by Dee Garcia
We turned our heads in time to catch him glaring at us, a lethal glint shining in his dark eyes from not so far away.
“Fuck you, Alessio,” Eden spat as she untangled herself from me and rose to her feet, blocking me from his sight.
“Yeah, yeah, welcome home, little sister. It's nice to see you too.”
“Cut the shit, brother. What the hell do you want?”
“Do you really even need to ask?”
“Considering it isn’t Daddy who's standing in here, yes, I feel compelled to ask. What. The fuck. Do you want?” she gritted out, her hands forming fists at her sides.
“Pa is busy at the moment. I'm sure he'll be down here soon enough. So, in the meantime, since you're being quite hostile, why don't you have a seat beside your dirty little secret and calm the fuck down before you start from the beginning.”
Eden took a few hurried steps forward, shoving a finger into his chest. “I don't owe you shit. You might be older than me, Alessio, but you are not Daddy. I don't take orders from you.”
“You will, if you want to see him live through the night.”
“You wouldn't dare.” She sidled closer, forcing him back a few steps.
Apparently Alessio did not enjoy being threatened by his sister, and in turn, he grabbed her by the arm and flung her in my direction. She toppled onto her ass, her back hitting the wall, her head right along with it.
My heart shot up to my throat as she whimpered, rage consuming me faster than it ever had before. I opened my mouth to speak my peace, but the cock back on the slide tangled the words on the tip of my tongue.
“Think wisely before you speak, Mr. Royce,” Alessio said, pointing the firearm right at me as he stalked to where Eden and I now sat together. Crouching down on his haunches, he placed matching shackles on Eden’s wrists and tugged on the chains to ensure their security. “I didn't want to do this, Eden, but until you can learn to be civil, you'll have to stay right here.”
“Civil? You want me to be civil? Do you not realize what you're doing to your own sister right now?” she asked him in disbelief.
“You mean the sister who lied to her entire family, then fled with the man she was supposed to kill on some adventure throughout the East Coast?”
“It wasn't a fucking adventure! I was going after LeRoux! He showed up at Liana’s job out of the blue and offered me a proposition. All I had to do was get through some names on a list and he’d give me back every cent he owed Daddy!”
“Quite the story you’ve got there.” He nodded exaggeratedly. “If that were really the case, you don't think it would've been wise to tell Pa you were doing so?”
“For what? So he could've forbid me to go? You know anything to do with Gaspard is a one-hundred percent no after what happened.”
“Still, Eden. You should've said something. That man worried for days on end, calling your phone relentlessly in hopes to hear your voice. It wasn't until I dropped by Mr. Royce's workplace in the process of retracing your steps that I learned what was really going on. Do you know how difficult it was, coming back here to tell our father you'd not only lied about killing Mr. Royce, but that you’d run off with him too? Why did you lie, Eden?” he asked, his tone firm, bitter.
She turned toward me then, every emotion under the sun flashing across her face. Anger, sadness, guilt, anything and everything, they attacked her at once, and all I wanted to do was make them go away, to replace them with happiness. What I would've given in that moment to see her smile...
“I asked you a question,” Alessio gritted out, forcing me to tear my eyes away from Xander.
Begrudgingly, I looked up into my brother’s enraged stare and was left wondering who this man before me was. In that moment, he wasn't my brother, but a stranger with ill intent. Regardless of what I'd done, I couldn't see how it warranted such treatment. Weren’t my reasons obvious to him? Were my efforts to return to our father the money LeRoux had stolen not enough to overwrite my indiscretions? I observed him carefully for several seconds before I was able to straighten my spine and find my voice.
“Because I love him,” I said firmly.
Alessio’s eyes widened in tandem with Xander’s almost inaudible gasp behind me.
“You love him,” he spat in disgust. “Do you even know what love is, Eden?”
“I just said I loved him, did I not? I'm obviously very well-acquainted with the sentiment.”
“Well-acquainted or not, how could you love someone who wronged our father? Does his thievery not—”
“He's not a thief!” I cut him off, surging as far forward as the shackles around my wrists would allow.
