Romeo The Mafia Casanova

Eden

Then: One year later”What the fuck?” Tristian roared. “Where’s dinner?”

“I’ve been checking out schools all day for Naz, Tristian. Remember? I reminded you last night.”

There was no recollection in his annoyed glare, which was directed right at me.

“Of course, you don’t remember. You were drunk again,” I rasped under my breath, walking toward the kitchen. “I’ll make something quick for you.”

“Don’t bother,” he demanded in a rough, stern voice, a voice that was almost always accompanied by the smell of whiskey on his breath. It was starting to trigger me in the worst of ways, all because it was his drink of choice, all because he turned to it instead of me when he was frustrated. Whiskey held his secrets…

Not his wife.

Not his brother.

Not his son.

I couldn’t believe he was taking this tone with me after all the bullshit I had put up with this last year alone. I forced myself to keep my emotions in check, knowing it wouldn’t do me any good to react.

It never did.

“Who are you wearing the robe for, Eden?” he questioned, standing in the living room of our home with me.

Chills ripped through my body, freezing every nerve and muscle and leaving every part of me unable to move. It didn’t help my disposition, although there was no controlling the emotions he was pulling from me. The only sounds I could hear were my pounding heart, and my thoughts and memories hammering through my mind. Taking me back to another place in time. Ever since the night in his office where I’d told Tristian the truth, and he left, he hadn’t come back home the same man.

Day by day.

Month by month.

Shred by shred.

It seemed as if there was nothing left of him.

And soon, there would be nothing left of me as well.

“Why are you asking me that?” I questioned, unable to keep my body from trembling at the audacity of his offenses.

My mind incessantly shifted for what felt like the tenth time, watching Tristian make his way to the bar. Nothing could have prepared me for the string of events that happened next. One right after the other.

Not my past.

Not our past.

Not his anger or his hatred.

Or his love for me that destroyed us both.

My vision tunneled; all the blood drained from my face as I continued to watch his every step.

His every move.

Until he began searching for what I already knew was missing.

For a few seconds, time seemed to stand still. No one moved, including me. There was an undeniable sense of awareness penetrating the room when he demanded, “What did you do?”

The despair in my voice recoiled off the walls that were now caving in on me. My heart jackhammering its way up through my throat. “Tristian, please…” I begged for I didn’t know what.

Our paint mixes as one, belonging together. Entwined through the past and the present, the good and the bad, his darkness, his demons, through the life and future we never had.

I didn’t stop my tears. I couldn’t. Not with him.

Not right now.

For the first time in all our lives, I was scared…

Of. Him.

Truly.

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Madly.

He glared at me, fully aware of what sentiments he was pulling out of my body.

His truths were killing me far more than all our lies put together.

“Eden, I asked you a question, and I expect an answer. What. Did. You. Do?”

“I dumped all the liquor down the drain; that’s what I did.”

“You know I can just buy more, right?” he countered, in a condescending tone, I didn’t appreciate it.

“Not in this house.”

“I’m sorry, what?”

“You heard me. You won’t drink in our home anymore.”

“Is that right,” he declared in a sharp pitch that set my nerves further on edge.

“Yes. That’s right. You won’t drink in our home again,” I repeated, accentuating the last word.

“And who’s going to stop me? You?” he mocked in a patronizing voice. “Last time I checked, I pay the bills, I provide the roof over your pretty little head, I buy you those clothes, those shoes, the fucking jewelry you never wear! I do everything for you, and still, you can’t even spread your legs for me.”

I gasped, stumbling back from his verbal blow. “Oh my God, Tristian. Who are you?”

“I’m your husband! Have you forgotten it already?”

“Don’t you raise your voice to me, or I’ll-”

“You’ll what? Huh? You’ll put your hands on me? It can’t feel any worse than hearing you speak to me like this! Like I mean nothing to you! I don’t even know who you are anymore! The man I married, the one I fell in love with-”

“Bull-fucking-shit! You never loved me!”

“Tristian! Have you lost your mind?” Several tears formed in my eyes as I took in his accusations and what they meant to me.

To us.

Showing my vulnerability, I let him witness me cry without blinking the tears away like I usually did. I wanted him to see them, feel them, feel me.

My heart.

My soul.

My life.

He was holding it in his hands.

Me.

All of me.

Every last part of me.

“My dear wife, I finally see clearly.”

I shook my head, hanging on by a thread. “Why do you keep doing this to us?”

I broke down, my chest locking up. My eyes blurred with fresh tears, barely allowing me to see his handsome face. My lungs caved in, and I was suffocating in my misery.

