“Yeah. Old school,” I cut in. She laughs.
“Okay. Have fun up there. I’ve left some coffee out for you. I’ll send your regards to her.”
I nod and walk Hope in as the elevator opens, watching as a new breed of old school walks away from us. Mama’s daughter, one of the only ones who dared leave the old streets and smarten herself up. Thanks to me. I got her a manager’s job here after Sergio died, had her set up in an apartment.
“She seems nice. Who’s Mama?” Hope asks.
“An old friend.”
That’s it as far as I’m concerned until after this conversation is done. After that, who knows what will happen. Maybe she’ll meet her one day, eat some cannoli. Perhaps the kid will, too.
The goddamn climb seems endless as we ascend, and I stare at her in the reflecting mirrors, still unable to find the words I’m gonna need when I get up there. They’re not that hard really. Just three of them, two if we bring apostrophes into the fucking equation. Jesus. Why is she still so goddamn pretty, after all this shit we’ve been through? Visions of her bleeding out haunt my mind as I stare at her now glowing skin, wondering where I’d be now if Daniel hadn’t saved her life. The thought makes a shiver ride my skin, anger filtering through my confusion.
Eventually, the doors open and we exit into the lobby, her heels clipping along the marble as we go. My hands open the door for her, nodding for her to lead, and then I head back to get some of the coffee laid out. My eyes watch her as she wanders around the edges, peering over at Manhattan. I’m not sure why I’ve brought her up here for this. Perhaps it’s the cold air that’ll be whipping around our heads this high up. Cold. That’s what we both are. Me through family upbringing, her the same for different reasons. She crosses her arms, raising her chin at the world, and braces against the wind. She’s good at that—bracing against shit. She’s done it all her life, taken what was given and braced the storm, changing her direction as she climbed the ladder.
A ladder that eventually led her to me.
I clip the tops on the takeout cups and walk on out to join her after a moment of thought, handing her a coffee. “You cold?” I ask.
She turns her head and shakes it. I snort and think maybe it’s the ice in our veins keeping us at the same temperature as the weather. Fuck knows, but it’s been two weeks, and I need to tell her. She deserves that. She’s rested well enough now, almost healed. Daniel said she was around seven weeks gone. That’s now nine weeks and she’s gonna be due a scan soon. He also asked her about contraception, told her to not have the next injection until the wound had closed over properly, something about it interfering with her ability to heal. It wouldn’t, but I needed a reason to get her off them.
“Why are we up here?” she asks, scanning the buildings around us. “Last time I was on top of the Empire State Building it was because you needed me to persuade a governor into bed. More coercion?” She glances back at me. “I’m not doing it again, Benjamin.” She’s done a lot of stuff like that for me over the years, done whatever I said, with whomever I commanded. No argument. No discussion. It’s not been easy living with me, never has been. She’s done it, though. And she’s damn right she’s not doing it again.
“How’s Quinn?”
Her eyes narrow. It’s slight, but it’s there. She’s still my good girl, but now running her own odds against what’s useful to her. They’ve been meeting up, discussing who they are and what they want from their newfound family connection.
“He’s…” She pauses and sighs, head still not straight about how she feels about anything. “Gone back to Chicago. They all have.” I nod and walk closer to her, building some goddamn fortitude to get these words out of my mouth. “He sends his regards. Says he’ll be in touch.” He already has. This morning in fact. Tying up loose ends, and then having the fucking gall to tell me if I touched her with anything other than respect, he’d kill me.
I laughed. He didn’t.
That threat came straight across the fucking line at me.
“That’s decaf,” I say, pointing at her coffee.
She looks back, surprised, and then chuckles to herself about something and leans on the railings. “You’re worried about me? Of all the things, you choose how much caffeine I drink?” She turns away, shaking her head.
