Atonement, p.15
Atonement, page 15
I shake my head. I don’t fucking care. Violet’s at the window of the coffee stand, ordering, when Armand steps her way. He looks obviously around her, over his shoulder, as if afraid that someone will jump out at him at any moment. I can’t believe I ever hired such a fucking coward.
“No, Armand,” Joe mutters. “We’re not going to attack you… yet.”
I know that Joe’s fucking dying to.
“Can’t shoot from here, boss, and it wouldn’t be wise,” Joe says, raising his eyebrows at the gun in my hand.
“Just sort of jumped in there,” I mutter, then slide it back into my holster.
“He’s approaching your woman, you know he’s armed, and you know he fucking tried to hurt her. Of course you want to attack.”
“Right. I’ll kill him. But I’ll take my time.”
Violet turns when Armand puts his hand on her shoulder. My hand clenches into a fist.
I swallow when she smiles at him, even takes a step toward him. If I didn’t know any better, I’d think she was… flirting with him.
No.
God, no… would she?
“Good move, Vi,” Joe mutters, then zooms in with the camera we’ve secured to Violet’s lapel. “She’s smart, your woman.”
“Fucking stop calling her my woman.”
His brows shoot up infinitesimally, but he quickly trains his features. “Alrighty. Noted.”
“She’s smart, yeah.” I want to change this subject, now. “She’ll know exactly how to play this.”
“Shit.” Armand’s taken another step toward Violet. Violet retreats.
He pushes closer, physically intimidating her. My hand’s on the door.
“Boss, don’t. If you fuck this up, she’ll never forgive you, and she’s damn near there already. You do this, and you’re a fucking goner. There’s no coming back from fucking this up. Trust her.”
Trust her.
It’s the very same thing that I told her. Trust me.
Do I trust Violet? Do I have to trust that she’ll do what’s right and what’s best, no matter how deeply it hurts me?
I have no choice.
I can’t swoop in and save her.
I can’t fix this for her.
I have to let her go.
Do I love her enough to let her go? Do I respect her enough to let her do what’s right for her, even if it feels like this decision will kill me?
Can I?
“What are they fucking doing?”
“Looks like they’re just talking. Friendly, even,” Joe says, but he’s scowling, as if he’s seen something that makes him suspicious.
Armand says something to her. Violet stills, then draws her hand back and tucks it against her chest. Her face is drawn, and her eyes are wide. This could be it, when he tells her everything to destroy me, yet the power of the revelation’s lost its punch.
Violet shakes her head from side to side.
“Fucking audio,” I grate.
Joe smacks a button, and the sound of Violet’s beautiful voice fills the car.
“I can’t believe it,” she says, shaking her head from side to side. “This whole time, I’ve had no idea that Cain was following me.”
“I’m so sorry to be the bearer of bad news,” Armand says, the fucking liar. “But I think you deserve to know the truth.”
He’s been waiting for this, we all knew it. We knew he was holding onto this last card to play to get back at me and regain some sense of power. But he’s only a player, a pawn in this game of roulette where no one’s the victor.
“Thank you,” Violet says, her voice hollow. Either she’s a good actress, or she’s channeling the real hurt this revelation gave her. In either circumstance, it makes me feel like utter shit.
“Anytime.” Armand starts to walk away, but opens his mouth to say something. Then he closes it, as if thinking better of it. He turns away. She turns her back to him, her head down. This is where he’ll call the Castellanos, I know it.
Armand picks up his phone, taps a button, and the car I’m in with Joe explodes.
Chapter Sixteen
Violet
* * *
I’m still reeling from processing all of this, but my senses are on alert, waiting for the attack from Armand’s family. If Skylar, Cain, and I are right, then he’s planned to manipulate me with this knowledge.
Or did he just come here to tattle on Cain? He did it like he’s feigning guilt…
I walk away, imagining I’m walking away from… everything. Everyone.
