Rogue (In the life of the Rogue Book 1) (20 page)

“Good,” Lougotti clapped his hands together. “We will proceed with what we agreed upon.” His gray eyes bore into me, “my daughter will be your new step mother. She will bare the Rogue name, your father’s name.”

Lougotti pushed Dominique’s hand into my father’s. “Kiss it,” he instructed.

My father did as he was told.

My father was the boss of the Rogue, a man who had ran this empire for decades, but he was a child in the meeting. This was Papa and Lougotti’s territory, and my father had no power as of now. He did as he was told, he married who was pointed out and there would be no argument in it.

I looked at Dominique.

She did not look back.

Lougotti spoke, “We drink to this union.”

Papa chuckled, slapping Lougotti’s shoulder again and leading him away. Instead of being led away just yet, Lougotti made his way back to me.

He used his bloody hand to grab my shoulder. “I’m an old man,” he said, “And I believe in old ways.”

He pushed with his hand, guiding me through the few bodies of his men. For an elderly man looking at death’s door, he was stronger than what the eye would determine as weak.

Before I knew it I was standing in front of Dominique. She was leaning against the wall, her head down, her hair covering over her face. She had her arms crossed and over her chest.

She lifted her head and her wet eyes were on mine. I gulped and tried to take a step back but her father’s hold on me was tight.

“I’m a monster,” he admitted and laughed, dryly, “but even monsters have eyes and I see you care for my daughter.”

He released my shoulder.

“You can say goodbye,” he said, “Of course while I watch.”

Dominique dropped her arms. Her finger grabbed at my belt loop and she tugged me forward.

My body touched hers and my mind flared with images of the night when our skin had touched and warmed eachothers. Lulina wasn’t far away and I could feel her presence amid everyone elses. I felt the hate in her eyes as it scorched my back, but even that wasn’t enough.

Dominique was looking at me and I didn’t care if the world was too because nothing seemed to exist past her stare.

My thumbs traced Dominique’s jaw line. I leaned in and kissed the side of her face, softly and tenderly, and I hated it.

I hated Lougotti and Papa, because what they were making us do was cruel. It was evil, and even if they were men who ordered death on the regular, even this moment seemed beneath them.

Dominique wrapped her arms around my neck. Her head moved away from my kisses on her cheek. Her lips were suddenly on mine, tight lipped and dry and hard.

She ended her kiss, moved back and dropped her head again. Her arms were back over her chest.

Lougotti patted me on the back. “Good, now that’s done, we can get past this. Come, Tristan, share a drink with me, and with your father and your grandfather.” He stopped, licked his thin lips and gave a crooked smile.

I had wondered all my life if I was transparent; if my family knew how I thought and felt – did they know the words that I wouldn’t dare to say, and could they know the right words that would build me up and tear me down. My age old question was answered as Lougotti eyes lit up with mock respect.

“Come be one of us, Tristan Rogue.”

It had been words I had waited for all my life. Of course I had wanted my father or Papa to say them to me but Lougotti was on that level, and him saying it was just as precious.

And because of that, I wanted to kill the man for his words. He didn’t mean it and I knew it. He didn’t want me to be apart of them or their precious world, just like I knew that respect he had in his eyes wasn’t real.

If he respected me then his daughter and I wouldn’t have seemed like a personal hocked spit in his face, and that was the way he acted when he caught the look Dominique had given me.

And maybe he was hipped to the way Lulina had seared me with the stare after Lougotti put Dominique’s hidden looks out into the forefront, but it didn’t take a rocket scientist to know he didn’t give a damn what his ex-wife did.

He gave a damned what his daughter did, and his daughter wanted to do me and that was a problem.

I tugged away from his hold, my eyes on the floor. For an alcoholic, his words like a tune that I would pay all my quarters to have played.

Let’s have a drink…

But I wanted no drink with the man. It was blood liquor, just like if he handed me money, it would be blood money. His drink would represent my departure from his daughter, and his money would too.

I had let Dominique go, but I be damned if I would share a drink with the man so he could grind that handful of glass in my face.

*

The cold air that bristled past my face as I rushed from the compound, too frightened to look back over my shoulder, hurt in a way that words would never explain. I took a deep breath and felt the icy air burn its way down my throat.

I drove as fast as me and Zander’s car would allow me to go, and the car wasn’t happy about it. The car smoked, gave an angry cough before stopping on the side of the street. My hands gripped tightly to the steering wheel as I waited for the car to turn over.

It wouldn’t.

It had lived a very unhappy life before being turned over to Zander and I. The car chose to die right here, no matter what I said, no matter the sweet nothings I cooed into its ear to get it started, it wouldn’t revive for me. The wind whipped past my face as I got out. I clutched my coat tighter around me before pulling the car’s hood up. I had to see if the car would open its eyes one more time to get me home. The smoke and steam burned my face. I fanned away the fumes, knowing that anything I could do for the car would get me no where. Like I said, it had lived an unhappy life, and my last assault on it was the knife plunge in it’s already cut riddled back.

If I was going to make it home, it wouldn’t be by this car. I was at least forty-five minutes away by driving, and hours away by walking.

The road was almost deserted but it wouldn’t be as the day was coming to a close. It was the bad side of town and the winos were finally wiping sleep out of their eyes before taking to the nightly walks. I was not afraid, but I elected not to be here when the sun went down completely and the streets came alive. I wasn’t well dressed, but I was dressed enough to be a prime candidate to have a gun shoved under my chin and my pockets emptied.

I slammed the hood closed, leaned up against it and lit a cigarette. “Shit,” I mumbled as I puffed away.

