to hold up. And he was tired, struggling, and all he’d wanted to do was give up, then all of a sudden … he felt a bit lighter. That was what had kept him moving forward. It had been a process, one that took time, and effort, but after so long of feeling so tired, and weighed down, Kyle felt free.

  He was running.

  Running down that endless road, but he felt weightless now, like shit just … fell off of him with every step he took. He was no longer surrounded by nothing; he was running down a road that was endless, surrounded by endless possibilities.

  Love, family, life... everything seemed so together now. Like he was headed in the right direction, like he was exactly where he was supposed to be. He could breathe. He could …breathe. Breathing had even been hard for him in the past, but no more.

  Things may not have ended all well and good, and his life was not perfect, especially with what was going on between himself and his parents. But Kyle was not, nor had he ever been looking for perfection. Perfection in terms of one’s life was an illusion, a delusion, that Kyle had no time to entertain. Real perfection, in its truest and most beautiful forms, was flawed. Flawed and honest.

  That was Kyle’s life now that he’d finally begun to truly embrace it.

  Perfection in its truest form.

  Flawed, difficult at times, but honest.

  Real.

  Filled with real love, a real family, and any difficulty or pain that came along with that was only temporary. It would pass. And when it did, his family, and the love that they shared would be stronger for it.

  That was what Kyle believed now. It was what he’d learned from the moment he’d first become a part of his family, to this moment when he stood on the balcony of his home, where his little family lay inside sleeping soundly, a new man … A man free.

  And for the first time in his life he could truly, and honestly say that even with all of the, at times, unbearable hell that he’d endured throughout his life thus far. If he had to, he’d do it again. All over again, if it brought him back here. To this city, with this life. If it brought him back to his father, and Anastacia. If it still gave him his brothers, and Carterina. If it gave him his godsons, and sweet little goddaughter.

  If it gave him his daughter … His sweet little angel that had not only managed to change him, but save his life in a way that no one had ever been able to before she came into
this world.

  And lastly, but never least, his Reanna.

  The love of his life. The mother of his daughter, and— if God had a sense of humor— many daughters to come.

  For so long, he’d been roaming around, thinking that he hadn’t had a heart for love, for romance. Little had he known a little woman had been roaming the world high and low, carrying it around in her pocket. Just waiting for him to find her.

  And Kyle had been an idiot at first, yes. But fate was fate, and no matter how powerful a man he was, Kyle couldn’t fuck with fate.

  Reanna changed him in a way that no human being could before her. She opened his eyes to a whole new world of possibilities, and Kyle wanted to explore. He was finally ready to.

  He was ready.

  Smiling at the start of the sunrise, Kyle stood up from the railing where he’d been leaning as he watched the start of the new day.

  Today was going to be a good one. That he could feel.

  Turning away from the rising sun, Kyle headed back into his home, closing the sliding glass behind him. He was finally ready to get some rest, and he planned on getting plenty today. Journeying through his quiet house, and feeling so peaceful, Kyle made his way to his daughter’s bedroom. He just felt like spending the day with his family. No work, no school, just the three of them celebrating the new chapter of their lives by spending the day together. And though he really hated to disturb her, Kyle was a selfish bastard. He wanted to sleep in the bed with both of his girls today. Keep them close to him.

  Opening the door, he smiled; once again the shapes from her night light spilled out into the dark hallway, twirling around in a circle at his feet. When he entered the bedroom, he couldn’t help but admire how peacefully she slept. She was an angel. His beautiful little Lady bug.

  Making his way to Sofia’s bed, Kyle pulled her comforter back, and picked her up, bringing her into his arms. He apologized when she whined a bit, then chuckled softly when she fell back to sleep moments later, resting her head on his shoulder as she did.