Empire (Eagle Elite Book 7) (20 page)

For in the temple by and by with us, these couples shall be eternally knit. –A Midsummer Night’s Dream

Valentina

“
WHERE THE HELL
did you get these?” Sergio’s voice was so loud I was surprised my mirror didn’t shatter.

With a huff, I turned around and nearly swallowed my tongue. He cradled the shoes in one hand. In his other hand, he gripped a gun leveled at my head.

“Are you really going to shoot me?” My voice shook. “Over shoes?”

“That depends.” His nostrils flared. “Are you really willing to take the chance… over shoes?”

“Neiman Marcus.” I clenched my fists. “The box you told me to open, so I can only assume they’re either from you or Frank.”

“Not me.” His teeth snapped together. “I would never give you something so precious.”

“I’m not even worth a pair of used shoes!” I yelled. “You’re such a bastard!” He was still pointing the gun at me, but I was done. Done with his attitude, with his ability to string me along and then cut that same string, only to mend it and try all over again.

It was cruel and unfair. I started for the door.

“No!” He dropped the gun to the floor and grabbed me by the arm, wrenching me back. “You don’t get to leave. This conversation isn’t over.”

“It is! I’m done!” I yelled struggling to get out of his rock hard arms. “I hate you!”

“And you think I like myself?” He sneered. “You think I want to be this way? How stupid are you?”

“Really stupid.” I kept struggling. “Because every time I let you in, you destroy everything!”

“Oh, so it’s my fault?”

“I’m sorry about the shoes! Okay?” I stopped struggling and slumped to the ground, basically sitting at his feet. “I’m sorry that I threw them, that I allowed my anger with you to overshadow the fact that I was given a gift and didn’t accept it.”

Sergio’s face fell. “They weren’t from me.”

“I know. Because I don’t deserve shoes.” I looked down at my bare feet. I didn’t even get pedicures.

Never had I felt so young.

Or ugly.

Or just… worthless.

“Heard some commotion so—” Chase knocked on the door and let himself in part way, I could see Phoenix close on his heels, gun drawn.

In one fluid motion, Sergio grabbed the gun off the floor and pointed it at Chase. “Leave.”

Chase’s eyes narrowed as he glanced past the gun to my sitting position on the floor. “Are you okay?” He held his hand out, stopping Phoenix from barreling in the room. As it was, Phoenix looked ready to rip someone’s head off.

“Yeah.” I found my voice. “Maybe he’ll get lucky and accidently shoot me so he doesn’t have to marry me.”

Chase’s face transformed from one of concern to complete rage. His movements were quick, precise as he jumped into the air, and punched Sergio in the face, and then threw him onto the floor. Phoenix watched, fists clenched. “Shoot her, I shoot you, and we both know your face is all you have since you’ve never been guilty of a shining personality.”

Sergio was on his back, but I knew he was better than that, almost like he wanted Chase to kick his ass because he wasn’t able to do it to himself.

“Got it,” Sergio whispered.

Chase released him and eyed me. “He won’t hurt you.”

“I know.”

“Do you? Really?” Chase reached around to his back and pulled a gun from his jeans. I jerked, I couldn’t help it. Guns were dangerous, they were violent. I had been taught to fear them.

He handed the heavy object to me and motioned to Sergio. “If he gets feisty, point at his leg and shoot, can’t really hurt much — and if you hit his dick, you get a prize.”

I laughed through my rage and nervousness. “What kind?”

“A big one, for hitting the smallest target.” Chase held up his hand for a high five. I hit it, he saluted me and left.

I quickly put the gun on the floor, careful to set the pointy part away from my body just in case. Wouldn’t that just be ironic? I shoot myself instead of the bully.

“I deserve it.” Sergio didn’t move, just kept laying on his back, staring up at the ceiling. “You know, if you shoot me in the ribs my lungs will collapse, that would be fun to watch. Or you can hit my heart. It stopped working anyways. Hasn’t since….”

“You’re a dramatic… ass… hole.”

Sergio leaned up on his elbows. “Did you just swear?”

“You bring it out in me.”

“That’s not a compliment.”

“Nope.”

I kicked the gun farther away from me and hugged my knees to my chest. “The shoes came in a box, no return address.”

“No note?” he asked.

I had to lie. I didn’t want him to know about the letters. “No note.” Because letters were different, right? “They came with the dress.”

“They aren’t yours.”

“Clearly.”

“No, I mean, they were hers.” Sergio moved to a sitting position and grabbed one of the heels. “When I packed away all of her things, they were still there, I saw them, I held them, I don’t know how the hell they made their way to New York.”

“Frank?”

“He’s never at my house,” Sergio said more to himself than to me. “She wore them on our wedding day.”

“Something old, something new, something borrowed—”

“—something blue.” He finished. So many warring emotions crossed his face, like he was waging his own personal war. With trembling hands he reached for my right foot and slowly slid the pump on. And that’s when it clicked. He was the something borrowed. Sergio. It had been his wedding day, he was the groom, on loan. Until when? We both died?

I shivered as my foot stretched against the shoe.

The perfect fit.

Like Cinderella.

Only this wasn’t one of those stories.

Not even close.

I almost wished that they hadn’t fit because that would have made sense, the fact that Sergio and I didn’t fit.

“They never fit her,” he whispered.

Well there went that happy thought.

“But she loved shoes, so she wore them anyway.”

“Sergio…” I didn’t even know why I was trying. Maybe I liked pain and suffering; maybe I was more mafia than I gave myself credit for. “They’re shoes.”

“I know.”

“Do you?”

He grabbed the other. “I have to tell you something.”

“Okay.”

