I tried my best. I know I fucking did! Everything I did, ever, was for him or Liam. How could he not see that? I may not have added to our life financially but…
You added to your life stress! Stress because he had to take care of you. Stress because he now had a child, someone who demanded more than you did no matter how hard you tried to run interference. You know that by the way he rolled his eyes every time Liam tried to get him to play with him! Or how he’d storm out of the room every damn time he started to cry! And then what did you do? You asked him for another damn child!
I stop wiping the table and look up as a memory I hate to remember flashes before my eyes.
“Can you stop that damn baby from crying, fuck! I have to work tomorrow Rose. Some people actually have responsibilities! Have a fucking life. For fuck sake, shut him up!”
I sat there in our room with Liam only three days old the first night we returned home from the hospital and cried. It was midnight and he had latched on to nurse but there was no milk. No matter what I did, there was no way of feeding him and stopping his hunger, his crying. “I’m trying,” I whispered back.
“Well fuck! Try harder,” he hissed as he turned his back to me in bed and whispered something under his breath.
I still remember escaping the room with Liam crying in my arms. I walked with shaky hands into the room across the house to try again. I attempted to shush the tiny baby in my arms and pray, hope for a miracle, needing my milk to come in so I could do what every mother is supposed to be able to do. Take care of and nourish their own child.
But nothing. I failed.
Finally accepting my fate, I quickly tiptoed out to the front room and grabbed a bottle the nurses from the hospital sent me home with and plucked it in his mouth. He stopped instantly and feed. Content. Happy. Satisfied. Something I wasn’t able to give him. Something I now realize I was never able to give his father, either. And I’d be lying if I said I didn’t worry I wouldn’t be able to give it to Justin.
I failed. I’m so sorry, I failed.
I feel a tear fall down my cheek and my bottom lip begin to tremble.
I failed at one of the smallest things in life. Something that is supposed to come natural. Easy. A God given right that most women receive. I failed and that was just the beginning. The beginning of everything that has led me to now. To one failure after another until my son was ripped from my side and I stood by watching, helpless and unable to fight to get him back.
Helpless, just like I felt all those years ago when Michael was supposed to stand by my side, support me, help me when I couldn’t help myself, but he didn’t. He failed me too. Something I never let myself grasp the concept of all these years as I held onto my own guilt instead.
I hear motion behind me and turn to look. Brittany makes her way into the room, her phone to her ear and a focused look on her face.
“Trust me, it won’t be that easy.” My heart stops. What won’t be easy? “We got it Tom. Dylan may not be in the field anymore, and I may have taken a step back since Miami, but that doesn’t mean we can’t still handle the job. Besides, you’re not even running this case. What do you care?” She turns and looks at me, giving me a mischievous smile and wink as I hear her tease who I’ve recently learned is her boss at the bureau on the other side of the line. But her face quickly changes and a concerned look flashes through her eyes as she takes in my stare.
Troubled. Anxious. Distraught.
“Hey Old Man,” I hear her say through the phone cautiously. “I’m going to have to call you back.” She pauses for a moment before I see her roll her eyes and then say, “I’ll tell him. Talk soon.” Hanging up, she continues to eye me cautiously for a moment before eventually taking a step closer.
“You know, we’re not all born strong, Rose. We gain our courage, our bravery, our fearlessness by the storms we walk through.” I look at her stunned for a moment, hiding behind the wall I have learned to build throughout the years and not wanting her to see over it. But something about the way she looks at me, like she understands a battle I’ve been fighting on my own for far too long, makes me break. Makes me let down the mask I have been hiding behind. I shake as a few more tears fall and she takes another step closer.
“I’ve never been strong…” I begin to say as my hands tremble and I look down, fighting with my own body trying to make them stop.
“Rose,” she whispers sympathetically as my eyes look up and catch hers. “One of the wisest things I have ever learned throughout the years is to be on my own side.” She gives me a small smile and I try and give her one back. “God gives his toughest battles to his strongest soldiers. You were born with the ability to be strong, Rose. And you are! You prove that every day carrying the weight of the war you fight in your mind and making it through. That is the hardest battle there is.”
Her words do something to me, what I am not sure yet, and I close my eyes as a sort of relief gently begins to float through my soul. “It’s not easy.”
“It’s never easy,” she says, and I open my eyes thankful for the first time since Justin that someone else sees me. Seems to understand without me having to say a single word. “But it does get less painful.” She promises with a caring smile. “You’ll always have to fight, that’s life. But one day, when you finally realize your own strength, the one that has been building inside you all this time, you’ll believe in yourself, and then… then you’ll be unstoppable. It’s the one truth the voices try and steal. The fact that this battle, the one that they are putting you through, is making you stronger, you just have to see it. Believe it. You’ve already won. And every single damn day you prove that over and over again by not giving up. Not giving in.”
“It’s not just the voice in my head it’s…”
“Guilt? Regret? Typically something under the surface that starts to fester with time. Self-inflicted or maybe planted there by someone, something you’ve been through?”
I swallow hard and stare in her eyes with fear. Not for her. But for what she is saying. A surface I am just scratching and a hell I am not sure I am ready to walk through. Even if it means I am possibly, eventually, finally set free.
