His voice came out more as a growl. “What are you doing, Katarina?”
“I just wanted to return the favor,” she told him, placing another kiss on his neck.
Drago moved out from being slightly underneath her, sitting up on the edge of the bed to rub his hands in his hair.
She couldn’t help but feel like she’d done something wrong, and she didn’t like that feeling. Unable to take being dissed any longer, she sat up as well, only coming to two conclusions as to why he was doing this. “Is it because I’m a Luciano or because you don’t like the way I look?”
He shook his head. “It’s neither of those.”
“Oh.” She took a breath, somewhat relieved. She had prepared herself for one of those two options which seemed like they would hurt the most. Licking her dry lips, she almost didn’t want to ask…. “Then what is it?”
He took a long, deep breath, finally coming out with it. “You’re too young—”
“I see.” She stopped him and got out of the bed, unable to be around him a second longer. “Too young to fuck, but not too young to marry.”
“Wha—” Drago quickly stood when he saw her get to the top of the steps. “Where the hell are you going?”
Flying down the steps, she yelled at him without turning back, “Home. I need to see my brothers.”
“It’s the middle of the fucking night! How are you supposed to get there?”
“Angel will take me,” she barked back, almost making it to the door. She would borrow some of Adalyn’s shoes.
“Kat!” He ran after her, but she was too quick. As he watched her hand reach for the door, his voice seemed to change. “Please!”
She opened the door. She should have known that they would go back to being at each other’s throats—it was too easy to go back out the rabbit hole eventually.
“Don’t do this, please.”
She stopped in her tracks, hearing the change in his voice now.
“I promise you, I will take you to see your brothers tomorrow, and if you want to stay there, you can. I won’t make you come back with me,” he promised her wholeheartedly. Drago held out his hand, not taking another step toward her, letting it be her decision to make. “Come back.”
Kat thought for a moment, not knowing what to do.
His voice was heavy. “Just let me hold you for one night.”
She squeezed her eyes shut holding her breath till she released it slowly, closing the door as she stood on the same side as her husband.
Drago’s breath released as well while she walked toward him. Reaching out, he scooped her up like he had earlier, letting her legs wrap around him.
Holding him tightly, she didn’t let herself cry as he carried her all the way up the steps and placed her back onto the bed.
He set her right on the edge, leaning down in front of her, going to his knees, so he could look her right in the eyes. “I need you to listen to me, Katarina.”
Nodding her head, she could see the pure need in the red ring in his eyes.
“You’re too young. So young I shouldn’t have picked you,” he told her, then tried again. “I took you away before you even had a chance to decide what you wanted to do for the rest of your life, and I feel so fucking guilty for that.”
Kat continued to listen, hearing the pain in his voice.
“I already feel so fucking guilty for marrying you. How am I supposed to look at myself when I finally let myself have you? When I only picked you out of revenge.”
Reaching a hand out, she cupped his tanned face, letting her thumb rub over the shadows under his eyes. “I know why you picked me,” she told him, letting him know it was no secret. “But we both did what we had to do for our families.” They got to be the ones to bring peace between them, and there is no greater job than that.
“It doesn’t change how old you are, Katarina.” He pushed his head deeper into her hand.
Kat didn’t like that the age thing bothered him when that wasn’t even a thought in her mind. “No, but the things I’ve been through, the things I’ve seen make me much older than what I am on the outside.”
The shadows in his face grew deeper. “That’s another reason why I hate myself. I took you, and I don’t even know what you’ve been through.”
Dropping her hand from his face, she took a deep breath to tell him what only a few souls on this earth knew. “My father didn’t want me based on one reason alone: I was born a girl. I’m here only because Dominic somehow managed to get him to keep me, but it was my older brothers who raised me. I was kept out of sight in the basement, only coming out for school or if he needed me to do his books or count money.”
It must have been hard for Drago to hear, but he stayed right there wanting to listen to every word with the fire in his eyes raging brighter.
“It was actually safer to be in the basement, and I had it much easier than my brothers did living up there with him. Dominic made it almost impossible for him to get to me early on, but then, when he found out I had a gift, Lucifer didn’t hit me anymore. He was too afraid that I could hurt my head, and his calculator would be gone. So, then I was just forced to watch him hit my brothers… again… and again… and again.”
That turned out to be much harder than taking any hit her father had to give.
“That’s enough for tonight.” He stopped her when he saw the first tear fall. Drago picked her up, taking them to the bed, so he could wrap his arms around her and hold her. “You have the remainder of our lives to tell me the rest—if you stay with me.”
Trying to stop her tears, she pressed her body deeper into his, feeling the cold metal of his ring that touched her skin. For the first time, she finally noticed the weight of her own that sat snuggly around her finger…
To have and to hold, from this day forward, for better, for worse, for richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health, until death do us part.
She had no intentions of dying or taking it off anytime soon. Not ever.
