by A. Zavarelli
He spins me around slowly, pressing the knife he’s holding flush against my throat. One wrong move, and I’m dead. It isn’t too difficult to figure out why. When I glance up at him, the betrayal is written all over his face. And behind him, scattered across the counter, are the contents of my secret hiding place. The photo of Talia. The rolled up notes I’ve been keeping.
My eyes start to water. This isn’t how I wanted things to go. I was going to leave. Do the right thing for Lachlan and figure out another way. But he’ll never believe that now.
His breaths are coming fast and hard, and he isn’t talking. The eyes that held a world of vibrant colors and emotions are now a barren sea of stark gray. I’ve never seen him so angry. So hurt.
“Tell me why,” he demands. “What have ye to say for yourself, Mack?”
“Talia,” I whisper.
He slams me back against the wall and the knife presses deeper into my flesh. Blood trickles down my throat as his eyes burn into me. “I don’t fucking believe a word out of your mouth.”
The pain of the blade is nothing compared to that look from him. The disappointment and the rage, the obvious regret over allowing me into his life. How did it come to be this way? I don’t have a fucking clue. I was never supposed to get involved with him. The water leaking from my eyes starts to spill over now, and there is no pushing it back this time.
“It’s the truth,” I tell him. “You saw her photo. It’s right there on the counter…”
“Shut up!” he yells. “Just shut the fuck up.”
The knife presses deeper still, and he’s panting now. His eyes are turbulent, darting all over my face and I know right now he’s making the decision whether I live or die. But there is no decision. If I’ve been discovered, there’s only one way the syndicate would deal with me. The only escape for me is death. And even then, Lachlan will still probably bear the weight of my sins.
I won’t apologize to him. I know it wouldn’t do any good right now. So instead, I offer him the one thing I can. The one thing I need from him before my fate is carried out.
“Would it make you feel any better to fuck your hate out on me?” I whisper.
There’s a small part of me that fears he’ll outright reject me. The hatred in his eyes is clear. I’m afraid it’s overshadowed everything else we had between us.
“Ye’re fucking joking,” he laughs darkly. “Ye think that’s going to make me feel better?”
I can’t get my mouth to work, so I nod. I need to feel him, any way I can. I need this last connection with him.
“I suppose there’s only one way to find out,” he says.
He wheels me around and presses his hand between my shoulder blades until I’m flattened over the counter. He holds me down by the throat and shoves my dress up over my hips, using the knife to cut my thong off. Before I can understand what he’s doing, he stuffs the material into my mouth and then clamps his palm over my lips. A slide of his zipper, and he’s buried deep inside of me. Christ, he’s already hard as hell. I don’t know what to make of that.
“Ye’re wet for me, Mack.” He slides in and out of me, grabbing hold of my wrists behind my back. “Is that a lie too?”
I shake my head and mumble around the cloth in my mouth. This only pisses him off more. His hand comes down and presses my face flat against the countertop while he pulls my wrists back with his other arm. The position is uncomfortable, as it’s meant to be, but I don’t care.
I yield to him. This is a punishment fuck. He’s coming at me hard and fast now, yanking me around like a sex toy for his pleasure. I’ll take it. He has unconditional power over me. I deserve whatever he gives me. More than that, I want it. I want him so fucking much it hurts.
I manage to twist my neck a little under the weight of his bruising grip and peek up at him. I make eye contact and he uses his palm to shove my hair into my face, darkening my world again.
“I can’t even look at you,” he roars. “Fuck! Mack. What have ye done?”
He keeps fucking me, but he’s not enjoying himself. I can tell. He’s squeezing my waist with both hands now, barreling into me. His chest collapses against my back and he buries his face in my hair, inhaling.
“You’ve wrecked me, Mack,” he says. “You’ve fucking wrecked me.”
More tears spill over my eyes, and I try to apologize. It’s too muffled for him to understand. He releases my mouth, and I spit the cloth out.
