Anguish

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Anguish Page 37

by Elizabeth Knox


  "I miss my old life, Duncan. This child would be safe and happy there. I wish we could go back," she cries, falling into my lap. And I stroke her hair until she falls asleep.

  I know that I am going to have to do something big to save this, I just do not know what.

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Willow

  My legs shake involuntarily out of nerves as I wait to be called back into the office. I have come to the clinic, intending on ending this pregnancy. Not because I have never wanted a child or because there is a problem in having a child with Duncan, but because I cannot force another Adame to come into this world; the mafia world. I just cannot do that to a sweet, innocent child.

  Some of my men are stationed outside the building to be sure I am safe, but I insisted on doing this alone. Even Duncan is not here. I told him that this was my decision, and I would make it if and when the time came. He doesn’t know today is the day, but I will tell him when it’s done.

  He has done so many things to try and change my mind, and my heart hurts for him. I think he takes this personally. I never saw Duncan as the kind of man to want to be a father, but since learning that he could be, it’s all he wants. I don’t want to let him go, but if I have to in order for him to have what he wants and needs, then I will.

  But I don’t have to decide right now, I have too much on my mind at the moment. I don’t know why I feel such unease. I am not scared of the procedure, and I do not feel guilt. There is something else that I just can't put my finger on right now.

  They call the next name, and I practically jump in my seat. I dare to look around me and see all the faces and people that are here, and I know that some may be here for the same reason as me, but many are here for other things; for an exam, for medications, for an ultrasound. In fact, I see a woman in the corner with two children running around and a large belly, swelling out from under her shirt. She looks exhausted, but she also looks complete. Like she knows who she is and where her life is going and is okay with it.

  That’s when I know, I can’t do this.

  The thing is, I am young. This kind of scare could easily happen more than once, no matter how careful I am. And I do not plan on not expressing my physical feelings for Duncan or whatever man I am with just to prevent this. I am letting fear control me.

  I sigh, and I wonder if I should get up and just walk out or wait to tell someone. But I am afraid if I speak, I will chicken out. This is the first time I have truly allowed myself to realize who I am.

  Like it or not, I am an Adame. I am the leader of a prominent mafia clan. This is something that I cannot escape no matter where in the world I go. And fighting it means missing out on the short life I have. It’s time to embrace this, even if I hate it. And it opens up my eyes to what I want.

  I want Duncan.

  I want a family.

  I want to change this damn old-fashioned way of doing shit.

  And I want to give the order to kill Felix.

  No, I want to be the one to do it myself. I have to be if I am to solidify and prove to myself and everyone else once and for all who it is that I am. Fear won’t control me, but I have to use it to control everyone else if I am to survive and thrive in this life.

  I get up and bust out the door, looking to the men standing like statues at the door. "You will take me to where Felix is being held," I order them, not waiting for a response as I walk towards the armored vehicle which holds two more men that are there for my protection. The Italians are still out there. Felix is only the beginning, and Duncan insists that I need as much protection as possible. After all I have seen now, I can’t say I disagree.

  We climb in, and I give one more order. "Call Duncan and have him meet us there."

  ***

  I can tell that a few of the men have already had a little fun with Felix. His right eye is black, and he has some blood stains on his collar, but nothing major. At first, he looks hopeful. Actually bloody hopeful that I am there to free him or something. What is wrong with this guy?

  "Thank goodness, it’s finally you, Willow. We need to talk. I know I have been really harsh with you. The training I have had with the Italians has made me that way. But I promise, I am not the bad guy. Just let me go, and we can be together like we always wanted," he says. What a desperate asshole. I don’t get where he gets the impression that I am such a weakling with no sense at all.

  "It insults me that you think that I am going to fall for any of your bullshit, Felix, if that is even your name. I am here to take care of business," I tell him just as I hear the sound of the door opening and then shutting again. I glance back only for a moment to see that Duncan has joined me.

  Felix’s façade falls, and he looks pissed as he sees that I am not doing this alone. I think he may finally get the bloody picture.

  He comes up behind me, and I shiver as he whispers in my ear. “You will tell me where you were when the men called,” he says, and I know he has figured out where I have been. Luckily, the news I have for him is good news. But this is not the time or place for it.

  “I will,” I say and leave it there.

  “Are you sure you want to do this?” he asks, and I nod, reaching under my skirt to pull out the gun I now carry with me at all times. It is part of what I do, and I need it to both protect myself and teach crazy fucks like Felix a lesson.

  “I want to know everything first though,” I tell Duncan, and Felix is practically foaming at the mouth at this point. He doesn’t like seeing us together. I don’t know how in the years we spent together I never noticed his pure possessiveness and controlling nature, but it had to be there a little for it to come out so violently now.

  “So be it,” he says, cocking his own gun. There is some high in this, doing this together, and I know where I am going to have him after this if I get a say in it. That is, if I can do this to another human being without breaking down.

  I turn back to Felix and plaster a maniacal smile on my face, pointing the gun at him. “Before you die, you’re going to tell me who you work for, what they want, how you survived, and why you are involved in all of this. You will tell me everything before I give you the mercy of death, do you understand?”