With our love.

In everything, he’d ever meant to me.

Uncontrollable tears streamed down the sides of my face. My chest heaved, rising and falling with each rigid breath, with each beat of my heart, with each word that escaped my lips. I stood there, trying to hold onto our lives, our memories, to the future that we may never have.

Had we been damned from the start?

In one swift motion, he chucked his empty glass to the wall beside me. It shattered instantly, sending shards of glass in all directions.

I jolted out of my skin.

He looked at me.

But it was no longer him.

I didn’t know the man staring back at me.

And I was beginning to think I never had.

Even though he was intently glaring right at me, he didn’t say a word. He just stood there in the shadows, once again lost in his purgatory in a way I’d never witnessed before. I took him in, his unruly hair draped over his face, obstructing his view, only being able to see through the slits in the strands.

It didn’t matter. I could still see his dark, cold, beady eyes penetrating deep into mine, igniting a profound reaction within my heart. The fury he’d been drowning in only fueled the way he was seething at me. It was then I realized he wasn’t looking at me.

He was looking through me.

I don’t know why, but I found myself wanting to stay lost in his eyes, enraptured in the blaze that was searing into my skin. As much as I was terrified by what might happen, I couldn’t look away; I was trapped by his catastrophic hate.

He was luring me in with his dominating stare, pulling every emotion from my body as if it belonged to him as if we were the only two people in the world. Every passing second between us was another thought, another emotion, another memory for both of us. We were physically there with one another; our minds were somewhere else entirely.

Making me question what or who he was truly seeing in front of him.

Were we back in his office?

Had we ever left that room?

“Tristian-”

“Come here,” he ordered in a stern tone. Overpoweringly struggling with whatever was taking his whole world captive in his mind.

I wanted to move, to walk away, and never look back, but I couldn’t get my feet to step in any direction. My heart screamed for me to go to him, although my body declared war, determined to ultimately win the internal battle erupting inside of us and all around us. Awakening every last demon that had laid dormant for so many years.

Him.

Me.

Romeo.

I clenched.

Locking up.

Staying firmly rooted to the place I stood.

I surrendered to my hesitation for however long I could, seeking refuge within myself. Still, I stayed put. Willingly held hostage in his haunted composure.

In his tormented gaze.

In his seedy demeanor.

And he knew it too.

He was getting off on it.

The power.

Over me.

He cocked his head to the side, reading me like the back of his hand. “You scared of me, Red?”

I stood taller, angling my chin up. Challenging him. A hint of amusement passed through his eyes, but he blinked it away, and it was gone. Making me think I’d possibly imagined it, needing to cling to some sort of connection with him.

My heart was lying out in front of us as I started to walk toward him. Each step is precise and calculated, each stride more unsettling than the last. I felt like I was making my way over to a stranger, unable to run away.

Wanting.

Needing.

Waiting.

Holding my breath with every last fiber in my being. I couldn’t breathe the entire fifteen steps it took to get to him.

I knew because I counted them.

It was the only way to keep myself from passing out over the sensations I couldn’t control for the life of me.

Cautiously, he eyed me, taking in every last curve of my body and inch of my skin. Almost as if he was trying to memorize me, engrain me into his heart and soul.

Where was I before this?

There wasn’t one nook of my figure he hadn’t taken in. Anxiously, I waited for his eyes to stop and look deep into my gaze. All it would take was for him to sincerely look at me for one second, to see how I felt inside. To put an end to this.

The way he was treating me.

Talking to me.

Looking at me.

Making me feel abandoned and frightened.

Triggering shivers to course down my spine and back up again. He must have noticed the shift in my demeanor because his eyes finally connected with mine.

Right when I was standing in front of him, he slipped his fingers through the knot of my robe, untying it. Ever so slowly opening the silk, similar to unwrapping a present.

Was I his gift?

Or his nightmare?

My eyes never wavered from Tristian’s as he began skimming his fingers along my collarbones to the sides of my breasts and over to my beating heart. He lingered there for a moment, continuing to slide them down the center of my ribcage until placing his entire hand over my pussy.

I sucked in a breath.

“Do you have any idea what I could do to you?”

Before I could respond, he leaned forward, close to my lips. Wrapping his arms around my waist. He held onto me for dear life, so tight, so hard, so strong.

So fucking unnerving.

My heart pounded harder against my chest.

Beat.

Beat.

Beat.

All the blood bled from my body, and my stomach dropped to the ground when I felt the cool metal against my chest.

Not just my chest.

Over my heart.