“Goddammit.” He pulls out of me and spins me around, lifting me up so that my ass is hanging off the counter and I’m facing him. “I have to look at ye,” he grunts as he slides back into me. “I don’t want to. But I have to. You lying fucking…”
I reach up and yank his face to mine. For a second, he kisses me back, as if he’s forgotten. And then he bites me and pulls away. My lip is bleeding, and so is my throat. He smears the blood with his fingers before he wraps his hand around my neck.
“I should just do it now,” he says. “It was all an act to you. A fucking game.”
“No,” I protest weakly.
He slams into me at my denial. “Every word ye told me was a lie.”
“It wasn’t.”
He thrusts harder. So hard the counter creaks beneath me, threatening to snap from the force of his anger.
“Every goddamn word,” he yells.
I feel like I’m going to snap too. It isn’t the rough fuck. It’s his words. He keeps saying them over and over. I’m a liar. It meant nothing. I did this to him. I betrayed him. And it sends me over the mental edge.
“Shut up! Shut up! Shut up!” I sob. “It wasn’t a fucking act! I’m in love with you Lachlan!”
He freezes mid-thrust, his eyes brutally cold as they examine me. I can’t look at him when he’s like this, so I bury my face against his chest. It doesn’t matter if he believes me. I told him. And I haven’t said those words to anybody in a very long time.
The world around us goes silent and still. He doesn’t move. I don’t either. I won’t look at him. After a while, he cups the back of my head and starts to move inside of me again. It’s nothing like before. This time he isn’t trying to hurt me, he’s trying to finish. The sounds that I love spill from his throat as he pulls me as close as he can get me.
He whispers something so low I can’t make it out, and then he comes with an agonized sigh. One last time. A sob wrenches from my throat when the realization washes over me.
When I open my eyes, he’s still inside of me. His eyes are plastered to my face, torn. I know what I should do. I should just ask him to do it. I want him to be the one to do it. I know he’ll be good to me. He won’t draw it out or torture me. He’d make it quick. But I also know it’d kill him to do it.
Maybe I could run. I could just leave and go somewhere else, far away. But I know there’s no chance of that happening.
In my heart, I already know it’s going to be him or me.
My eyes dart to the knife laying on the counter within reach, and before I can give it any thought, he grabs it and hands it to me. There’s nothing on his face. No anger. No emotion. Nothing. Because of me and what I did to him.
“Go on,” he says. “That’s probably the best solution, Mack. Because I sure as hell don’t want to use it on you.”
My lip quivers, and my hand starts to shake. Jesus, I’m really losing the plot here. There was never any question about it, I can’t hurt him. I’ve done enough of that already.
I pull the knife away and throw it across the room with a sob, and Lachlan crushes me against his chest.
“Goddamn you, Mack. I knew I should have avoided ye.”
“I know,” I whisper back. “Why didn’t you?”
His eyes grow dark, and instinctively I know I’m not going to like the next words out of his mouth.
“I had no choice in the matter. The Russians wanted to trade you for their rat. They want ye dead.”
“What?” I choke out. “Why do they want me dead?”
“Think
I swallow down nine years of pain and guilt as I reach into his eyes and pull out the answers for myself.
“You were going to give me to them, weren’t you?”
Lachlan scrubs his hands over his face and looks away. “I don’t know. I don’t know what the fuck I was going to do with ye, Mack. It doesn’t matter now though, does it?”
My hands fall away from his shirt as I nod. It would have hurt less if he had stabbed me.
“Do you know who killed my father?” I ask quietly.
“Aye.”
I force my eyes to his even though it’s the last place I want to look. “You have to tell me.”
“That I can’t do.”
“Because of your precious fucking syndicate?” I yell.
“No. Because I know how ye are, Mack.”
My lip wobbles as I try to make sense of his words. I know what he’s going to do. I know it in my gut already. So why does it matter if he tells me who killed my father?
“I’ll sort it out,” he says. “Ye have my word, Mack. The man who did your father will no longer walk this earth, even if it’s the last thing I do.”
