by Lannah Smith
His grandfather blanched at his bluntness. "You think I wanted that to happen?"
Curbing his emotions, Christopher said tonelessly. "Oh, I don't know, grandfather. I've stopped caring what you think."
“Think about your grandmother,” his grandfather tried another tactic then.
A roaring sea of fury and whirlwinds of vengeance blew through his brain. The monster inside him was making him feel nothing but hatred, telling him to return this blow with a blow. To give pain for pain.
He had to fucking get out.
He pushed off the wall and made his way to the door.
“Grandmother has been calling me by his name lately,” he muttered. “I’m hoping when she sees me next time, I can go back to being me.”
“Christopher—.”
“And I warn you,” he paused and turned to him, “if you try to harm April or anyone close to me, even if you’re family, I will never forgive you and I will use everything, everything I have to pay you back a thousandfold.”
Slamming his fist down on the desk again, his grandfather snarled, “You’re forgetting I put you in that position! I gave you that power! I could take it back easily!”
He continued on his way, muttering, “I don’t give a fucking damn.”
“You’re a fool, Christopher. Just like your father.”
Hand on the knob, Christopher glanced at him over his shoulder. “I’d rather die loved than be a miserable fuck like you, grandfather.”
Then he left.
Chapter 63
"I'm not going."
Christopher followed closely behind me as I stomped to the bedroom. Plunking down on the side of the bed, I bent down, my hands going to my shoes.
"But we have been invited," I heard him say and I tilted my head up. He was standing in front of me, the amusement on his face apparent.
I scowled at him. "I don't care if we have been invited. I'm not going to Terry Evan's party."
"But I go every year, honey."
"I'm not stopping you from going."
He shook his head. "I'm not going this time without you."
My gut tightened.
"You know what will happen if I show up," I reminded him, turning my attention back to my shoe. "There will be a scene."
"Terry already expects a scene," he responded. "Still, she wants you there."
I didn't doubt she did.
She'd been especially chatty towards me all day and during dinner.
I'd be stupid if I didn't realize what her intentions were. She was digging. Testing me. Checking if I was no longer the bitch, I was years ago. If my intentions this time were clear.
Hannah, on the other hand, had been unusually quiet. She kept studying me silently, like she was not sure what to make of me. But it didn't bother me as much as Sophia did.
Now that woman was stubborn. She was as chatty as Terry but she genuinely wanted to know me. She didn't care about my background or what I had tried to do to her relationship. She thought my life was interesting. She was the hardest to ignore among them all.
Emilia was well, Emilia. Seeing how angry I was still, how I refused to play nice, she tried to navigate the conversation around the table to her pregnancy and to her wedding and everyone played along with her knowing I couldn’t and wouldn’t curse at her.
Christopher came in the middle of dinner. I watched with ill-disguised interest as he was plagued with so many questions, dodging most of them skillfully, and get scolded a lot. This interaction had me brooding for the rest of the dinner. He was so comfortable with them that I couldn't help but wonder why he couldn't have dated one of them. Once, I had thought he had been into Hannah and she into him. If it weren't for the fact I heard of her pining for William and that Christopher was only helping her, I would have hated her entire being.
And what is with these straps? I thought in frustration, glaring at the thin straps of my high-heels. Why did I ever thought to wear them?
Christopher crouched in front of me, moving my hands away. "I know you're worried, honey." He took the back of my heel in one hand, the finger of his other working the strap. "And you don't have to be. I'm going to be there with you. I'll gladly kill anyone who looks at you the wrong way. No one will dare mess with you. Not if they want to live."
My lips thinned. "You're a twisted one, aren't you?"
Christopher lifted his head and caught my eyes. He smiled.
"What do you mean?"
"You just said all those threats like you were looking forward to doing them."
He chuckled. "Isn't that how threats should be done?"
"No," I shook her head. "Not like that." I looked and stared deep into his eyes when I said, "You know, I'd never seen anyone like you and I've met everyone who's anyone in this world."
He didn't lose the smile when he stared at me.
That smile reminded me of the conversation we had this morning and the memory gave me another gut clench.
"Well, it looks like they found a corpse."
I had been standing at the kitchen counter across from him, drinking a mug of hot chocolate, contemplating about going out with Emilia. He had been finishing his coffee while reading the news on his phone.
"What?" I breathed, shocked. His off-hand comment had me almost dropping my mug.