  He cackles and spits at me. He barely hits the tip of my shoe, and I grimace. The game is on. Duncan is ready to step in if I can’t do this, but this part is easy. I am so angry at him right now for all he has put me through. The torture will be easy in the beginning. It’s the end I am worried about.

  I walk up to him and hit him over the head with my gun, hard enough to hurt like hell but not knock him out. Then, I grab the side of his mouth with my nails digging in and pull his face up to mine, watching myself draw blood that drips into his own mouth. I let him taste his own blood thoroughly as he starts to choke on it before I speak. “Let’s try this again, do you understand?” His angry eyes dart up to Duncan and then back at me before he nods, and I pull away and back up before he can do anything else to me.

  I give Duncan a go and sit back and watch, basically shutting my brain off and just enjoying his suffering. I know I will have to do the worst of it. I have it planned for the men to all come in and watch so they know who they are dealing with if they step one toe out of line.

  I hear a crack and come out of my thoughts to see that Duncan has broken Felix’s nose. Blood is running out of it everything, and he is sniffling and holding onto it, but still there is no tear and nothing. “Knees,” I say, strutting back up to the both of them. “He needs his mouth to tell us something, so no jaw, but the knees should hurt just as bad.”

  “No, no, no!” he says all of a sudden. Damn, he is weak. I didn’t think he would crack for a while. “I never knew who you were when we were dating. It wasn’t like that. I didn’t find out until a few months before you thought you watched me die. It was all fake. The Italians helped, okay? I work for them, but I don’t know many names. They let me have all this power and money because I was a link to you. They came and told me who you were
and told me that if I played my cards right I could have more than just you, I could have an entire empire.”

  I look at Duncan in confusion. What kind of game was this? And what made him so easily give up and think I was going to fall for such a thing. Surely, they didn’t mean to give him anything. I am not naïve enough to believe that they meant him to be anything other than a tool.

  “You are a bloody tool!” I yell at him. “You let them ruin us, ruined my life, and you became a tool to a criminal organization you would never have gotten out of alive. You never deserved me if that possibility was in you the whole time,” I screeched, feeling emotional.

  “Willow,” Duncan said, placing his hand on my shoulder. “There was no empire to have if you weren’t the only one left,” he says softly, looking into my eyes. I don’t know what he means, but as I get lost in the depths of his stare, it clicks.

  “My siblings,” I whisper, and Duncan nods.

  “Who killed the rest of my father’s children, my half siblings?” I asked him, my foot sitting right over his groin, threatening to crush the bit if sniveling manhood he had left.

  “Me. They were hits, part of the job. I had to help track them down and kill them so that all that would be left was you,” he tells me through gritted teeth, and I bring my foot down hard, digging the heal in as his painful screams echo throughout the room. “What the fuck! I told you what you wanted to know.”

  “When did I make a promise not to hurt you anyway?” I ask him, knowing I need to end this before the rage turns into something like the pain that is threatening to burst from my heart at the truth of all the orchestrated betrayal. The way that others have thought that it’s okay to control my fate for me.

  “Bring the men in,” I roar at Duncan. He doesn’t fight me on it, and he brings them in. They squeeze into the room like sardines as I point the gun right at his bloody brain. “This,” I say, gesturing over his body, “is what happens when you fuck with the Adames; when you fuck with me,” I tell them, my face as straight as can be.

  I nod to Duncan, and he comes up with a bat, breaking both Felix’s knees. I can see the pain in the flinches of some of these huge generally unfazed men. Then, I grab at his injured dick as one hand puts the gun right against his head, and I twist hard. The scream is otherworldly, and I know that will do it if nothing else.

  And then I pull the trigger as if it means nothing, blood and brains splattering out. “Clean this shit up,” I order to the men before stomping out of the room, a piece of me falling apart with each step. By the time I am outside, I hit the ground running until I end up in the car, Duncan’s hand surrounding me as I lose it in a fit of sobs.

  I guess there’s some of my father in me after all.

  But then I remember the news that I need to tell him, and I look up at him knowing that my mascara is likely running down my face. “I am keeping our baby, Duncan.”

  He tries to wipe away at my tears and running makeup as I half laugh half cry, and then he pulls me into him and kisses the shit out of me. He erases all the bad.

  I fucking love you,” he says as he pulls away.

  I snort through the tears. “Well, I bloody love you too.”

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Duncan

  The last few weeks have been nothing short of trying, and both Willow and I knew that. With Felix being dead it doesn’t serve to ease our minds at all. His death means nothing, the threat is still there with the Italians, and the Clans need to do their best to prepare everyone for whatever is to come – if we even know what that is. Gabriele DiGiovanni is unpredictable, and everyone is looking to Baptiste Funar and his wife at this point. I can’t blame that for doing it, though. Baptise’s wife is the sister of Gabriele. In a sense, you could say we have an enemy right under our roof. Ion had informed all Clan leaders that she was to be questioned, and they would come to a conclusion on whether or not she knew any of this. Personally, I believe she doesn’t have any part in it. The look on her face when her brother’s actions were brought to her attention in front of the other Clan members at the meeting this morning had shown me that. She had gone on to tell us about how her family treats women, and how she had gotten out for a reason, not marrying Baptiste for love, but for safety.