I’m too choked up to speak, so I just nod. It isn’t good enough, but there’s too much happening right now for me to wrap my head around.
“Donovan knows,” he continues.
“How?” I ask.
“Said he remembers you from Southie. He knew you and Talia were mates, somehow. Connected the dots. I don’t know.”
“He didn’t grow up in Southie,” I argue. “And I don’t know him. That’s complete bullshit.”
Lachlan shrugs. Regardless how Donny found out is a moot point. The only thing that matters now is the aftermath.
“Ye should have come to me,” he says. “I’d have told you then I had nothing to do with Talia’s disappearance. Neither did any of the lads.”
“You don’t know that for sure.”
His throat works, and he pulls back to look at me. “I do.”
I open my mouth, but it takes me a minute to get my voice to work. I’m afraid to hear what he has to say. “How?”
“She was spending her time at a different sort of club,” he says. “With one of the Russians.”
I look away because I already know in my gut what he means. He’s confirming what I’ve suspected all along. It was the Russian that she talked about. And now my time is up, and I’ll never know who he was.
My voice is hoarse when I speak again. “So what now?”
Lach remains quiet and solemn as he pulls out of me and tucks himself back into his pants.
“Now we get in my car and drive.”
The car is deceptively quiet for all of the loud thoughts hanging between us. We’re at odds. An ocean of lies tethering us together and tearing us apart.
When Lachlan said drive, I didn’t think he meant for hours. I don’t know where he’s going. I doubt he does either. I know he’s working up the courage to do it. It’s taking him a long time.
I accepted my fate the moment I climbed inside of his car. I know what he has to do, even if he can’t admit it himself. There’s no other way. This is the code he lives by. His loyalty lies with the syndicate, and I’m not stupid enough to think I can change that. I won’t let myself believe I can change that. It’s easier this way, knowing and accepting what he’s going to do. I won’t fight him.
It’s him or me.
That’s what I keep telling myself.
I’m trying to forget the fact that he was planning to hand me over to the Russians. That he knew all along he’d probably have to marry someone else and we couldn’t be together. He’s lied to me, and I to him. We can’t get past these things. There’s no overcoming them.
And what life do I have to go back to anyway? Talia’s gone. Scarlett is a lone wolf. I never realized how empty my life had really become until I had him in it. He did that to me. He said I wrecked him, but he completely destroyed me. Everything was fine when I was alone. When I didn’t have to feel or think or care about someone else. Sure I was sad and broken, but I was okay. Now, I’m anything but.
He made me want things I was never destined to have. He made me cry and say the words I never thought I’d say again. If my father were here, he’d tell me I was pathetic. That this was my own fault for being weak. And he’d be right. But there wasn’t any other option. I think I’d always been weak as far as Lachlan was concerned. He dissolved my armor with a single look. A touch. One command from his lips, and I was his. I’m a slave to this man. The power he holds over me is ridiculous. And now that I’m going to die, I can admit that freely.
I can’t keep myself from glancing over at him. Seeing his shadowed profile lit only by the light of the moon and the headlights of passing cars. I only get glimpses of him, and it’s never enough. Tiny flashes of the man I fell in love with, but wasn’t supposed to.
He’s hauntingly beautiful. Those eyes of his hold so many different memories between us. I wonder if he’ll look back on them when I’m gone, or if he’ll shut me out forever. That would hurt worse than anything. But what does it matter? I’ll be dead.
Someone else will be in his bed, feeling his body move inside of them. Feeling his warmth when he comes in right before dawn and pulls her against his chest. Wearing his shirts and smelling his cologne on the pillow beside her. I hate her already. I hate the bitch who gets to have those things with him so much I want to scream.
It isn’t fair. None of this is fair. But I won’t tell him that. I won’t beg. I’ll only ask one thing of him, even though my heart is breaking. I just need him to keep his promise about Scarlett. And maybe something else. Maybe he could find out what happened to Talia.