“You’ll break your own heart holding on to whatever is dragging you under, Rose. Sometimes, the hardest thing you’ll ever learn in life is how to take a deep breath, push down, and pull yourself through everything that’s built up underneath the surface until you reach the bottom.” She’s right. I know she is, but I also know I just might not be ready to take the plunge. She sees that too and smiles. “The good thing about hitting the bottom, is there is only one way left to go, and that’s up. After the push and the pull, something happens inside and you’re finally set free. You can finally fly.”
“How do you know I will be that lucky?” I whisper. “How do you know it won’t finally ruin me?”
“How do you know it won’t?” She questions me back. I stare at her blankly for a moment before she takes another step forward and places her hand on my arm. “I’ve been there. Hit the bottom, and then realized it has a fucking basement.” I laugh as she rolls her eyes and smiles. “I’ve looked the devil inside me in the eyes. Faced my demons in this fucked up world we live in and then, even when I started to finally climb, I got knocked down further than before. My whole world was stolen from me. My own son included. Leo, he pulled me out of it.” I blink a few times as she tells me a small sliver of her connection to a man I haven’t met yet. “He helped me end a battle with a man that held me hostage for so long I believed I was better off dead. I was better off letting the voices win. And that was only the beginning. Trust me, one day you’ll turn around and realize the power has been inside you all along, you just had to believe it for yourself. That is the only thing the hurt, the memories, the voices want to steal. The truth. The truth that you alone are more than capable, and damn sure more than powerful enough, on your own, to defeat it all.”
I let her words sink in as we stand in silence for a moment before we bo
th hear voices out in the hall. She steps away from me and begins to walk towards them when Dylan, Justin and a man I have yet to meet, but assume is Leonardo, walk into the room.
Justin’s eyes find mine instinctively and he gives me a worried look before beginning to cross the room. But oddly I feel more alive, freer than I have in days and the smile that crosses my face and greets him is more genuine than anyone I have given him since the afternoon Liam was taken from us. “You OK?” He whispers concerned as he wraps his arms around me. I hold onto him tightly as I catch the eyes of the men in the room behind him and nod. I can feel something is off in the way he pulls me against him, even in just the 24 hours we have been apart since I left his side. Something is different in the desperate way he holds onto my frame. But I push it aside, so happy to finally feel a small amount of relief, a tiny bit of comfort from the conversation I just had with Brittany, and I don’t want it to leave me, not just yet.
“I’ve set up a meeting with the head of the illegal arm’s operation tomorrow at midnight,” Leonardo says as he eyes me cautiously and then makes his way to the bar in the corner to pour himself a drink. “I’m going to need you,” he says motioning towards Brittany, “And you,” he looks directly at Justin and my heart freezes, “to go over some of the ins and outs of the business so you are up to speed and briefed on how this type of shit is run. I’m going to want you both to accompany me tomorrow night. The last thing we need are these fuckers thinking something is up when the only way I could sell them on a meeting was to assure the boss that three families were interested in purchasing the largest order of untraceable weapons they’ve ever fucking received.”
Justin’s grip tightens on me as he pulls me further into his side. I don’t want him to go. I can’t place it, but something about this whole damn thing feels off. Who would want to take my son, and why? Hell, let’s go a step further and what would an illegal Cuban arm’s dealer want with him?
I know there are still things I don’t understand from Justin’s past and that is OK, but I can’t help and wonder if what he was telling me all along, the reasons why he shouldn’t let himself get too close, had a much deeper meaning than just Charlette and Emma. I look up at him beside me and I see his jaw clench. I feel the tension in his shoulders and hate that there is so much evil in this world that no matter where you turn, no matter how much you think you’ve overcome, there is still more waiting to try and ruin you and the ones you love.
He turns and looks at me once everyone in the room busies themselves with another task. I resist the urge to ask him what is so evidently wrong, even though I feel my heart pulling at every last piece of my soul to do so. “Walk with me?” He whispers, and I only nod in return.
Glancing at the people behind us, Brittany looks up from where she is huddled at a desk looking over papers with Dylan and gives me a smile. Just that little gesture helps, makes me remember her words, makes me want to pull through the shit inside, push my way to the top, and finally find the strength she spoke of. But as I continue to follow Justin down the hall, and as he pulls me into our room, the door clicks behind us, his lips find mind and I taste his kiss, remorseful, regretful, full of heartache, that small piece of strength leaves and I can’t help but worry about the knowing feeling in my gut, the one alarming me there is so much more that he is not telling me.
Chapter 4
Justin
Cuba
1.5 years ago
Natalie’s foot brushes against mine under the table and I look over and try and hide the smile that graces my lower face. She bites her lower lip and I can’t help but be drawn, distracted, thinking of things I shouldn’t about a source that I have trusted more times than not, and on more cotenants than I care to want to admit. Especially when we are sitting at a table surrounded by the types of men who could make us both disappear in an instant if they sensed foul play.
“So, you’re saying it is a done deal?” I hear Leo say as I look to my right and see him push back in his chair. His eyes dance from me to the woman across from us, and I can’t help but detect an air of annoyance.