The sting of her words hurts more than I want to admit. I frown and lean on the rails next to her. Maybe I don’t show her enough. I guess I should because if she doesn’t know by now, after the shit I’ve forgiven her for, then I’m doing something wrong. That’s not going to work if she decides to stay after this information. I, we, need more than that. I wouldn’t blame her if she left. What life have I got to offer children? She could go to the beach house. I already give her an allowance and she wants for nothing. That’s never going to change, even when I’m dead. For once, I’m not telling her what to do. The reason she got involved with me was because of Cane, but that doesn’t change the fact that’s she’s still with me. What she wanted might have changed along the way, but she’s managed to stay alive through all the carnage. All of us have.
Including that child of mine she’s carrying.
“I’m worried about your stomach.” She dismisses the comment with a shake of her head and sighs out a long breath, sipping her coffee.
“It’s fine. Daniel says it’s knitted well, almost healed. Called me a lucky girl.”
The fuck is wrong with me? I can’t get a few simple words out of my mouth? “You think I’m lucky?” she asks, frowning and looking me over. She reaches for my tie to straighten it. “I thought I was, but who knows now.” She’s got a wistful look about her and tears in her eyes. “It’s okay, Benjamin.”
The hell?
She puts her hand on my chest, patting it and smiling, then turns to the view to close herself down again. “Perhaps it’s all just been too much. I get it. I’m not the person you thought I was. What I was for you doesn’t fit into our world anymore. Everything’s different.”
She’s damn right it is. I suddenly have Cane as family for a start. Because of her. That’s a bond I never thought I’d have to deal with.
“And it can’t go back to the way it was before. I’m not the same woman I was. I can’t be anymore.”
She’s damn right about that, too.
“I’m worried about what’s in your stomach, Hope.”
Her head tilts to me, confusion all over her face. “You’ve said that.” I back away a step or two, then move forward again. I’m like a fucking child. Being a pussy. I drink some coffee, wishing it were goddamn scotch. “The bullet’s gone. Daniel said so.”
I look at the floor, watching my shoes for some reason. “Yeah.”
She looks me over, chuckling about something. “What’s wrong with you? You’re acting more weird than when you tried romance.”
Oh, for fuck’s sake. I square my shoulders, attempting to announce my own feelings to myself if no one else. Not that I damn well know what they are. I’m a fucking mess. Have been since Daniel told me, and then even more so when I heard that heartbeat. I stare at the view, noting all the buildings I own, all the power I have, and yet here, now, I can’t even speak?
Fuck this.
“You’re pregnant.” The words fall out of my lips like they’re a statement of fact. No emotion involved. No happiness or endearment. I can’t even turn my head, for some reason worried she’ll be unhappy about it. I wouldn’t blame her for that shit either.
Curiosity eventually gets the better of me, and I tilt my eyes to look at her because she hasn’t uttered a damn sound.
She’s looking at me with a blank expression. She doesn’t even seem shocked. She’s devoid of anything but a pale exterior and a shaking hand trying to hold coffee.
“Pregnant,” she states, no expression.
I nod. Pregnant. Fact.
“About nine or ten weeks now.”
Her brows furrow, her body pushing off the railings in the same move. She places the coffee down and
walks away from me towards the other end of the roof. I stare after her, not having a goddamn clue whether to go after her or leave her to digest that information on her own. We’re equal in this. For once I’m not in control. There’s nothing I can do to force her into decisions, and I’ve had two weeks to get my head around it.
For her, it’s seconds.
She paces the whole of the deck on her own, fingers spinning that ring around like she’s mulling it all over. Yeah, I know that feeling. I’ve been able to concentrate on nothing but her. No business has been enough to distract me. No concern enough to draw me away from her, even if it’s at a slight distance. I’ve needed some element of space to try to screw my head around this, but my instinct towards her has only grown. I’ve even stopped her running these past few days when she said she was well enough, in case that damaged the baby. Said it was because of the injury. It wasn’t.
Fuck.
I sit after a while and stare out at the view again with a sigh of my own. Feels like the first time I’ve sat still in two weeks. It’s quiet up here, peaceful but for the constant images of us trying to be a normal family. I can’t get them out of my head. A kid. A boy. A girl.
