Chapter 161: Two Very Long Weeks
- LUCIANO -
Another night, another dream of Lorelei. She was winking at me, and then she was gone. She was screaming in the woods, and then she was silent. And now she’s entirely out of reach.
When I awake, it’s with the dread of knowing that I’m in bed alone. I turn over and stare at the emptiness next to me, struck again by how different I am, how different I feel—how everything has turned itself sideways in my mind. It’s deeply discomforting.
I dread even seeing the guys—being around anyone, really, if it’s not her. Nothing about my usual routine or even just my usual outlook on life makes sense anymore, and that’s a dangerous thing for someone like me.
There’s no one I can talk to about this either. My parents aren’t going to understand. Well, maybe Ma... maybe I could talk to her, but I’m not to that point yet where I want to start worrying her. I’ve always been proud to be someone she doesn’t have to worry about. I’m careful. I’m precise. I’m smart. I’m ruthless when I need to be. And I love my family. I will do anything for my family.
If there was ever a feeling of loneliness or emptiness that I faced in the past, I used women to fill it. Many women. There’s never any shortage of them, so getting bored with one woman has never been a problem. I’ve never just been with one woman. It never made sense to me before when there are so many out there to sample.
My stomach turns even thinking about those women in the past much less the idea of trying to find someone new to entertain me now. There is only one woman I want, and unfortunately she wants nothing to do with me—a problem I have admittedly never faced before.
I’m not gonna lie. I considered the idea that I might just want Rory because she doesn’t want me. There’s excitement in the chase and all of that. But the idea of her allure only being in the difficulty of catching her doesn’t align with this deep sense of truth that has sprouted in my gut ever since I saw her.
I didn’t even have to talk to her. I felt it right away, and then she opened that smart, beautiful mouth of hers. I love how she talks shit. It’s amusing, and it only makes her that much sexier.
No, it’s not just that Rory is refusing me. That’s not why I can’t stop thinking about her. It makes it worse, of course. But she is meant for me. I know it. I know it like I know my name and my position and my family. The deep desire to be with her even feels like it surpasses all of that, and THAT is a scary thing.
Nothing comes before family. Nothing comes before duty. Unless it’s Lorelei. Unless it’s Rory.
That deeply discomforting feeling rises to my throat, and I swing my legs over the side of the bed, burying my face in my hands. I need to get a grip. This is only going to amount to trouble for me if I don’t. But the dreams won’t stop, and that’s making it impossible to move past.
Last night the dream was of finding Rory on the hill with that bastard on top of her. Normally, I would have enjoyed torturing Dex’s piece of shit brother for what he did. He deserved a much longer, much more agonizing death. But the desperation I felt in that moment to get him the hell off of her required a swift end.
Lawson had a needle in his hand, and I didn’t know what was in it. Later I found out it was ketamine—the drug that was used on her earlier. Maybe I could have shot Lawson in a different place. The shoulder would have taken him down without killing him, but there was no other thought in my mind except to end him. It was instinct, and I shot him where I knew that ending was assured.
But now that scene replays. It replays over and over and over again in my mind. What happened before I got there? What occurred in that time between when Rory winked at me and disappeared into the women’s bathroom and I found her on that hill?
The screaming I heard when we drove up to the cabin... Rory’s voice... it haunts me. It will probably always haunt me. I’ve heard lots of screams in my life—real ones. The kind that set your hairs on end. But none of them effected me like hers. And then her voice cut off so quickly, I thought she was dead. I thought Lawson had killed her—that I had gotten there too late. I was sure of it.
When I lifted Rory from the ground and realized she was alive, I was so relieved. She clung to me. I want her to cling to me like that again or at least know that she can if she needs to—know that I’m here and that I won’t ever let anyone else hurt her.
The fucked up thing is that being someone who matters this much to me will only put her in more danger. So only the right people can know how I feel. It’s a tricky thing. My guys need to know that Rory Gray is a priority for me and to either watch her or stay away from her entirely, but no one else can know. It’s best if no one else even knows she exists.
I growl into my hands and push off of the bed. There’s shit to do today, but I don’t have interest in any of it.
Instead of getting ready, I go for a long run. It helps. My body gets put to work, and it takes over. The regulation of breath, the movement of muscles, the impact of my feet against the earth, the trees passing by and providing a gently stirring canopy overhead. It’s peaceful and simple.
I wish everything else was just like this, but it’s impossible. I’m in this life and this family and there’s no getting out of it. But during runs, I’m just another animal in nature. I’m just breathing, and that’s all that’s required.
When I get back, I order another bouquet of flowers. Roses again, thorns removed.
I’ve tried every kind of flower the florist has, and I’m smart enough to know that’s not what it’s about. Rory is fiery and stubborn and definitely not the kind of girl to be impressed by flowers, and that’s why I like her. But I don’t know what else to do aside from showing up at Dex’s place.
Dex says she’s having nightmares. Maybe they’re like mine. Maybe they’re different. For some reason I think they’re not about what happened at that cabin at all. There is something else haunting her. A portal into the past has been opened, and now she needs to find a way to close it again.
I’ve done my best to stay away while she heals. It’s been two very long weeks.
In that time, I’ve killed all the bad guys I can think of, and I received no enjoyment out of it whatsoever. I probably should have let the old guy who took her from the country club live. He was cooperative and respectful. But I couldn’t get over it. He took her. Lawson would have never been able to do it himself. And who agrees to kidnap a woman for money with no care about what’s going to happen to her afterward?
Then there was the doctor in New York who wasn’t even a doctor. He was a med school dropout. What were the Grassos thinking by employing someone so desperate for money that he would have taken a bribe? No wonder they’re considered the weakest of the five New York families. They should have either paid their so-called doctor more or been more of a terrifying presence that he would have never even imagined stepping out of line.
Maybe two weeks is long enough. Maybe I can try to visit her today. Maybe if I can just see her... I can make some sense out of these feelings I’m having. Maybe I’ve built Lorelei Gray up in my mind, obsessed too much over her in my dreams that I’ve made her into something more important than she is. Maybe she’s really just a woman like any other woman.
But I doubt it. I sense the truth. Rory’s different. I knew it even before this thing with Lawson happened. Realizing she was taken, hearing her screams, finding her on that hill with Lawson on top of her only cemented her absolute importance in my mind. Made it more obvious. It’s not just infatuation. It’s not just attraction.
I should have protected her somehow. I should have been there. I should have prevented it.
When Rory’s screams cut into my thoughts again while water is pounding down on me in the shower, I grit my teeth and hit the tile with my fist. I need this to stop. I need to find a way to make it stop. I need her to talk to me.
We can take it slow. We can take it as slow as she wants. It’s not like I expect her to move in with me right away or anything, but I just... I just need to at least see her with my own eyes and know she is okay. Hopefully she will allow me that much.
