“Cal?” Emerald whispered into the quietude.
“Hmm?”
“So,” she trailed off, hesitating and a simple forehead kiss from Jordan was all the go-ahead she needed before continuing. “When I-I asked Leonardo about the status of the case, Kathy’s rape case. . .?”
“Mhmm,” he hummed, motioning for her to continue.
“He said that you had taken care of it,” she slightly pulled away from Jordan to look up at him. Their eyes met, their gazes clashing and colliding. “What did he mean by that?” she inquired quietly.
Beats of silence ensued between the duo as they stared into each other’s eyes-Emerald’s eyes filled with questions and Jordan’s, giving absolutely nothing away. Finally, he opened his mouth.
“What do you think he meant by that?” he uttered simply, watching as Emerald blinked repeatedly before averting her eyes to his chest. He watched her unclasp her hand from around his back before lifting it to his left arm to trace his tattoos.
She looked up at him again. “The other night when Keelan came over to my place and mentioned you being. . .”
“Ballistic? Crazy? Mad?” he offered, noticing her struggle with trying to find the right yet mild word to justify his wild actions.
“Sad,” she corrected, lifting her hands to cup his face. “Sad and enraged,” she whispered, her eyes bouncing back and forth between his as she tenderly stroked his cheeks; her regretful eyes and the slight downturn of her lips were the epitome of remorse and sorrow as she apologized to him through her gaze.
Jordan gave her a firm kiss on the lips, pulling away with a deliberate loud smack before giving her a subtle shake of his head. She pursed her lips with a little nod, the silent conversation passing through them.
“That night, you had mentioned,” she continued, “a man. You said that you had k–killed a man.” Jordan nodded affirmatively, watching Emerald swallow audibly. “Was that him? Kathy’s rapist?” she softly asked.
Jordan remained quiet for a moment, only watching her, gauging her expression before releasing a sigh. He kept one of his arms around her waist while the other wandered into her hair, his fingers gently massaging her delicate nape. Emerald’s eyes fluttered closed at his soft caresses.
“Do you really want to know who I killed?” Her eyes snapped open at his question and after a moment’s thought, she nodded. “Timothy Morin,” he revealed but Emerald could only continue to stare confusedly at him. “Kathy’s rapist,” he explained.
Emerald’s body immediately tensed up, her eyes welling up with tears as Jordan continued his massage on her neck both as a form of comfort for her and for him.
“Leaving him for the authorities didn’t seem that much of a punishment for his deeds. He could get parole or he could escape and I just don’t want to imagine how many more girls or women could become preys to him, to the likes of him.
Kathy didn’t deserve that. You didn’t deserve that, Gem.” He cupped her face, moving his thumbs to graze her cheeks just in time to catch a stray tear falling from her eyes. “In a way, I also needed an outlet, an outlet from the anger, from the guilt drowning me. I felt so guilty, Gem, so fucking much when you told me you had also been raped.
I couldn’t stand the fact that you, the love of my life, had been subjected to such trauma at such a young age and that your rapist could still be freely roaming the streets.”
He leaned forward to rest his forehead against hers, still wiping the tears that trailed down her cheeks. “It wasn’t your fault, Cal. You had nothing to do with it,” Emerald tried to comfort him, despite her weeping state.
“I know. . . I know, sweetheart, but it still doesn’t ease me. All my life, I had felt helpless, utterly useless because I couldn’t help the ones I love.”
There was a recognizable pain in his voice. A pain Emerald was quite familiar with; one that had been deeply laced through his voice, dripping from his every tone when he had spoken about his mother.
“I couldn’t stop my little sister from being sold. I couldn’t protect my mother from my father’s beatings. I couldn’t stop my father when he started introducing my unwilling mother to drugs. I couldn’t stop him from forcefully sleeping with her as punishment for trying to escape with me. All I could do was helplessly bang on the door while my mother cried profusely on the other side.
I watched my mother die, Gem.” At this rate, tears were speedily racing down Jordan’s cheeks as he spoke. Deeply affected by the agony swirling in his bloodshot eyes, Emerald mirrored his expression, saline tears simultaneously streaking down both their faces.
“On my seventeenth birthday, Gem, I had to return from the grocery store to the sight of my mother’s body dangling from the ceiling of the kitchen. I can still remember her lifeless blue eyes staring right at me.
I was heartbroken. I was shattered. I was confused. I couldn’t understand why my mother would commit suicide and leave her children behind with that monster. Even if she wanted to leave me, I didn’t understand why she would want to abandon her, at the time, five year old daughter.