Alessio stood, frozen in place across the cell, unfazed by my efforts to intimidate him. Of course he was unfazed, I was chained to a fucking wall. I'd like to see how stoic he'd remain if I were free...
His eyes narrowed all the more, but his chest hiccupped; a dark, amused chuckle bubbling within. “Oh how blind you've become, little sister.”
“I believe enlightened is the word you're looking for, brother,” I seethed.
“Enlightened, no. Delusional however, that seems about right. If you think sparing Mr. Royce will forever subdue the darkness that lives within you, you're highly mistaken. You might think you can practice restraint, but over time, the need to shed blood will trump it all.”
“Don't undermine my intelligence, Alessio. I know damn well what I can and cannot do. That side no longer fuels me. I don't need to kill to feel alive anymore.”
Alessio threw his head back, howling a laugh so loud I was sure it carried through the entirety of the basement.
“Keep telling yourself that. We’ll see how you feel in a few days’ time when Mr. Royce is no longer around to preoccupy your mind.”
“You’re not going to hurt him. I won’t let you.”
“And just how do you plan to stop me?” he questioned, amused.
Silence.
He was right. How was I going to stop him without the use of my hands?
“Exactly,” he scoffed. “I should restrain you to this very chair and force you to watch while I take a chainsaw to his limbs. How do you feel about that?”
“You can’t be serious…”
“Oh, but I am. Would teach you a valuable lesson, don’t you think?”
I turned my head away, unwilling to answer him. He was acting like a fucking monster, just seconds away from snapping into another bender, and the worst part of it all was that I had no desire to help him. Why would I want to help when he was so intent on hurting me?
“Now that I’m thinking back to all that’s happened this last month, you want to know what else I find strange?” he asked suddenly, and I offered him nothing more than a hateful side-eye. “Luca seemed very distressed when you disappeared. Would you happen to know why?”
“Yes,” I snapped.
“And why is that?”
“Because I fucked him,” I gritted out, turning back in time to catch his eyes bulge from their sockets.
“You what?” His voice was dangerously low.
“I. Fucked. Him,” I repeated, enunciating every word clearly.
“You slept with Luca?” He sounded genuinely astonished, and for a brief moment, I felt nothing but satisfaction.
“Slept with is putting it lightly. More like I fucked the ever-loving shit out of him, for two years straight.”
I expected him to completely lose his shit after my admission, but he just stood there, burning a hole through my head. A few minutes ticked by before he started pacing the room, his chest heaving faster with every step he took. That’s when it happened. Grabbing the chair fairly close to the desk, he flung it across the room, growling almost malevolently as it hit the brick wall and split in half, falling in two separate pieces onto the ground with a clatter. The beer bottle on the desk was next. He hurled it toward the door, glass shards flying everywhere into dozens of pieces upon impact.
“Ahhh!” he growled, his hands flying into his hair
. “What the fuck, Eden! You fucking slept with my best friend?”
“I just answered that.”
“Why? Why would you do that?” he asked, infuriated.
“Why don't you ask Luca. He's the one who made the first move.”
“But you let him make the move!”
“Hell yes, I did,” I uttered, indignantly.
I would've elaborated further, just to press his buttons all the more, but then Alessio’s eyes flashed with rage and a moment later, he was stalking toward me. Dropping to his feet, he shoved the key into the shackles around my wrists and released the locks, promptly dragging me by the arm to the middle of the room.
“You wanna play dirty? Fine. We’ll fucking play dirty. You see this knife,” he said, fishing out a switchblade from his pocket and flicking his wrist to set it free. “You're going to take it and slice your little man over there until I tell you to stop.”
I scoffed and crossed my arms. “In your fucking dreams, Alessio. I'm not doing shit.”
“Would you prefer I do it?” he barked, taking a few steps closer to Xander.
My heart rate flared at the sight of the blade extended his way. “No! No, don't!”
“Then come here and take it.” His tone was no-nonsense, but still I hesitated, which only served to irk him further. “What’s wrong, little sister? Don’t want him to see what a monster you really are? How the blade makes you feel powerful, indestructible?”