I know she’s probably gone, like I’ll be soon too. Maybe we’ll find each other again somehow in the next life.
Lachlan pulls over and turns off the car. When I glance out the window, I see that we’re on a side road, surrounded by nothing but forest. This is the place he’s chosen for me. I wonder if he’ll ever visit my gravesite.
“Get out.”
His words are sharp, but even still, he can’t hide the emotion that lies beneath. I want to believe that there’s another option. One where neither of us has to die. But this isn’t a game anymore. It’s as real as it’s ever been, and I’m just nowhere near as tough as I thought. I’m not ready to go, but I’m not selfish enough to let him die either.
I get out of the car. It’s cold, and I can see my breath in front of me, but that doesn’t matter. I’ll be very cold soon enough. I walk on wooden legs to stand before him. The headlights are still on, illuminating his figure against the inky blackness of the forest.
“Can I…” I reach up to touch his face. “Can I just have one more…”
“Shut up, Mack.”
His lips are on me, hot and savage, echoed by the movement of his hands. Whatever cold surrounds me, I no longer feel. I’m safe here in his arms, if only for a little while. They are warm and familiar and comforting to me. Really, I couldn’t think of a better way to go. I hope he holds me close like this when he does it. I don’t want to know it’s coming.
He yanks my dress up and rubs his palm between my legs. I’m still sore from earlier, but just this touch from him… the knowledge that he still wants me after everything… is enough to make me crave him desperately.
I don’t have to beg him. He’s got me flipped onto my back and pressed against the hood of his car in no time. I half laugh and half sob when he unzips his pants and I realize what he’s doing. He told me he’d fuck me on it. And now he is.
He pushes inside of me, harder than steel and so fucking big I feel like I’m being torn in two. I welcome it. This sweet brutality. I want it to go on forever. I claw at his back and kiss his neck and murmur things against his skin. Confessions, admissions, declarations. It drives him crazy.
“Say it again,” he tells me with each thrust.
I repeat whatever irrational thought goes through my head in the moment. I tell him I wanted to keep him. How I love the way he fucks me. How much he’s rubbed off onto me, and how goddamn beautiful he is. I talk about his accent, his ass, even his fighting skills. It’s all coming out in half pants and sobs.
“Have ye anything else to say?” he whispers in my ear. “Like ye did earlier?”
Tears are rolling down my face when I look up into his eyes and tell him.
“I love you.”
He thrusts harder.
“I love you,” I repeat.
Another hard thrust. He wants to hear it, and yet he’s punishing me for it.
“I fucking love you!” I scream. “I love you goddammit! You fucking asshole. I hate you for making me love you.”
He comes inside of me with a grunt and collapses on top of me. His fingers are still working my clit, and I’m sobbing when I come too.
“Just do it,” I plead. “Do it already. I can’t wait any more. I need you to do it.”
He’s staring down at me, his eyes filled with pain, but he isn’t moving. He’s inside of me. On top of me. Everywhere around me. This is pure torture now.
“Just fucking do it!” I scream.
He grabs me by the throat and slaps his other hand over my mouth. My body goes lax beneath him, and relief courses through my veins. But after a moment, I realize the pressure isn’t there, and I don’t know what the fuck he’s doing.
“Cop onto yourself, sweetheart,” he says.
And then he takes his hand off my mouth and replaces it with his lips. They’re soft and gentle and sweet and completely fucking sadistic to do this to me.
“Lachlan…”
“Shut up, Mack.”
He pulls out of me and zips himself back up. And then he helps me up off the hood of the car. I can’t even find the energy to ask what the hell he’s doing when he walks me back to the passenger side and deposits me onto the seat.
He gets in beside me, and then we’re driving again. In silence. Through the goddamn woods. Lach’s fingers are threaded through mine the entire time. I can’t tell what he’s thinking. What he’s doing. I don’t know what the fuck is going on. I’m trying to silence the insane thoughts looping through my brain.
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