I didn’t know what had occurred in my absence, but I noticed that Carol kept repeating one word. ‘Him’. She had always referred to our father as ‘him’ because of how terrified she was of him. Even young Carol knew how much of a monster he was.”
His voice grew weak as he shut his eyes tightly, evidently trying to contain his emotions. Emerald pulled his shaking body towards her, moving so he could bury his face in her neck.
“He had murdered her, Gem. He had gotten her overdosed on drugs, then to cover it up, he had her hung to the ceiling so it would appear as if she had committed suicide. And the worst part of it all was that five year old Carol had seen it all,” he sobbed.
Emerald held him against her, her own tears falling as he sobbed. She couldn’t imagine the pain he was feeling, but as she felt her neck dampening with his tears, her heart constricted painfully in her chest.
This man, her man, was crying his heart out to her. He was opening up to her. He was letting her in on his pains, his agonies, his sorrows, and she would willingly share them with him. She would willingly bear them with him.
Jordan sniffled, managing to pull himself together before lifting his face from her neck, leaving a wet patch behind as he gazed at her with his red rimmed eyes and flushed face.
“I lost my mother, I couldn’t help my sister even after I became the indomitable Mafia Don. I can’t let the same thing happen to you too, Gem. I don’t know what I would do if something were to happen to you. I don’t want to think about it. I don’t want to even imagine it.
So please, Gem,” he held her face in his palms, “promise me. Promise me you would never leave me. Promise me you would tell me if anything strange happens. Promise me you would let me know if anything happens, Mera. Promise me. Please,” he begged.
Emerald wanted to ask what he meant by that, but pegging his overreaction as a result of his emotional breakdown, she nodded. “I promise you, Cal.”
She held onto his hands resting on her face, gently tracing the lines of his veins. “Everything that happened, Cal, none of it was your fault. Stop putting the blame on yourself. Stop being so hard on yourself. I’m sure if your mother were here today, she would tell you the same thing,” she whispered.
Jordan nodded. “Thank you,” he muttered, pressing a kiss to her forehead deeply before pulling her into a hug. “And I promise to keep you safe. With my life. . .” he promised, his entire face stern with determination.
▬▬▬▬▬
A muffled vibration came from the nightstand, causing the mobile phone to come on, its little light illuminating the dark room, alongside the sheen of moonlight making its way into the room.
A body turned slightly on the bed, his obfuscated form moving towards the nightstand. Seeing that the text came from an important source, Jordan quietly turned back to Emerald, who was entangled to his side, sleeping peacefully.
Not wanting to awaken her, he carefully moved away the tendrils of hair that had gotten in her face before placing a kiss on her forehead and gently disentangling himself from her. After much effort, he was finally able to, releasing a quiet chuckle when she had clung so tightly to him like a snake to a twig.
He grabbed his phone, sliding open the glass doors to the balcony before walking through and shutting the door to keep the chilly night air from reaching Emerald.
He unlocked his phone, opening his text and as the light from his mobile device illuminated his face, a grave expression could be seen shadowing his countenance. The text from Owen Skull read;
‘He’s been spotted lurking around Back Bay.’
Jordan stiffened at the word content of the text, his one hand curling tightly around his phone and the other hand balling into fists. Fury radiated off of him, alongside a foreign yet familiar feeling, one he recognized as fear. He kept his raging emotions at bay so he could text back a reply.
‘Where?’
The reply was instant. ‘At a flower shop. He was seen exiting with a single white rose in hand.’
White rose? Jordan frowned, his eyebrows tautened as his mind ran miles, wondering what he could be doing with a flower.
His thoughts were cut off when his phone vibrated again. Another text from Skull.
‘Sir? From the looks of it, I’d say he knows he’s being watched.’
Jordan’s face hardened even more, if possible, but before he could type back a response, a sharp ringtone cut through the night, causing Jordan’s head to snap towards the sound.
It was Emerald’s phone.
He breathed a sigh of relief, now just realizing that his heart had been palpitating uncontrollably against his chest. Transfixed and greatly troubled by Owen’s report, Jordan stared through the glass door at Emerald’s moving frame on the bed.
When he heard her groan his name loudly, he sprang into action, moving back into the room just in time to answer the phone when it began to ring again. ‘Dad,’ it read.
Jordan answered, wondering why Luca would be calling when they were all in the same house, and at midnight for that matter.
“Lu? What’s the matter?” he asked when he heard the older man panting over the phone.
“It’s Maggie. She went into labour,” Jordan’s eyes widened and he immediately looked at Emerald, who was now sleeping peacefully again. “My baby boy is coming. He’s on his way, Jordan.”