"Trouble has been brewing in the city before you left," he muttered, putting his empty cup down. "Now it's erupted."
I did the same with my mug. "I don't get you." My brows drew together. "Aren't you too light-hearted about this?"
"It's fine." He rounded the counter and wrapped his arms around me, planting a kiss on my neck. "It's a simpler matter than you'd think."
"Someone just died, Christopher," I scolded him. "Are you saying that for real?"
"Have you started with your online courses?" he tried to digress but I was having none of that.
"We need to talk," I shrugged him off and twisted to face him. "You're too... relax about this whole thing."
His hands on the counter on either side of me, he asked in an innocent tone, "About what?"
"The mafia," I bluntly stated, folding my arms.
He shook his head. "Those people are not mafia. They're just a bunch of common criminals."
"You're also a criminal."
He pushed away from the counter but pulled me into his body. "I'm a businessman," he told me with a tiny grin.
I rolled my eyes. Because we both know that was a lie.
Christopher had shared some of his plans with me. He told me about allying with the Morettis, a New York mob.
A dangerous New York Mob.
I would have considered this an achievement if not for the danger of this allegiance. The Morettis were unpredictable. Volatile in nature. But they were loyal. Until you betray them. Which apparently what happened between Christopher's grandfather and them.
Now Christopher was fixing that bridge. I didn't doubt he would. It just scared me. Because there was no running away from the Morettis or this life of crime anymore.
Worrying about this, I asked him, "This won't escalate right?"
"No," he assured me. "Who even has gang wars in this day and age? Why would they start one this time round? There are no benefits to this war."
"Do you know who you're talking to?" I gritted out.
He smiled. "I do."
"I know a power game when I see one."
"I know." He leaned down and kissed me. "I'm sorry. I shouldn't have been careless with my words."
I pressed my cheek on his shoulder. His arms tightened around me.
"Christopher?" I mumbled.
"Yeah?"
"Sometimes, I think that you have lost some screws in the head. But sometimes, I think you were just born without them."
Christopher had laughed that off.
I let him off with that reaction because I had been distracted by the black card, he was putting on the palm of my hand. Then he left and Emilia came to pick me up. She didn't trust that I would keep
my promise of going shopping with her.
"You've always been softhearted, April," Christopher was saying when he slid my shoes off, dropping them one by one to the floor, and I focused on him.
"Stop spouting nonsense," I hissed. "Don't you think it's the either way around?"
"Me?" he chuckled quietly and pushed off the floor. He sat next to me, pulling the hair away from my neck before he curled his fingers there. "I might seem like it but I don't really care for other people who I'm not close to. It's not my duty to save the world."
I felt my breath start sticking in my throat because he meant this.
"You're messed up too, aren't you?" I whispered.
He shrugged both shoulders. "I had an unusual childhood too."
"Alec told me..." I hesitated. "He told me things about you. I didn't want to believe him. You couldn't be... that kind of person he painted you to be."
A corner of his lip curved. "You mean a monster?"
I tensed and he released his hand.
"You're not a monster," I said quietly. "You're just... disturbed."
I watched him leaned forward, bracing his elbows on his knees, scrubbing both hands down his face. Pressure clamped down hard on my heart, suspending its next beat. He dropped his hands and stared at them.
Then he said, "I had been afraid of myself once."
The sudden bleakness in voice sliced through me.
"I thought I'd killed somebody with my bare hands. Do you remember Arnie from your class back in middle school?"
I slowly nodded.
"He disappeared, didn't he?"
A chill ran down my spine. "I thought he transferred out."
"I broke his legs."
I stiffened.
"Broke his ribs."
My hands began to shook.
"Made him bleed."
I closed my eyes.
"I asked him not to mess with me. He didn't. So I made sure he didn't anymore. I thought I'd killed him. My grandfather had to step in to keep everything under the wraps."
"I don't..." I took in a stuttering breath and exhaled. "It's hard to believe that happened. You kept getting bullied—."
"It was before my grandfather told me not to fight back until I learned how to hurt without killing them."
Oh, my God.
I moved closer to him, wrapping an arm around his back. He instinctively reached out to hold my hand, bringing it to his lips, kissing it.
"I'm fucked up," his head turned and he looked at me with a tortured expression on his face. "Sometimes I can't take control. Sometimes the bloodlust takes over and I'm not me. And I want it. The violence. Our school peers called Leon and John bullies but it was me. I was the fucking bully. They just didn't know because I knew how to hide it."