“That has nothing to do with this! He knows everything about me!”
“Does he? Does he really?” My brother sneered. “You may have told him you’re a vicious killer but does he know the extent of it? Does he know you’re The Silent Reaper?”
I gasped, my eyes bugging out of their sockets in disbelief. He’d just outed me. My own flesh and blood just outed me to the man I loved and it was quite evident he enjoyed it, especially given my reaction. I couldn’t even look at Xander, too afraid I might find a newfound sense of fear lingering in his brown eyes, fear that would ensure he’d never want anything to do with me ever again.
“He knows now…” I said, defeated.
“It doesn’t change a damn thing.” Xander’s firm voice carried through the room.
“Excuse me?” Alessio snapped. “Was I talking to you?”
“No, but you asked her if she’d told me that little speck of information, with the intention of catching me off guard and twisting this to your advantage, so I’m telling you…it doesn’t change a damn thing. That might be what you know her as, but I know damn well she’s not that person anymore.”
My brother laughed, but it didn’t last very long. “It appears you need a reality check as well. Come, Eden. Maybe once he sees you in action, it’ll prove him wrong.”
I swung my eyes to Xander and he nodded, surely, unafraid. How was he always so brave? Tears filled my eyes as I stepped forward and extended my palm, cringing at the feel of the blade when my brother dropped it in my hand. It was cold, heavy, and worst of all, sharp.
“Now get to work. Let's see how many we can squeeze in before he bleeds out.”
“Why are you doing this?” I asked incredulously.
“Because you need a serious reality check, little sister. Now go on. Slice him,” he demanded.
On shaky legs, I advanced forward slowly, my eyes trained on Xander. He watched me with that same stoic expression, a poker face set firmly in place to protect him from vulnerability. Crouching down in front of him, my vision blurred through unshed tears, I caught him mouthing, “It's okay.”
I shook my head, my lip trembling, and he nodded once more, his eyes flickering down to his arm and back up to my face in a silent suggestion Alessio couldn't see.
“Get on with it, Eden,” my brother said from behind me, as though he had in fact seen Xander’s selfless gesture. “If you don't drag that blade across his skin within the next five seconds, so help me God, I will restrain you again, and go at it myself as promised. It's now or never. You choose.”
“I'm sorry,” I mouthed to Xander, and he glanced down at his arm again, clearly taking Alessio’s threat seriously.
“Five… four…”
Time was up; I had to do it or else it would be much, much worse. As usual, Alessio didn't play by anyone’s rules but his own and it was more obvious than ever that he didn't care if that included hurting family or not. Closing my eyes tightly, I went for it before I could convince myself otherwise, quickly skimming the top of his bicep. Xander’s hiss of pain landed straight to my heart and abruptly cut Alessio’s countdown off just before reaching “One.”
When I opened my eyes, I almost screamed. There wasn’t a lot of blood, as was to be expected, but nonetheless, there was blood. Someone’s blood in particular I never, ever wanted to see.
Leaning forward, I pressed a kiss to his lips, withholding the urge to break down. All I could do was hope and pray this would end soon, though with Alessio acting the way he was, the likelihood of that was slim.
“Again, Eden. Let's go,” he said, irritated, then restarted the countdown, so I scrunched my eyes again and flicked my wrist, skimming the other arm.
Xander’s hiss was noticeably louder this time, snapping my eyes open almost immediately. I’d nicked the inside of his arm, where the skin was far more sensitive, rather than the top, as I'd done on the other side. My heart shattered a little more, knowing that the pain he felt was because of me. The man I loved with every fiber of my being was hurting, because of me. Cupping his face, I kissed him again, mumbling my apology against his mouth. This was more excruciating than anything I'd ever experienced.
“Next! Move it, little sister. My patience is wearing thin,” Alessio snapped, but I wasn't sure I could do it again. Two times was more than enough.