Thirty-Nine
The Sins of My Father
She was glad Drago was with her because she thought walking up to that house would have made her happy, but it didn’t. She was happy to get to see her brothers, but she wasn’t happy to be home. Coming back, she could see it for what it was: a house of horrors.
The devil might not live in it anymore, but you couldn’t take back what happened in that house.
Dominic opened the door as soon as their feet touched the porch, the sight of him causing Kat to jump up into his arms to give him a hug. It was the longest time they had spent away from each other; she was so glad to see him again. “I missed you so much.”
“I missed you too.” He hugged her for a bit before he placed her back down on the floor.
It didn’t take her long to figure out that something seemed off about her brother. She knew he was just as glad to see her, but she could see the silent rage he carried behind his hazel eyes.
“Kat, why don’t you go see Matthias. I want to talk to Drago.”
Swallowing hard, she looked at Drago, not wanting to leave, but he gave her nod telling her it was okay. So, she did, knowing that Drago was perfectly capable of taking care of himself.
As she walked down the hall, it was hard for her to pass the basement door, unable to even look at it as she continued to Matthias’s room. She knocked on the door first, but when she got no response, she cracked it open to find Matthias on the bed just lying there silently, staring at the wall.
Kat went in doing what she usually did when she saw him like this. Slowly, she lay down beside him, placing her hands under her face to where he could no longer see that wall and was forced to stare only at her.
His haunted eyes seemed to finally see her as he slowly came back from the darkness. Whispering, his voice sounded just as haunted. “Hi, Kat.”
“Hi.” She smiled at him knowing he always liked it when she smiled.
“What are you doing here?”
“I wanted to se
e you.” She reached out to feel his face. “You didn’t think I forgot about you, did you?”
The way he looked at her fucking killed her. It was almost like he wasn’t even there, slowly becoming a shell of a man who had been hurt too many times.
She tried her best to keep her happy face. “You know, Angel lives just a few doors down from me. You can come over to visit anytime you want now.”
He only nodded.
Kat could no longer hold her smile. It hurt too much to see him this far gone. “I love you, Matthias.”
“I love you too,” he whispered more clearly, his eyes less glazed as they watched the tear fall from the corner of her eye and down to her hand under her head. “Don’t cry, Kat.”
What she had said seemed to work to get him out of that dark place for now, but what about next time?
“I’ll be okay,” he tried to promise her. “Why don’t you go find Cassius. I think something has been bothering him, but he won’t tell me what it is.”
Kat stared at him for a moment longer, not wanting to leave him but also knowing she would never be the one to save him. Placing a kiss on his forehead, she regretfully left him to find Cassius.
Going up the creaky old stairs at the back of the house, she knew exactly where he’d be. The upstairs consisted of Lucifer’s old room, but Dominic used it now after he had given her his old room. She opened the big window, letting the cold air hit her face.
“You know I don’t like it when you come out here,” Kat grumbled, squeezing out the window to sit on the roof next to her youngest brother.
Cassius kept quietly staring out at the rough exterior of the rundown neighborhood they lived in.
“What’s wrong?” she asked worriedly. She’d never really seen him this way before. She had only ever seen him upset once, and that was when Drago had chosen her.
The young boy flexed his jaw tightly. “Dom’s been pissed since you left. He’s acting like he’s going to fuckin’ kill somebody.”
Her mouth going dry wasn’t from the cold wind. A shiver shook her whole core, unsure if she wanted to know, but she didn’t have a choice but to ask... “Who?”
Drago watched Katarina walk away until she disappeared. Once she did, Dominic wasted no time speaking his mind.
“I was so fucking careful,” the Luciano boss’s voice cut like a knife into the dead air. “So fucking careful to not let you Carusos know we had a sister, and somehow he found out.”
A part of him felt bad for Katarina’s brother. It was obvious he felt as if he had failed his sister. He just didn’t quite get the scope of whom exactly he was up against. “You’ll come to find out Lucca always knows everything.”
But then again, he assumed Dominic now did.
“It’s quite annoying, really,” Drago continued, finally glad to face his guilt head on. “But it’s not him you should be mad at. I’m the one who chose her, and for that… I’m sorry.”
Dominic looked at him with a flex in his jaw.
“I want you to know, choosing Katarina had nothing to do with her and everything to do with you. I wanted you to hurt for what your father did to me. She just happened to be in the way.”
That flex in his jaw seemed to relax slightly.
He began to show Dominic that any hatred he had toward him, didn’t compare to the hatred Drago had towards himself. “Sometimes it’s hard for me to look at her, to know that I used her.”
“Good.” Dominic’s fierce hazel eyes pierced his soul. “I’ve had to wake up every fucking day for the last seventeen years paying for the sins of my father, and I’m glad to know I won’t be the only one anymore.”
“No, you won’t,” he agreed.
Feeling the release of some of his guilt, he had wanted to talk to Dominic ever since his feelings for Kat consumed him. Both of them coming to a silent agreement helped, but there was one last thing he needed to do. “Can you show me the basement?”