My heart squeezed. I felt my throat close. It cut me to the quick to see him like this.
"I know you heard the men call me mad dog. And it's the truth."
"Mad dog or not, you're just Christopher to me," I growled. "Because if you're hopeless then I am too. I’m a product of my father after all. And I'm not in the right mind too. You know, my mother wasn't in her right mind too when she took her own life and I had to find her in the bath."
Christopher's face grew dark.
“You knew?” I whispered.
“I heard the rumors, honey,” he squeezed my hand gently. “You told me she died in her sleep because of heart failure. Everyone knows she died because of heart failure. But while I was digging into your family…”
Tears fell from my eyes.
"I found her, Christopher," I said softly. "I was ten and I found her in a bathtub filled with blood. She had a miscarriage." I closed my eyes tight. "Because of my father. She didn't... she started to lose her mind after that."
Christopher gathered me close and tight. So tight it hurt.
It didn't hurt my body. It hurt my heart. Because the same man had scarred us both. The difference was, I didn't want to make him pay. I just want him gone from my life. Christopher, however, had other plans.
Pulling away, my hands glided up his chest so they could wrap the sides of his neck. I stared into his eyes, stroking his jaw. As I did this, his pained eyes were moving over my face.
"Make me forget, Christopher," I whispered through my tears.
And he did.
Chapter 64
It was during a meeting with his executive staff in the main conference room that David Grant finally decided to call.
Alec's face held no expression when he handed Christopher the phone after telling him who the call was from. Christopher immediately excused himself from the meeting. His staff, already used to these interruptions, didn't even glance at him as they continued to argue about the mall they were about to build in Long Island.
"Stand down, Grant," Christopher muttered into the phone as soon as he cleared the room.
"He killed my son," he hissed.
Glaring at the teak-paneled wall in front of him, he whispered, "It's a dangerous game you're playing."
"I'm good at it."
"The spider won't leave his web. You can't even get near him. And you know he'll send Russo after you."
"He'll show himself soon. And tell Haru Evans I'm finishing the Russo for him, something he should have done a long time ago."
fucking hell, if this asshole didn’t mean so much to April, Christopher wouldn’t waste fucking words on him and let him get killed.
Sighing angrily, Christopher tried again, “Mr. Grant—.”
David didn’t let him finish.
“He killed my son!”
Christopher gritted his teeth.
“My only son! And you want me to stand down?”
It was pointless to try to reason with a grieving father and a man with a deadly skillset. But Christopher wasn’t known for his diplomacy. Because several deep breaths later, he said, “You let that happen when you chose not to let me in the loop, Grant."
Silence.
Then, "Are you fucking blaming me for my son's death?"
"You knew I was looking for April,” Christopher muttered low and angrily, glancing at Alec who was telling some employees to turn back and take the other hall. “You knew.”
"And how well that turned out," David fired back.
"You hid them both from me."
"I don't know you."
"A little research would have done the fucking trick, Grant, wouldn't it?"
"You think I'd trust a Lawrence?" David was once again roaring over the line. "Your grandfather tried to kill April's mother."
"Tried," Christopher responded impatiently. "And you should have expected retribution since your fucking asshole of a boss murdered his son, daughter-in-law, granddaughter and almost killed me."
There was silence on the line again. Christopher took another deep breath to calm down.
"Don't blame me for your failure to protect your mistress and her daughter," he whispered. "And don't blame me for the death of your son."
"You know how I feel."
"I sure as fuck do. But I'm playing smart. You aren't. I have an army of support. You don't. Your two assassination attempts on Locke failed too. Doesn't that tell you that something?"
"And I won't stop."
Christopher felt his blood start heating. "Stop what? Ruining my plans?"
"You're taking your time killing him."
"The hell I am. Grant, we've both been fucked over by a sick fuck who threw us all into hell and has especially been making April live in one for twenty-six fucking years. Luckily, she found her way through. Doesn't mean she stopped thinking about her mother or your son for that matter. It took her a while to get rid of the nightmares of his death—."
"Don't," David whispered brokenly into his ear.
"—and even now I know she thinks of him because she always gets that sad fucking look on her face," Christopher went on, deaf to his plea. “You’re all fired up to destroy him but fucking think about April. She wouldn’t want anything to happen t
o you. Just like she didn’t want anything to happen to your son.”
