Athena
Luciano stormed through the crowd that had gathered, an unreadable look on his face as he approached me.
Perfect. I’d been caught red-handed. I was doomed. And I couldn’t fucking care less. He stooped a few meters away and scanned my face for something. I suppose he didn’t see what he wanted because he looked away and turned to the man holding me hostage.
“Let her go,”
“Boss,” the man protested. “She may be a spy-”
“She’s with me! Let her go right now!” He bellowed.
The man’s hand flew off me faster than I could blink. The crowd around us burst into murmurs of surprise and confusion. For a long while, Luciano stared at me, brown eyes peering intently until he shook his head and grabbed me by the arm.
I let him drag me off to God knows where. Somehow, he made me enter his car. As we drove, I could swear the silence would kill me. I waited for his questions. Waited for him to demand what I was doing, and how I got there. Waited for the threats to come raining.
Yet nothing happened.
And it irritated the crap out of me.
“Aren’t you going to yell?” I asked, glancing at him. “Won’t you ask what I was doing there?”
He kept a straight face and drove on as if I had never spoken.
“Talk to me!” I screamed. “Yell at me! I found out you’re in the mafia, you’re supposed to do something!”
“Quit moving around, you don’t want us to get into an accident.”
I ignored his words and stared at him intently. “What are you going to do to me? Will you kill me? Maim me? Huh? Will you bash my head into a fucking table like you did to Luca?!”
His hands tightened around the steering wheel. I watched him clench his cheeks, yet not a sound slipped from his lips.
“Haha, I see. The silent treatment huh? That’s what I deserve I suppose? You’re going to cut off my tongue and make me suffer, won’t you?! Will you make me like one of those whores? I’d rather be killed!”
Luciano Moretti did not acknowledge a word I said. No matter how much I screamed, yelled, or threw a fit, he drove on without throwing me even a blink. Soon I got tired and slumped against the chair, tears streaming down my face on their own Accord.
What exactly was I angry about? Finding out my father wasn’t who I thought he was? Getting discovered? Blowing my cover? Was I even angry or sad? Hell, I didn’t know. I was so fucking confused and pained and hurt and I didn’t know what the hell to do.
So I did the only thing I hadn’t done in a long while, I cried my eyes out.
***
Luciano parked the car in the woods and turned off the engine.
“Get off, we walk from here,” he ordered.
Fucking Hurray Athena, you’re walking to your doom. On the not-so-brighter side, Damian would get the video to the FBI and Luciano would most likely be arrested after my death.
Hold up, Athena! My mind objected. You cannot do it unless you know for sure that Luciano did not kill your father!
Fuck that was true. What if I was mistaken? If it turned out that Luciano killed my father, I would hate myself for blowing my cover. It was a stupid record book from long ago. Anyone could have forgotten to mark Robert Hernandez as being eliminated. I had to survive to find out.
I had to live to be able to give my father the proper revenge he deserved. If he deserved any.
“Raven, get off right now!” He ordered again and I opened the door, slipping out without a word. I had to look for a tangible excuse. An excuse to get my ass out of there. Maybe if I made a break for it?
I glanced at Luciano who held his hand out to me. There was a passive look on his face and fuck, I was getting scared of that damned look. What was going on in that mind of his? Was he plotting ways to kill me? Did he plan to kill me in the woods where no one would know? Shit.
I looked around me, calculating how long it would take for him to catch up with me if I ran.
“Don’t even fucking think about it!” He growled, grabbing my hand suddenly, and yanked me forward.
I wanted to scream at him to let me go. I wanted to make a hella noise, maybe somebody, anybody could hear and save me. But I didn’t. Because somehow, I may be a damned fool, but somehow, I knew he would not harm me. Not yet anyway. Perhaps later.
I followed him. We walked for over thirty minutes in the darkness until we stopped before a wooden cabin high up in the mountainside.
“What do you plan to do with me?” I asked again and he glanced at me this time, his eyes soft and less severe than they had been earlier.
“How long have you known?” He asked,
I looked away, contemplating my answers carefully. Should I just tell him everything? Or should I still fake it? There was the probability that he was the murderer anyways. That probability was fucking high. It was best to fake it until I could find solid proof that he did.
“Raven?”
“Not quite long,” I mumbled.
Sighing deeply, he pulled me towards the door to the cabin and helped me in. It was a well-furnished cabin that seemed to have everything.
I wondered how he got a hold of a cabin like this and what he intended to do with me. I couldn’t predict his moves, I couldn’t determine what was in his mind, I couldn’t see if I was screwed or not and it was killing me!
Locking the cabin behind me, he wrapped his arms around me from behind and I tensed.
“You do know that you cannot leave now?” He said into my ears.
“W-What?” I stuttered, anticipating the worst.
“You know who I am Cara, I cannot let you go. You’ll need to dismiss any thoughts of leaving me now.” He explained and I froze.
Cara? Leaving him?
“Have you gone mad?” I spat, feeling extremely relieved and bitter at the same time. “I can’t stay with you!”
His arms tightened around me. “You don’t have much of a choice, Gonzalez.”
“You’re supposed to be mad at me! You’re supposed to be angry or shit like that.” I screamed.
He turned me to face him then, cradling my face in his palm. “I am fucking pissed. I told those idiots to watch over you and make sure you do not get into danger! I wonder what they were fucking looking at while you hauled your ass right in the middle of it! Do you know what those men would have done to you if I wasn’t there, Raven?! Do you know what could have happened to you?!”
Fuck, I had to be hearing things. He wasn’t mad at me, he was mad at his men for not watching me properly. My eyes shifted warily as I searched his intense gaze. He was serious. For the love of all things good, Luciano was fucking serious.
I shrugged off his hold on me, stepped away from and shook my head. “You’re out of your mind.”
“Think whatever you want of me,” he replied. “You can’t leave after this Gonzalez, might as well stick with me.”
“I’d rather stick with fucking Quasimodo than stick with a mafia lord. If you’re not going to kill me, then I’ll go!”
“The hell you will!” He thundered, grabbing me by the shoulders.
“You can’t just keep me here!”
“Si! I can and I fucking will. You can’t leave me. I will not let you go.”
“Why?! If you’re going to get rid of me, just go on ahead and be done with it!”
“You’re mine, Cara. My fucking woman. I’d no sooner lose a limb than let you go. Stay away from the mafia house or you could end up dead. Stay right here with me!”
“You’re crazy,” I whispered, blinking rapidly to fight the tears that burned the corner of my eyes. I didn’t need his pity or care or whatever had possessed him at the moment. I didn’t need him trying to make me feel guilty for all my actions.
“I am not your woman!” I hissed.
“You are!” He spat and weaved his arms around me. “The whole of Sicily knows that!”
“Let me go!”
“Swear to me!” He demanded, pressing his forehead against mine, our breaths mingling harshly with each other.
“What?!” I wanted to yell but it came out as a whimper instead. Fucking pathetic body!
“Swear to me, Cara. You will not leave me,”
“Let go, Luciano,”
“Never,” He whispered, his thumb catching a tear that slid down my cheeks and flicked it away. “Never.”