I flicked the cigarette away and ran a hand through my hair. My eyes closed tightly for a brief moment. I opened them and the world wobbled before focusing again.

The angry growl of a car caused me to look behind me. A red jaguar sped up and skidded to a stop right beside me. I started to reach inside my coat for my gun but stopped as the window slid down.

“Get in, Tristan,” Dominique called out.

I looked at her, shoving my hands into my coat. “No,” I said.

Dominique’s angry eyes flashed on me. “Get in the fucking car, Tristan.”

I did as she asked.

Dominique rubbed a hand through her long hair. “You know a place where we can go to talk? To be alone?”

I nodded and pointed straight ahead of me. “It’s a drive.”

Dominique shifted the Jag and it purred under her hand. “I don’t care.”

There was an anbandoned old road that was lumpy and unkempt that I had known about. Not too far from it there was a steep drop off to a busy highway.

For a while, I had scouted the place for one of Zander’s potiental body drops. It was secluded and dark, which was perfect for what we did at night in the name and sake of the family, but the highway bugged me, though. Development for profit; Mini Malls for shoppers, Walmarts for damned near everyone, had an annoying way of popping up. 

There could always be a chance they would build on the area and any heat, no matter how small, was too much when it involved the Rogue family.

The Rogue Family…Right now the vain of my existence, the apex to all my problems and the cusp of my very dysfunctional life.

I left Dominique in the car and sat on the front hood after we parked. I hurried with another cigarette, lighting it and blowing smoke against the wind. The dwindling sunlight slightly warmed my cheeks but I would expect a strong, cold breeze soon.

By the time I heard the Jag’s driver door open and slam closed I couldn’t recollect how long I had been seating on the hood, smoking away my thoughts as fast as they arose. The cigarette I had been smoking had been long gone and two others were lit right afterwards.

“The playing field has changed greatly for us, Tristan,” Dominique said, rounding the front of the car and standing right in front of me.

I swallowed and was unsuccessful in moving the lump out of my throat. “What do you mean by that?”

She ignored me, leaning down and plucking my cigarette from my hands. She put the butt to her lips, her eyes misting as she looked at me. She took one long pull, and blew the smoke out of her nostrils.

At that moment, she looked so much like her mother.

I cleared my throat again. “Your father was every bit the monster you proclaimed he was,” I said.

She nodded, a smile started on her lips but never fully bloomed. “I go back to Miami with him tomorrow.”

“For good?” I questioned.

She shook her head ‘no’ and I couldn’t deny that I breathed easier. “To tie up loose ends and then I will be back to prepare for my wedding.”

“Okay.”

“Was that sadness that I saw when you thought I was going away for good?” She snickered as she walked in between my open legs.

I looked up and into her eyes. Dominique tossed my cigarette away, bent down and planted her lips against mine.

The kiss was rough and tasted like smoke.

I moved my head out of the way, leaning back.

“What?” She asked, hurt at my invading, “Don’t want me because I’m not married?”

Her words were too ugly to let them replay in my mind. My lips parted, my intent to say something to this but there was nothing I could say.

Dominique knew the truth.

She knew that I knew that my lies were now weightless and would never hold any ground again.

Dominique leaned in and kissed me again, harder and rougher this time. Her tongue licked around my mouth, around my teeth and played with my own tongue that was still frozen at her aggressiveness.

“Come on,” she goaded, “show me what my mother couldn’t let go.”

At this, I shoved her away from me.

Dominique stumbled back but did not fall like Ally had when I made the same mistake of using too much strength when I had been cornered and surprised by it.

But, like Ally, Dominique had tears running down her cheeks. She used the back of her hand to wipe her eyes. I looked away, unable to see her cry. Here was the future boss to my family, the bridge between two prestigious families, and the least I could do was look away when she broke down because the pressure had been too much. Being the boss, the one in charge, you were prone to break down. But, your men couldn’t see it, couldn’t handle if they did. Crying wasn’t part of the job – man or woman or child – strength, relentless and never dying, was a requirement.

Then I decided looking away was a coward’s way out. I was the reason she was crying, and me not looking was as bad as me turning my back on her, which I already had done back at the compound. I had participated in the mockery of her father leading me into her arms on a very tight leash; hugged, kissed, and touched her, then walked away.

I used my thumb to wipe away the tears on her face. At first I thought she would jerk away from my touch, but she did not. Dominique closed her eyes and waited as I moved away the tears from under her right eye then did the same with the left. Her skin felt amazingly soft and my thumb lingered on her left cheek. No more tears left to wipe, no reason at all to still be touching her but I couldn’t break the contact.

Finally, I dropped my hand away from her face.

I motioned to our secluded surroundings, “Why are we here?”

Her eyes darkened as she glared down at me, “Tying up loose ends.”

“That means?”

She put a finger to my lips. “It means that our lives have changed. We chose our paths and now it’s time to walk them. This will be the last time you see me cry, Tristan.” Her hand dropped away from my mouth. “Tell me again,” she said, “Tell me again that you’re not fucking my mother.”

I bit back the automated lie and thought about my answer, more or less, thought about the truth.

And I didn’t like the truth. There was no way I could answer that question without it sounding ugly. It wasn’t the lie it self, it was the aversion to having to verbally say it. What Lulina and I did, it was meant for the dark. In the dark, to me, it looked better and felt better. I was lonely and misplaced and she had paid just enough attention, and said just the right things for her hooks to be dug in deep.

To bring light to that, to aknowledge what me and her had been doing since I was nine years old, was not something I wanted. In the dark, I had fallen in love with the woman because she was beautiful, perfect and loving.