Fuck, help me if it’s a girl.
I’ve visualised it all this time while looking at my apartment and its immaculate surfaces, no fucking idea how a kid fits into that or the life around me. Guns, violence. I know that feeling, know what it turns a kid into—me. That’s not happening for my own. And Hope? I’ve never seen a goddamn maternal instinct in her. Or in me for that matter. If she wants it, though, we’ll try. Could even buy a house somewhere out of the city, gardens and shit. Housekeepers. Nannies. The hell am I thinking about?
As if my life fits into that.
“What do you want?” she suddenly says over my shoulder.
Them both safe.
Away from me if that's what it takes.
I stand again, turning to her, and look into those eyes. She’s about five feet away, keeping a distance between us. I don’t like it, not for these types of discussions. That’s always been the problem between us, too much distance, even when I thought there wasn’t any, not other than the space I’d put in place.
My feet try to close the distance down, but she backs off again, a hand up to stop my advance.
“No. We talk about this like rational adults, Benjamin,” she says calmly, standing firm. “I’ll go. That’s fine if this isn’t right between us, because I’m not having it grow up in a family without love.” A small frown tips my brow as she fiddles with that ring again. “Because I did that. I grew up where there was nothing but hatred. I’m not doing it to my own child. Neither are you.”
My hands go to my pockets. I have no real understanding of that. My family wasn’t perfect, but there was love between my parents, respect anyway. Not that I seem to have grown up understanding what the fuck that is. She never had a gun pressed into her hand, though. Guess that changes a young man’s perception on what love means.
She starts shaking for some reason, hands wrapping around her stomach in a protective grip. “And I won’t be treated the way I have been. Not anymore. That’s not the life for a child. So, if that’s all you’ve got to give, then I’m gone, Benjamin. I’m not doing that again.”
“All right.”
“All right? What does that mean?” Her feisty tone makes me smile.
“You want more, you can have more.” She quirks her head, clearly less than pleased with my response. I’m not sure what else she wants. I’ve never offered anyone anything other than what she’s had all this time. She wants something different to that, she can have it. Whatever it is. I’ve already given her more than anybody else, and that was before I knew she was carrying my child.
I step forward again, attempting to close this fucking distance down.
“No. I need more than that.”
For fuck’s sake. “Give me a goddamn break, Hope. I’m trying here.”
“Try fucking harder. This isn’t a game.”
My hands come out of my pockets, reaching for her, but she keeps backing away. “What the hell do you want me to say?”
“Try the truth, Benjamin. Tell me how you feel.” My feet stop. I don’t know how I feel. The fucking world’s just come crashing down around me and she wants to talk about feelings? Whatever ones I have are lost in my head, a mess of conflicts. “For once in your life, give me something real to hold onto.”
It’s these fucking words she wants, the ones swimming around my guts without a centre to find. Love. Honesty. A closeness I don’t know how to achieve, although she’s probably the way I'm gonna reach them. I look at the concrete beneath my feet, shoes reflecting the sky’s grey emptiness back at me. That’s me. Empty of compassion. Empty of consideration for anything other than my needs.
“I don’t know how to do that, Hope.”
I look back up to find her staring, waiting for words from me to make this right between us. “Try. Please,” she says, a quiver to her voice. I frown again, annoyed at myself as much as anything.
“You can go if you want. I wouldn’t blame you. I’m no father, Hope. I think we both know that.”
Silence then, both of us staring. Me without a way of expressing what’s so desperately needed for the family she probably wants. That pisses me off. It idles in my guts, telling me I’m wrong and that I should trust her, trust this feeling. “You’ll never want for anything. You already have the beach house. If you want somewhere different, fine. Just say. Accounts, your own stuff. Just tell me.”
