And that’s when they took the chance to destroy you.
“Did you love her?” I asked, meeting his eyes.
“Yes,” he replied immediately. “I was a boy. She turned me into a man. What might’ve been a good one. She would’ve grown to be the kind of woman who made any man want to be good.”
It felt like I’d been punched in the stomach. Cristian was peeling back layers, showing me things he shouldn’t. Things that made me hate him even less, want him even more. Beyond that, things that made me fucking furious, hating this dead girl.
“You love her still?” I asked, forcing my voice to be even, to not betray any of the desperation and jealousy I felt for a woman who was long dead.
Cristian’s gaze was unyielding. “No.”
Though I was wishing for this answer, it still shocked me. The single word was so hard and devoid of emotion that I recoiled. It felt like a violation.
“To love her, I would have to resemble the man I was all those years ago.” He pulled his gaze from mine, instead looking inside his wine glass.
A big gesture from him. A sign of weakness. A sign that this still hurt him, talking about the girl. His past.
“The boy. That person is a stranger,” he said, eyes meeting mine once more. They were hard now, but it was too late. He’d shown me something soft inside him. “Her memory serves me nothing but the reminder of what love can do in this world. How it can be used as a weapon.”
Still, there was no emotion in his words. No sorrow or regret. Just a cold resolution that sent goose bumps running up my arms.
We didn’t speak any more. Me because I didn’t want to know any more about this broken piece of him. Him because he would draw blood with another word.
We drank our wine in silence, and eventually, I fell asleep, plagued by nightmares of the girl who would’ve turned Cristian into a good man.
Cristian
Sienna didn’t wake when I left the bed.
She never did.
Her arms extended, searching the empty space for me, though, her face screwing up and a low sigh escaping from her full lips.
It made me look forward to and dread waking up. Every fucking morning. I stared at her, eyes moving over her face in the dim morning light. It was barely dawn, earlier than I usually woke but I’d hardly slept.
How the fuck could I when I brought Isabella into this bed? Speaking about her was picking at a scab that had just healed over. That Sienna had healed.
This was quickly moving out of my control.
I’d chosen Sienna because she was the only woman in twenty-five years I could tolerate as my wife. That was a match for me. Who was suitable to be my queen.
But I’d never expected to have any fucking feelings for her.
I didn’t have feelings, those were dead.
Buried along with a girl I used to love twenty-five years ago. My mind wandered back as I watched Sienna sleep, tossing and turning in the bed, fighting even in her slumber.
They had a priest droning on about bullshit.
About fucking heaven.
As if it existed.
As if Isabella was sitting in the fucking clouds brushing her goddamn hair, smile on her face, watching over us.
Fucking bullshit.
The only reason I didn’t turn on my heel, push through the crowd and get the fuck out of here was because of the man standing beside me. His hand was tight on my shoulder, eyes dry and focused on the casket in front of us. The only person sobbing was Lorenzo, tucked tightly into his mother’s side. He hadn’t spoken since I found him. Not a fucking word.
And I was getting frustrated. We all were. Lorenzo was the only person who’d seen who did this. Who could lead us somewhere. To vengeance. My blood called out for it. I’d killed plenty in the days since I lost Isabella. My fingers were an angry red from the amount of scrubbing I’d done to get them clean for today.
I didn’t clean them for her. Didn’t put on a suit and fucking tie for her. She was gone. She wasn’t looking down on us. She wasn’t in fucking heaven. If heaven existed, that would mean there was a god. If there was a god, then he wouldn’t let Isabella be brutally fucking raped and murdered.
There was no heaven.
Only hell.
I shook myself out of that memory, gritting my teeth, furious at myself. It was the first time I’d let myself think of the past. Get lost in any kind of memory.
That was not how you survived in this family.
Sienna.
She was fucking dangerous. She was the reason for this.
I needed to kill.
To get my head straight. Remember who the fuck I was.
And I knew just who I was going to end.