Page 33 of Darkness and Duress

Bitching and moaning to myself under my breath, I waited for the water to warm up in the shower as I paced the apartment. That shit took forever and my patience was gone. Beyond gone. Exhaustion clung to my bones and I needed to wash the stink of the holding cell off of me before I lost my fucking mind. First, I had to deal with Marco’s antics. Then, the fucking jobs. The icing on the cake was getting fucking locked up. Sprinkles on top of this shit cake came in the form of Marco not answering his fucking cell.

I held the towel around my waist in one hand and stalked into my room, eager to see if he'd finally decided to check his fucking voicemail, but alas. No texts or calls from good ole Marco. I grew irrationally angry at that fact, but a notification popped up just as I went to toss the phone back on my pillow. Luca. Figures; the brother I wanted to hear from didn't give a fuck. Despite my pissy reaction, I opened the text to see what he had to say.

Luca: yo Marc took off after Pops said some bullshit

Luca: idk where he's going

“Yeah, not my problem,” I muttered sourly to myself as I abandoned the device and went to check the shower. The billowing steam was a light at the end of the tunnel. At least one thing was looking up. Nudging the door closed, I dropped the towel and climbed into the blissful inferno that would hopefully burn off the shit attitude I'd picked up from the holding cell overnight.

Logically, I knew I had no right being pissed off at Marco. This had been all my doing from start to finish. I was the one who had the brilliant idea to sneak off and handle the business of being a mafia prince. I was the one who let Gianluca tag along. I was the one who got Jericho locked up right alongside me. Marco had no clue, but the fucker could have at least answered my phone call. He could have reached out. He was a selfish prick and I shouldn't have been surprised.

We got lucky. We got damn fucking lucky that Luca had stayed behind and was able to get us sprung. I knew his dad was behind it, but every time I thought of how much worse it could have gone, a cold that I couldn't erase sank deeper into my soul. We got so fucking lucky. I scrubbed my skin harder with the loofah and cranked the water just a little bit hotter.

The shower was restorative. I could have lived there for the rest of my days, but that wouldn't be fair. Jer needed one just as badly as I did. There was absolutely nothing about a New York City holding cell that inspired feelings of cleanliness, especially sitting alongside drunks and drug addicts and a few people I was sure were in there on solicitation charges. As soon as I turned the tap off, the noise from outside the bathroom had me on edge. Banging. Shouting. King barking like a rabid hell beast. A loud crack had my body jumping and I nearly slipped in the tub. Jericho's shouting got louder and… no. This was clearly an auditory hallucination due to exhaustion.

I had exactly zero time to respond. I yanked the shower curtain open as the bathroom door nearly flew off its hinges. If I were more aware, I would have reached for my towel, but I wasn't. Completely dumbstruck, I stood there dripping wet with my dick and balls out as Marco seethed in the doorway with barely controlled rage and something darker in his eyes. Something haunted.

God damn him for the subtle dip of his gaze as he took in my body from head to toe before returning to my face. His fists clenched, released, clenched again, the trembling visible even through the fog of the bathroom. And then, in the blink of an eye, my body was moving. His grip on my arms was painfully tight as he dragged me out of the shower, squeezing even harder as my wet skin and writhing protests made his hold falter.

“What the actual fuck?!”

“Shut up, shut up, shut up!” He wrestled me out of the bathroom and then froze in place as the ominous click of a gun safety being disengaged cracked through the air. King’s growl followed close behind.

“Marco, I will not hesitate to shoot you.” Jericho’s voice was stone-cold and deathly calm.

Another frisson of trembling zipped through Marco’s body, his hands quaking with tremors as he dropped them to his sides and struggled to breathe. My mind was fucked by all of it.

“Jer… Jer, I think we’re good.” I held up a hand, shaking almost as badly as Marco was, to placate him and hopefully take back some control of the situation.

“Are we, though? He's completely unhinged. King almost took his fucking head off.” Jericho jerked his chin toward Marc, his hand holding the gun steady with his finger hovering over the trigger. “What the fuck are you doing here?”

Marco started panting, the breaths coming out short and shallow and sounding painful for how strained they were. Hiswild eyes darted between me and Jericho as the trembling shifted into something more like a perpetual full body spasm and then the words started tumbling out of his mouth, making no sense at all. Disjointed phrases, one word whispers, and stuttering syllables filled the air as his hands flew to his head and fisted in his hair.

“Not safe. No. Did they…? Please. Gotta go. I didn't… please?! Bran?” The last word, my name, fell from his lips with a breathy whisper as his eyes locked on mine, imploring, beseeching, and so incredibly haunted, my heart stopped.

“Jer, put the gun away.” I lifted my hands in slow motion, telegraphing every movement well in advance, as I gingerly touched my fingertips to Marco’s shoulders. “Marc, breathe. You need to breathe.”

“What the hell is going on?” Jericho muttered the words as he engaged the safety and slowly shifted to shove the gun into the waistband of his pants. He muttered a stern command and King switched from high alert to wiggling puppy in an instant, whining for attention as he squirmed across the ground with his tail thumping a metronome of excitement.

“Marc, I'm gonna give you a hug, okay?” I shifted my hands further over his shoulders and invaded his space at a glacial pace. His breathing quickened, growing more erratic, until I pulled him against my body. At that point, he stopped breathing all together and cinched his arms around me in a brutal hold that made it hard to draw air into my lungs.

“Jesus fucking Christ.” Jericho stalked around us and disappeared into his room for a few minutes, reappearing with a leather satchel that landed at my feet with a soft thud. “I'm taking a fucking shower.”

The bathroom door slammed, rattling in its hinges and causing Marco to flinch as he exhaled. I held him tighter as he sagged against me with a choked sound that was almost a sob. Iwondered for a moment how long we would stay like this as the adrenaline faded away and left me shivering against the burning hot body still quaking in my arms.

“Did they… did they hurt you?” His voice was wrecked, ravaged, raspy.

“No? Marc,” I shifted my tone from incredulity to concern. “Marc, what happened?”

I pulled back enough to search his face, and what I found there was enough to have my blood running cold. This man was clearly haunted by something and I had a feeling it was something he had never spoken aloud. The visible horror on his features gutted me, my worry swiftly becoming a thing of unbridled rage.

“Marc, who hurt you?”

He flinched, his eyes narrowing as he sucked his teeth and looked away, tremors coursing through his body and causing his breath to quicken again.

“Nevermind… nevermind, baby.” I tried to bend down and grab the bag at my feet, but his grip tightened again. There'd be bruises. I was sure of it. “We’re gonna lay down, okay? I'm not going anywhere.”

He nodded, barely, and let me go long enough to retrieve the satchel. I was barely upright before he snapped his hands out and grabbed onto my arms again. His movements were frantic and desperate as he clung to me, each step feeling monumental as I backpedaled toward my bedroom.

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