“Alessio, please,” I pleaded, standing to my feet. “Enough already. I got him twice, one on each arm. He's hurting, I'm hurting. I get the point, you're angrier than hell. I'm sorry, I'm fucking sorry.”
“He's hurting? You think he's hurting?” he asked, cocking his head to one side, his eyes tiny slits of hate.
I nodded, my breaths becoming more erratic, and then he did something I never should have put past him, the scene before me playing out in slow motion. He withdrew his Glock, pointed it at my man, and pulled the trigger. Xander howled at the very same moment I gasped in horror, dropping my knees in front of him. The bullet had gone through his arm, right beneath the cut I'd made. A stream of crimson trickled in a steady drip onto his jeans, soaking through the denim.
“Now he's hurting, and unless you want me to do it again, I suggest you stop telling me enough. I'll tell you when enough is enough, Eden.”
“Alessio, please,” I supplicated him.
Why was he doing this? Couldn't he see how seriously fucked up this was? I was his blood, his sister, the little girl who clung to him like a second father, the little girl who looked up him like some knight in shining armor. Did all of that mean nothing to him? Did I mean nothing to him?
“I'll shoot again,” he warned, raising the Glock once more. “And this time, go for the face. You had two goes on his arms.”
“Not his face, please.”
“I can blow his face off, if you prefer?”
“No!” I threw myself around Xander. If he was going to shoot, it was going to have to go through me first.
“Then slice. His. Face. Get on with it!” he yelled, the sound bouncing off the walls around, springing me into action.
I'd never been afraid of Alessio and the severity of his ways, but right now, here in this moment, I was petrified. Bringing a shaky hand up to Xander’s face, I tilted it away from me and covered his eyes because I couldn't bear to see the moment pain consumed him again. But that ended up being my biggest mistake because when I dragged the blade across his cheek, right above his beard line, I felt his eyes scrunch together beneath my palm.
I shuddered and dropped the knife to the floor, my entire body heaving as grief racked through me. Sobbing, I
tangled myself around Xander, inhaling him deeply in attempt to calm myself. No more, I couldn't do anymore. If that meant I was seconds away from taking my last breath, then so be it.
“Even it out, sister. The other side,” Alessio growled, but I shook my head.
“I can’t, Alessio.” My voice trembled. “I can’t.”
“Do it,” he gritted out.
“No.”
“Do. It.”
“No!” I belted out, clinging to Xander for dear life.
“Do. It!” he screamed at the top of his lungs.
Then the door slammed opened, hitting the brick wall with a loud band. I whipped my head toward the sound to find my father standing beneath the threshold. His hands were stuffed in his pockets as he took in the state of the room and all going on around him. Taking care not to step on the glass, he went around the shattered beer bottle and sidled up to Alessio, his eyes trained me.
“Eden,” he said by way of greeting. Not Fiore, not Petal, not baby girl. Just Eden.
“Daddy, please make him stop.”
Pressing his lips together, my father regarded me shrewdly.
“Please, Daddy. I love him,” I said, the extent of my heartbreak leaking down my cheeks.
But he shook his head, a grim expression etched on his face. “I'm sorry, Eden. It has to be done. Alessio, take her home. I'd like a word with Mr. Royce.”
My eyes widened at his command, my grip tightening around Xander’s neck. Alessio’s hands wrapped around my arms and I jerked away, but they were on me again, much tighter this time, and I couldn't break free.
“No!” I yelled, struggling against him as he began dragging me out of the room, away from Xander.
Exhausted, pain-laden brown eyes watched me being hauled away, a single tear rolling down his cheek, almost as if he were silently coming to terms with the very thing my father didn't want to see.
He was alive. I'd heard bits and pieces of Daddy and Alessio’s hushed conversation from the hallway outside the library, and with that somewhat comforting thought in mind, I padded back to my room and made up a plan. There was no way in hell I was letting my family keep him locked in a cell like some disease-ridden animal. It was bad enough they'd made me treat him like one. So that's why, at four in the morning, I was sneaking around my home like a criminal, tiptoeing through the halls with a duffle bag slung over my shoulder en route to the basement.