For months, he had me watch you. Stalk you. He has days and weeks’ worth of footage just watching you sleep. I had to monitor where you were, every time, and he never planned on telling you. Armand had a look of triumph in his eyes when he told me this, like he’d been holding the trump card and now is throwing it down on the table with a flourish. Ta-da!
Cain didn’t plan on telling me? No. No, that isn’t true, because Cain told me himself. Just because it wasn’t when I wanted him to…
He didn’t lie to me. He hid the truth from me, and one could argue that is the same as lying, but when I ask for the truth, he’s given me nothing but truth.
I had to learn to trust.
Would I have run if he’d told me the truth sooner? Hell yes.
Then as soon as I start mentally going there, I force myself to remember my anger, my frustration and outrage at him.
No. I can’t just forgive him for this.
What he did was wrong, so fucking wrong.
But isn’t that what it means to forgive someone?
I shake my head because I can’t think about this right now. I have to stay focused right here and now on what I’m doing and where I am. I look around me but pretend to be distraught. I go to wipe fake tears from my eyes when I realize they aren’t fake at all.
It takes courage to tell the truth when you fear the outcome.
It takes courage to forgive someone and stay despite wanting to leave.
Cain is courageous.
And so am I.
I take one more step toward the tall willows that line the walkways when I hear a boom that rattles my teeth. I turn around sharply to see what caused the noise.
Cain’s car.
People around us scream, running past the fire that erupts like the fire of a dragon. I push through the people swarming past me and run straight toward the fire.
“Cain!” I scream, my voice drowning in the sounds of screams around us and the blast of fire and broken glass. “Cain!”
I see him, slumped over in the passenger seat, Joe sprawled out on the pavement.
It would take two of me to drag a man the size of Cain away from anything. It looks like Joe is semi-awake, as he stumbles away from the billowing flames. I tug uselessly on one of Cain’s arms, but I can’t move him an inch.
“Wake up,” I sob, yanking on him with all my might. “I can’t carry you, Cain. Wake up!”
Even with the thrill of fear and adrenaline consuming me, I can’t move him at all. I sob freely, yanking at him. It’s then that I realize he isn’t going to wake up.
I have to get him out, or he doesn’t survive.
A huge, hulking, beast of a man watches in the shadow of the video arcade, screaming into his cell phone. “Salem Willows! Come quick, it’s gonna fucking blow!”
“Get over here and help me!” I scream. The guy stares at me, petrified. Why the fuck do people freeze in emergencies? Instinctively, I grab my gun from its holster and cock it and I am fully prepared to shoot. “Get the fuck over here and help or I’ll shoot you!” I scream.
He runs to me and grabs Cain by the arm, just as Skylar reaches us. I’m shoving my gun back in the holster when strong arms grab me from behind. I half-expect police to apprehend me and react by instinct when I see it’s someone I’ve never seen before. I deck his jaw, and his head snaps back.
The second he releases me, I grab my gun again. I have to help Cain, but this guy’s fucking attacking me. He lunges for me. I duck and slide my fingers in place around my gun, satisfied by the heft of it in my palm. “Get anywhere near me again, and I’ll fucking shoot you.”
“Not if I kill you first,” he growls. He spits on the ground beside me, his face contorted with fury, then throws himself bodily at me. I pull the trigger.
I never miss.
He falls to the ground with a thud. I don’t take time to check him. I don’t bother.
The shot I took is deadly…just like every. other. damn. time.
His body lays still in my peripheral vision as I turn back to Cain. He’s been pulled to the curb. I sag in relief.
Someone at the arcade’s shown up with a fire extinguisher. Sirens wail nearby.
The world spins around me, and my ears begin to ring. I slump to the ground.
Chapter Seventeen
Cain
* * *
“Tell me again.”
I’m sitting propped up in my bed, and Violet’s laying with me, her head on my chest. She doesn’t know it yet, but the door’s locked up here. I kept my guards here just in case, and I’ve commanded the deadbolts be drawn downstairs.