“The shipment should be delivered by noon tomorrow. I was assured Anthony would be with them. No one will suspect a damn thing, as long as your men don’t blow our girl’s cover!”
I don’t like this. Not one damn part of it. Call me old fashioned, but a woman should never be put in danger, not if there is anything I can do about it.
There has never been anything between Natalie and I, just a little flirtation at best. Hell I know she’d want more. I know she deserves more, and one night I caved and went against my better judgement and gave it to her. That was almost three months ago, and to say I haven’t thought about it, her, us since would be a lie.
But the kind of business we’re mixed up in is no damn starting point for any successful relationship. So after a hard ass discussion where we both agreed there would not be another slip up between the two of us and we would keep it strictly business, she’s been one of my most trusted sources since. A business relationship that dances around the idea of more, always more, but with my fucked up past and the way she looks at me, like she wants the kinds of things I would never be willing to give, there is no way in hell I can ever let myself cross that line again. Not unless I’m absolutely sure whoever I fall for, promise the rest of my life to, is worth the risk.
“Once the drop is made, Leo will secure the ID and order the hit,” I hear the man across from me, the one sitting next to Natalie and looking way to at ease about everything, say as he glances at me wondering if I am going to give anyone any trouble.
I shouldn’t even be here. This meeting is beyond the normal racket I am used to mixing myself up with. But Leo asked, Natalie insisted, and I caved. Although both of them if you ask me definitely have alternative reasons. Leo doesn’t trust Natalie further than he can fucking throw the pen he keeps rotating in his hand across the room. And Natalie, well she’s always had something to prove. Something that I just can’t put my finger on always pushing her to want to make a man like Leo take notice and give her the one thing he barely gives anyone, his trust.
Leo pushes forward in his seat and rests his arms on the table. “Viktor,” he sternly says as his eyes lift from the surface in front of us to lock with the man across the table. “You may know and trust Ms. Volkov, but in my country we have a saying, ‘Assai pampini e poca uva,’” he says with a glare. “He that promises too much means nothing. From everything you’ve laid out, and from how easy Ms. Volkov seems to think this whole operation can be executed, I can’t help but wonder if it is all too good to be true, Capire?”
“Ms. Volkov has never steered us wrong before, we have no reason to believe she will now. Your man trusts her,” he says as his eyes raise and meet with my own. “Why do you refuse to?”
Leo leans back again and stares at Natalie. He cocks his head to the side and frowns. “Bisogna prima pensare e poi fare.”
A closed mouth catches no flies.
“I have my reasons,” Leo continues as my mind rolls around the old Italian proverb he just said. One I know very well in the line of work I am in. “Reasons I can’t prove yet. And the only reason I am trusting any of this,” he says glancing back at Viktor, “Is because of my friend here,” he nods in my direction and pauses, taking a moment and making the man across from him grow nervous. “And it’s only because of him that I do trust you. But not yet her. Not completely.”
“Understood, but hopefully with Natalie’s help, and your friend’s connections, this job will be the first of many and the start of a new friendship. And maybe she’ll prove herself and earn your trust after all.” Viktor rises from the table and reaches across to shake Leo’s hand. The man next to me hesitates at first before standing and reaching across to seal the deal. The job we’ve all been waiting for. Taking out Anthony Petrov, a rat for both the Russian and Italian mob who’s been trafficking underage girl’s into Cuba for the last couple months. No one has ever seen his face ex
cept Leo, making him harder to track and easier to lose.
Leo stands and motions towards the door and I watch as the two men take their exit, still talking specifics and the possibility of working together in the future.
“He doesn’t like me much, does he? Never has, the past year and a half has proved no different,” I hear Natalie say as she stands across from me and draws my attention back to her. I feel a tug on my heart, but not a strong enough one to make me go back on my word to never cross the line between us again, and so I give her a small smile instead.
“He doesn’t trust many people,” I suggest as I cock an eyebrow at her, stand, and then round the table to follow Leo outside.
“Not like you,” she whispers, coming up to my side and walking with me out the door. “You trust me, don’t you Justin?”
I stop walking quickly and notice she does the same. I stare in her eyes for a moment and see it, a flash that she is hiding something before she replaces the veil she let slip and smiles. Looking at the men down the hallway, I notice Leo glance back displeased and I hope to God he didn’t hear her drop my real name. It was a mistake and a slip of the tongue that night almost three months back when we were together. A stupid fucking slip that I know could cost me a lot more than it was worth. Even if I do trust her.
She crosses the space between us once the two men down the hall push through the front doors and outside. My eyes are still trained on where they took their leave. Still fixed on the fear, the alarm, the red fucking flag that is going off right now that she dropped my name so openly, and for what? To grab my attention? To announce the fucking upper hand she has? Because if she hasn’t noticed, it only partly worked seeing that what she really did was make me put up my guard. A guard I never thought I would have to use when it came to her.
Her hand slowly rises up the inside of my thigh. “Don’t you remember how good it was baby?” She purrs as her lips come closer and I can feel her breath on my neck when she pushes up on her heels and leans in. “How good it could always be, if you trust me?”
Awakening Page 5