He twirled the shoe in his hand a few times. “I married her to protect her. We weren’t in love, not right away. In fact, I hated that I had to marry her… because I knew she was dying
before
I said I do.”

I sucked in a breath and covered my mouth with my hands.

“Cancer’s a heartless bitch.” He chucked the shoe at the door. “And the harder I fell, the more it spread. My love didn’t save her, she was too far gone.” His voice shook. “She told me about you after she died.”

That wasn’t weird. Or creepy.

“I knew her?”

“No, I don’t think so. If you’d met her you’d remember her.” He sighed.

“I’m sorry you had to go through that.”

“Me too.”

I didn’t know what else to say, what else would make it better. There were no words in existence in the human language that could adequately heal his soul — and make him whole. When it came to cancer, words failed every single time, because it stole without warning, like a thief in the night, like the very devil and, if you were lucky, you escaped. If not…

You waited in the dark for your rescue.

A rescue that never came.

“I’m telling you this, not so you feel sorry for me, but so you understand, that twice it’s been asked of me to marry. The first time, it was only six months, I fully planned on divorcing her until I fell in love with her.”

“And, this time?” I was afraid to ask the question that I knew I needed the answer to. Hadn’t he said that one day someone would love me the way I deserved? And look at me with adoration?

I wanted that day more than anything.

To feel needed.

Wanted.

Beautiful.

“Never.” His eyes locked on mine. “Luca’s wishes were clear. There will be no divorce and, as a way to keep you in the Family, his instructions were… painfully detailed.”

My heart thumped against my chest. “I don’t understand.”

“His greatest desire was for grandchildren.”

A choking sensation washed over me, paralyzing my breathing to a shallow wheeze. “Are you saying that we have to… sleep together, can never get divorced, and that I’m going to be stuck in a marriage where every time my husband touches me, he thinks of someone else? Because it sounds like that’s what you’re saying.”

Please be wrong. Please, God.

He swallowed, his eyes filled with pity. “Yes. That’s what I’m saying.”

“And if I run away?”

“I’ll find you. Or someone else will.”

So many questions pushed to the forefront of my mind, but one still remained. He rarely looked at me, mainly looked
through
me, and the few brief moments he did stare at me, I couldn’t read his expression.

Was that it?

He wasn’t attracted to me?

Was I that vain?

That I at least needed him to say,
It’s not you it’s me. You’re beautiful, I’m just sad.
Was that so hard?

I glanced down at my leggings and sweatshirt. It wasn’t like I was dressed to kill.

“Can I ask you something?

“You’re not crying.”

“No.” I frowned. “I think I gave up on tears. They change nothing.”

“Believe me, I know.”

We were a depressing pair.

“Is it me?” I knew I’d lose my nerve if I looked at him so I stared at a spot on the floor. It was pink, dyed from the spilled nail polish that I’d gotten on my twelfth birthday. Back when things were easy and all I wanted was to have pink nails like the girls on Disney channel. “Do you think, maybe if I looked different, wasn’t scared all the time or wasn’t so — young?” I almost choked on the word. “Do you think it would be better?”

Cursing, Sergio made his way over to me. His heavy body leaned against mine, and then his hands were on my face. “Look at me.”

With a deep breath I looked up.

His eyes penetrated.

They searched.

They
yearned
. “You are beautiful. Young, yes, but still beautiful to any man who’s lucky enough to have his sight. I would change nothing about you. Because you’re perfect just the way you are.”

“I’m scared of guns.”

“I guessed that.”

“I don’t even watch violent movies.” I confessed, embarrassed that I’d even asked him to go to a horror movie only out of a need for distraction.

“Not a shock.”

I just kept talking as he held my face. “I’m insecure.”

“People who appear confident usually suffer the most from insecurity.”

“I don’t know how to fight.”

“All humans are born with the basic instinct of fight or flight.”

I tried to hang my head he wouldn’t let me.

“I can’t kiss.”

He smirked. “Are you done yet?”

“And I’m a virgin,” I blurted. “Now I’m done.”

“You’re wrong about two things.”

His eyes dropped to my lips. “First, you aren’t a bad kisser; you just need practice with someone when he’s not being a jackass.”

“And second?”

His smile didn’t quite reach his eyes, but something in his face, in the way his fingers dug into my skin, spoke volumes about the intensity behind his gaze. “You won’t be a virgin for long.”

I opened my mouth to respond.

Just as his lips slammed against mine.

Awake the pert and nimble spirit of mirth. Turn melancholy forth to funerals. The pale companion is not for our pomp. –A Midsummer Night’s Dream

Sergio

INTUITION TOLD ME
to hug her, hold her close, and tell her everything was going to be okay.

But then I’d be lying.

And I prided myself on my honesty, on my ability to take the reality of life and deal, even though the days were filled with horror and bloodshed, because at least I had that, right?

My truth.

I couldn’t hold her close, not the way she wanted.

I couldn’t love her, not the way she deserved.

I could offer comfort, physical comfort.

But if she wanted emotional warmth — she was going to be disappointed. All I had to offer was me.

An empty shell.

With a confused heart.

A broken head.

I kissed her — I was doing that a lot lately, maybe my body was already on board with something my heart wasn’t ready for, or maybe…

Just maybe.

It was her.

Not me.

Maybe I’d been looking at the entire situation like a selfish bastard, because it wasn’t just my life.

But hers.

And I refused to be the reason that she felt like her life was over. I’d already dealt with that pain, that tragedy, where someone innocent died too young.

There are physical deaths.

And there are spiritual ones.

Only a damned fool would say they were different. They were one in the same. After all, death—

—is death.

She kissed me back, her lips parted as a salty tear met the fusion of our mouths.

In a flurry of sudden movement, Val shoved at my chest and then slapped me across the face.