Everyone thinks I’m taking extra precautionary measures now because we’ve been attacked by the Castellanos. I’m not. I don’t fucking fear the Castellanos.
I want Violet to stay here, with me.
Right now, she’s lying on me as if she’s exhausted and I’m her pillow, and I’m not ready for this to end. I’m not ready for the inevitable that happens next.
“Armand came around the corner, pulled out his phone, and I swear he was calling the Castellanos when they blew up our car.”
“I heard it, and didn’t know what it was at first. What a terrible sound.”
I nod. “That’s all I remember. Joe doesn’t remember much more than that, but Henri’s footage is pretty clear. A Castellano blew up the car, likely as a distraction. They saw me get in with Joe. When you came to rescue me, that was their chance. They came to get you.”
She nods. “And dude, that was the wrong time to try to kidnap me. He’d have been better off trying when I was asleep or something.”
I growl low, making her laugh. “I love it when you go all alpha on me.”
“I know, baby.”
This time, she doesn’t tell me not to call her baby.
There’s scratching and a whimper at the door. Violet grins.
“Let him in!” she shouts to the security guard. Seconds later, a freshly cleaned little Cudgel vaults himself onto the bed, sporting a bright red ribbon. He laps furiously at Violet’s face until she pulls him up to her and rolls him over so she can rub his belly.
“You little rascal,” she says with affection. “You missed mama, huh?”
She gets him busy with a chew toy on the floor. I marvel at her grace, the simple lines of her body like the expert sweep of an artist’s brush. She tucks her hair off her forehead and behind one ear, and when she catches my eye, she gives me a gentle smile.
She sits on the edge of the bed, bends, and kisses my bandaged arm.
“You’ve kissed my owies like ten times today,” I say, but I’m hardly giving her shit for it. I love that she does this.
“And I’ll keep doing it.”
Suddenly, something outside the window catches her eye, and she leaps to her feet. “Cain!”
“What?”
“Who… how… it’s my truck!”
“Motherfucker.” Again, they screwed up the timing. “I gave specific instructions for them to wait to give this to you until I told them. Until after everything had blown over. I didn’t want you to think…” I stop myself before I say too much.
She tips her head to the side. “Didn’t want me to think what?”
“That I… was trying to buy your affection.”
She smiles sadly. “I wouldn’t ever think that.”
“Why not?”
Her eyes meet mine, and for the thousandth time, I’m struck by the brilliant beauty of the violet hue. “Because that’s not the man you are. You don’t demand affection. You don’t coerce love out of someone. You love them, fiercely, just as they are.” She blows out a breath. “Just as you are.”
My throat feels tight. I nod.
“So, I need to hear everything,” she says, returning to the story. I don’t miss how she skirts away from the discussion of love. “Henri’s footage shows that the man that tried to grab me was a Castellano.”
“Yes. And my sources say that he was the very same man who killed your parents.”
My sources being my men who captured and interrogated Armand until he begged us for mercy, but I’d rather spare her those details. She’s likely figured it out anyway.
She sits on the chair, dressed in nothing but my T-shirt, and it puts me in mind of the first day we met. A storm had been coming in, and she’d ripped her dress as she was trying to convince me to work with her. I gave her my own shirt, right off my back, and being the ballsy, fucking amazing woman she is, she slipped it right on like it was a dress.
I wish I could go back… no. No, I can’t. A part of me wishes I could go back and tell her everything, but I still fear, even now, that she’d have run from me if I had.
She pushes herself off the chair and walks over to me. I hold my breath, uncertain of what she’ll do next, when she sits herself on my lap and drapes her arms around my neck. She rests her head on my shoulder.
I hesitate for a second, before my own arms encircle her, holding her close to me. If only I could keep her here, just like this.
“Tell me like this,” she whispers.