  Willow, Natasha and Mariana had all stared at her intently. I’m sure they were understanding of the prior struggles she had been through, but regardless, she is the sister of our enemy and must be treated as such. We will always put our families first, even if they are the monsters we fear. I have seen this done so many times. Nothing surprises me anymore.

  I had spoken with Natasha, Mariana, and even Katya in private and told them about the surprise I have for Willow. It’s something that will mean the world to her, and as we sit on this plane I can’t help but smile in her direction, thinking of how she’ll react to the first of my surprises.

  The next hour passes us by, and we start to descend to Dublin, Ireland to land. Willow has been asleep in her seat, not even realizing that we were headed in the wrong direction. My plan couldn’t be going more smoothly. She stirs in her seat, confused as she looks on the monitor and see’s our destination. “Where on Earth are we going?”

  I smile. “You’ll see. Just be patient.” I know as I tell her, she’s already struggling internally. There is a lot that I know about my beloved Willow, and one of those things is that she isn’t a patient woman. Not to say in the least.

  The plane lands, and after we disembark, we walk in the direction of our private car which takes us to our destination. Willow gives me confused looks the entire time but knows better than to ask questions. She knows that I won’t tell her where we’re going, no matter how much she begs and pleads to know the answer.

  Fifteen minutes later, and we’re almost on the outskirts of Dublin, right where my surprise is for her. “Take a look at your website real quick, will you?” I instruct her and watch as she pulls her cell phone from her purse and follows my instructions. Willow furrows her brows in confusion, and directly after, her eyes light up like a child seeing fireworks for the very first time.

  “Seriously!” she screeches, placing her hand over her mouth in shock. Her eyes are filling with tears, and I nod. The car comes to a stop, and I grab her hand.

  “Let’s take a look at your brand new baby,” I say to her, smirking to myself. I’ve just won fiancé of the year. I open the car door and survey the surrounding area before I allow her to exit, pulling her hand to let her know it’s clear. When we step out onto the cobblestone street, she gasps and begins to jump up and down, showing me all of her excitement.

  “I can’t believe you did this. Thank you so much. Oh my goodness, I would’ve never imagined this…” Willow stares at her restaurant, Decadent. She never hides the fact that Delish is her baby, a small pastry shop café that offers a variety of yummy treats. But she’s always wanted more then Delish, telling me about Decadent ages ago. Her starting point was always going to be the café, but she wanted to open a series of restaurants as well, and with the Clans behind her on it. I simply helped make her dream a reality. Well, me and the bullheaded women of the Clans.

  “How…” she murmurs, walking towards the front door and pulling it open, stepping into the modernized space with country accents. It’s the perfect combination of two worlds; the old and the new.

  “I had a chat with Mariana, Natasha, and Katya. They adore you and want you to continue to follow your dreams even though you are the head of a Clan now. Just because your responsibilities changed doesn’t mean that they expect you to give up what makes you happy. Mariana and Ion also agreed that it was a great step in the right direction to make more of the Clans money legitimate. They’re investors in your expansion for Delish and Decadent.”

  “I’m in total shock. I don’t know what to say right now…”

  I chuckle, “Well, you’re about to be in even more shock. I spoke with both Ion and Mariana about my intentions to marry you, and I told both of them that I didn’t
give a fuck what they had to say, that I was going to marry you either way. My heart belongs to you, Willow. I think it has for a very long time, and given what we’ve been through these last few months, I know that I don’t want to live another moment without you being mine, in every sense of the word. I want my ring on your finger, I want you in my bed cuddled up to me every night, and during the day, I want you by my side. I want the possibilities of our future, and I want our child to see what a family should look like.” I bend down to one knee and pull out the custom engagement ring I had made for Willow; it’s a rose gold with a beautiful, princess cut diamond on the top, just what Willow deserves and more. “I would be honored if you’d agree to be my wife and spend the rest of my days with me.”

  She jumps in to my arms all of a sudden and plants those perky lips right on mine. I grumble out at her, rubbing my hand on her now small baby bump. She pulls her head back, giving me a baffled look. “You need to be more careful. Our kid is in there.”

  Willow lays her head against my chest and giggles, staring at her hand as I slide the ring onto her finger. “You’re stuck with me now.”

  “I was never going to get rid of your ass. You’re too stubborn,” she murmurs, kissing me on the cheek, looking around the restaurant.

  Even though there is a pile of shit headed our way, I know that we’re going to be just fine. We have each other and knowing that, we can make it through anything.

  Epilogue

  Willow

  2 years later…

  I stare at the little man running around the garden like his tushie is on fire and shake my head. No one could have prepared me for motherhood and certainly not like this. I was terrified at first, petrified even of bringing his innocence into this horrific world. I may not have known this back then, but that was the first signal that I was meant to have him. I was already thinking like a mum would.

 

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