Nodding, Dominic didn’t even have to ask why he needed to see it as he led him down a hall, taking him to the door that opened to the descending staircase.
Drago walked down it, not knowing till he finally saw it that what he would see would be something he would never forget. It was a cold concrete room that sat under the house, used to hold old things, but up against the wall in the middle of it sat a cozy pink rug. There was a single bed by a heater, a little nightstand with a lamp on top. Even a poster of flowers hung above, creating a little room that wouldn’t look so bad if it weren’t surrounded by the cold concrete.
It was what it was, a basement that was forced to hold a room for a little girl.
“It won’t get any easier….” Dominic’s grave voice echoed through the space.
Looking back at him, Drago saw only the man who’d raised Katarina. “What won’t?”
“Looking at her.”
Drago’s eyes went back to the makeshift room, seeing what he had missed the first time… It had been made with love.
“Anybody,” Cassius told her. “He thinks Lucca knew about you before they came in, and he doesn’t understand how he found out.”
“Oh.” She scooted closer to her brother, so she could put her arm around his shoulder. “He’s just upset, Cass. I’ll talk to him and tell him to take it easy.”
Cassius continued to stare out at the trash-filled land.
It was never like talking to a young teenager when she talked to her youngest brother, with their talks consisting of mature material most of the time. She had always tried to keep him on the side with her and her older brothers, the good side, and away from their father’s, the bad side. But… he was so much like Lucifer.
She could always see the battle of good and evil in his head, the devilish boy being talked back off that line before he crossed it, and it couldn’t be undone. Except this time. Something was different.
“What happened?” she asked, terrified, afraid that she was too late. The crime looked like it had already been committed.
Cassius finally looked at her with his malevolent eyes. “I did something, Kat, and I don’t think you’ll never forgive me.”…
…At a very young age, Cassius wandered out the house when no one was looking, which happened too often because of all the fighting.
The sky was dark, but that didn’t stop him. His little legs always walked in the same direction, going to the dirty park that hardly any kids played at anymore.
This time, no kids were there when he arrived, too late at night, only some sketchy people who were huddled under blankets by some torn-down fencing.
Little Cassius took a seat on the swing, always wishing someone would push him to help get him started. Instead, he always ended just sitting there, not using the swing for its purpose.
The stars and the moon were the only light he had, but he could see the eight-legged creature running on the ground underneath him.
Without even thinking, his little shoe came down carefully, smashing only half of the spider.
Cassius stared down at it, watching four of its legs continue to move for several minutes… enjoying it. He turned only when the jingle of the swing beside him could be heard.
He thought it might’ve been Dominic at first, but quickly he learned it wasn’t.
The stranger took a seat beside him. “Hello.”
Cassius stared at the guy, unafraid. He wasn’t scared of anything, really, not even strangers. “Hi.”
“What’s your name?”
Everyone always seemed to know who he was in the neighborhood, but he had never seen this man before, and he felt like he would have remembered him, since he didn’t look like anyone around here. “Cassius.”
Swinging slightly, he smiled at the boy. “It’s nice to meet you, Cassius.”
Little Cassius went back to looking at the spider that was still trying to move.
“What are you doing out here so late?”
He told the stranger why he always came out here all alone. “My father is trying hurt Kat
again.”
“Who’s Kat?” he asked, looking down to see what the boy was staring at.
“My sister.”
“Oh.” The stranger stood then, going in front of the little boy before he crouched down, so Cassius would look at him. “I like to hurt things too.”
“You do?” Cassius moved his eyes away from the tortured spider to look at the stranger who seemed to be somewhere around his brother Dominic’s age. He was either not yet an adult or barely one at all.
“Yes.” His intense blue-green eyes shifted between the two colors in the moonlight. “But…” The young stranger stood up, squashing the spider, so it could meet his death. “…they must deserve it.”
“Why?” Cassius asked, unable to look away from him anymore.
“Because if we’re not careful, we will end up hurting people like your sister.”
The little boy shook his head, becoming worried. “I don’t want to hurt Kat.”
“I won’t let you,” the stranger assured him. “I can help you.”
“Okay.” Cassius smiled up at his new friend. “What’s your name?”
Going behind the swing, he started pushing the little boy. “You can call me… Luke.”…
…“I didn’t know it was him, Kat.” Cassius shook his head angrily. “I didn’t know my friend was fuckin Lucca the whole time….”
Katarina’s body and mind were numb, still in shock over what her brother had told her.
“…Not till he walked in our front door that day.”
Forty
The Day Katarina Was Chosen
“You promised me!” Katarina screamed at her brother, uncaring of the many women who stood in their living room. “You promised me I wouldn’t have to go back down there ever again!”
“I know,” Dominic told her painfully and regretfully. “But, please, it’s only for a little bit.”
Drago (Made Men Book 6) Page 15