“With you on my lap?” My voice is thick with emotion. I clear it.
“Yes, Cain. Just like this.”
No more “Mr. Master.”
I nod. “You killed him, Violet. Team Alpha’s disposed of the body. He won’t kill another soul.”
She’s quiet for long moments.
“Will they… his group. Will they come looking for him? For retribution?”
“I’ve seen to it that they won’t.”
“Do I want to know how?”
“I’ll tell you if you want me to, but no. You don’t need to know.” It involved two point four million dollars, an oddly specific number from the superstitious Castellanos, a convincing argument made by Joe, Claude demonstrating that Violet acted in self-defense, and the second-in-command in the Castellano family admitting that their man had gone rogue.
It might have helped that I made it fucking clear that they don’t want to take me and my team on and that a mutually beneficial relationship would be more fortuitous for both of us. They agreed, and promised we’d never see Armand’s face again.
“Alright, then,” she says in that calm, graceful way of hers I’ve come to love. “Don’t tell me.”
The room’s grown dark, with only a sliver of light before the sun’s rays fully set, but I make no move to put a light on. I feel if I move too fast or breathe too heavily, I’ll break the charm that binds us together. Maybe the Castellanos aren’t the only ones with superstitions.
She sighs.
“Are you sad, Violet?”
“I… I don’t know,” she says honestly. “I was more angry than anything for a while, as I’m sure you know. I was furious with you, Cain. I hated when I felt like everything between us was a lie.”
I have so many things to say I have to clamp my lips together to let her say what she needs. It’s the least I can do. I owe this to her.
“And after all this time, I wanted to kill him. I wanted to know when I pulled the trigger that he was the one that murdered my parents and that he earned the bullet that killed him. That he was getting his just rewards and my parents were avenged for what happened to them.”
Her voice trembles. “And I… didn’t know if I’d be able to do it when the time came. If I could intentionally choose to take a human life, even if I was justified and had good reason.” She sighs. “And now I’ll never know. Now I’ll spend the rest of my life never knowing if I had what it takes.”
“Oh no you don’t. Uh uh. Nope.”
I spin her around so she’s facing me, her legs straddling either side of me. It feels so intimate with her here like this, which is precisely why she’s here and not sitting over there apart from me, where I can’t touch her, hold her, keep her.
“What?” she says, lifting her chin defiantly. But I don’t miss the way her pupils dilate. I don’t miss the way she swallows, or the way her breathing accelerates. She’s turned on.
But we have something to discuss.
“You don’t get to blame yourself for what you did. I won’t allow it.” She opens her mouth and is likely planning on reminding me that I don’t allow or disallow a blessed thing, but she finally just shakes her head and clamps her lips together. Good, because I’m not done yet.
“Violet.” I hold her chin. God, I missed the way her soft skin feels against my rougher fingers. The way her eyes widen when I make her hold my gaze. “Just because you reacted by instinct doesn’t mean it wasn’t intentional. It wasn’t pre-meditated, no. It wasn’t in cold blood, no. But listen to me when I tell you that if it was, you might never forgive yourself.”
A pained look lights her eyes. “What do you mean?”
“You don’t get used to it,” I say gruffly. I make myself hold her gaze. “You don’t. Taking someone’s life, no matter how justified, never feels right. You go to bed at night wondering who you left mourning their loss. You wonder if you had all the facts straight, if they changed who they are and really did deserve to be killed.” My voice lowers as my own emotions threaten to choke me. “You start to wonder if you’ve mistakenly given yourself more privilege than you’re allowed, and you wonder if the universe will demand more of you now that you’ve demanded more yourself.”
She says one word, one syllable, that brings the smallest measure of comfort to me. “Cain.”
I swallow again and keep going. “You talk about forgiveness, Violet. What you don’t understand is that once you take a human life on purpose, it becomes almost impossible to ever forgive yourself for becoming the person you have.”