The fucking silence is pissing me off. I watch her watch me, trying to find something else to keep her close enough that she won’t run. “I'll stay away if that’s what you want. Keep you safe like that. No one has to know it’s mine.” A fucking feeling chokes my throat at the thought. I want people to know it’s mine; want them to know she is, too.
She's always been mine.
“I don’t need things. I thought the beach house meant something to you, that it was important to you,” she murmurs. “And so, by giving it to me, that made me think I was important as well.” My brow furrows, still not really knowing why I gave it to her. “I want you, Benjamin. I want us. Together. Don’t you know that?” She does? Even the life that comes with me? My goddamn heart rate increases, eyes searching hers for what that means. “But I swear to God, if you can’t get those words out of your mouth, then this is done. We’re done. Man up. You’ve shown me how you feel. If you didn’t, then I wouldn’t be standing here now. You’d have killed me already. But I won’t take any more lies. Ever. We’ve both lived a lifetime of those. No more. And not with our baby.”
Our baby.
Those words hit hard. I search my guts for the words she needs, let them hover around in my mind. Part of me is desperate to tell her and another part is fucking scared of the consequences. That’s real to me. Not a game. Not a deception. That’s something that binds us together for the rest of our lives. She needs to understand that. There will be no breaking up. No change of heart. When I give that to her, I mean it. I say those words and we’re all in. I can only hope she knows that, feels it like I do, because I’ll lose my shit the second she steps out of line. What she’s been through with me in the past will be a fucking breeze in comparison to that storm.
My eyes stare, heart telling me to give it up to her, open the fucking cage doors I’ve locked down tight all these years. Vico and Winters. Together. Cane even. What the hell is she now?
“You a Winters or Cane now?” I ask. She seems confused, no idea what I’m talking about. I smirk, enjoying the look of chaos clouding her mind. “Hope Winters or Hope Cane?”
“What the hell has that—”
“Because I was thinking about telling you that I love you, but I’d need a name for that.” I shrug, taking a small, slow step towards her. “You know, just so I know who I’m in love with.”
A smile breaks out on her face. It’s fucking beautiful, enough so that I start to move, the
n stop. I wait for any questions she’s got instead, give her time to let the information settle.
“You know what that means, right?”
I fucking hope she does. This isn’t a goddamn love story like all the rest of them. This means someone’s inside me. Me. That’s not a pretty place to be. She’ll understand these tattoos, understand how many I’ve killed, how I killed them. She wants in this mind of mine, she’s welcome to come play and try that out for size. It’ll be nice to have someone hear it, take the stains from me every now and then. Maybe she can wipe them down enough for a kid. Blend them, at least.
Still the smile is there as she nods. No quiver in her now. Just a head held high, radiating a beauty that no woman other than her possesses. It’s enough for me to nod, too, and start moving until I’ve got her in my arms this time. Fuck the distance. If that’s what it takes, we’ll go all in. Make it something it hasn’t been before now. For once, I’ll give her something true to hold onto. Me.
“I’m a Winters,” she says, looking up at me. “Always.” She smiles again, her hands coming up to my face. Winters.
“Cold, huh?” It’s what intrigued me about her in the first place, but this touch she’s giving me now, this body pressed against me, that’s anything but cold. It’s warm. Perfect. And mine.
“Except for you.”
And then the fucking kiss comes, the one that seals it all and finds me a home I never thought I wanted. Love, apparently, is worth considering. Consenting to even. It’ll be worth my life, too, if that’s what’s needed to protect them both. We’ll see how that goes, because if there’s one thing I’ve learnt through her vengeance, it’s that love trumps all. Always will now. Anyone fucks with her, or our child, and a war will come so swiftly they won’t know what’s hit them.
That’s what blood means to me. What my family means.
What Hope means.
Epilogue
Six Months Later
The beach house has become my home. I was drawn to it from the moment I stepped foot inside the door, its quiet stillness, the connection to a past that I’ll never be a part of, but accept, because I’m part of the future. Benjamin’s future.
Vengeful Eyes: A Cane Novel 3 Page 29
