Page 51 of When Sinners Fall
DRAGON
Igave her a simple fucking instruction and she’s already disobeyed it.
I stare around the trashed apartment, burning with a rage I thought I’d got hold of while I was out overnight. “Fuck.” I just needed space. Time to get some goddamn logic back into my head after what happened.
My eyes close, and long breaths get dragged in to try calming me down again. It’s not like anyone’s broken in. She’s just left. Probably run. I couldn’t be any more pissed if I tried, but even I have to concede that maybe my shitscared her into running. Doesn’t make me any calmer about the fact that she has, though, because every second of time she’s not with me, and every minute that I don’t know where she is, is a threat to her that I will not accept if she wants all in.
The door slams behind me and I’m travelling back downwards before I’ve bothered getting control of myself. The roads go by in a haze of early morning noise and chaos. All I’m thinking about is how the hell I’m gonna play this to make her see sense if she won’t listen to simple ass instructions. Train her? I’ll be lucky if I don’t have to damn well threaten her into doing as I say. But if that’s what it’s gonna take, I’m not discounting that course of action either.
I go straight to her place and hammer the door. No one answers, so I get my phone out and try calling her before I break the damn door down. Straight to voicemail. It’s only when I’m about to start kicking it off its hinges that I realise the time. Work. Fucking weddings. As if I’m in the mood to deal with any of that crap.
The journey doesn’t take long back into town, and I pull up outside the office and ready to go storming in to get her. Don’t need to, though. She’s walking down the street, a coffee in one hand and her phone at her ear like nothing’s happened.
I get out and slam the door, getting myself straight in her path. She looks up at the last minute, widens her eyes, stops talking to whoever the fuck she thinks is more important than me, and grinds her feet to a halt.
“Get in the goddamn car.” She shakes her head, tries finding words. “I couldn’t be more fucking serious if I tried, Wren. Do as you’re told before I make you.”
She looks around at the passing people, backing away from me. “I have to work, Dante,” she says quietly.
“Not today, you don’t. We’ve got things to settle.”
She starts moving for the doors anyway, trying to sidle her way around other people so I’m not in her way anymore. Yeah, that’s not gonna work. I reach between three guys until I’ve got her in my grip and start pulling. The coffee in her hands goes flying, and one of the dicks tries to intervene. Whole damn moment turns into chaos. She gets barged between us, her glasses get knocked off and crushed, and I'm about ready to kill him for daring.
Scowling, I swing her in behind me and get straight in his face. “You really want to play that hand?”
The other two with him start pulling him away, which is fucking lucky considering my mood. So I keep tugging until my hand's on top of her head and she’s being pushed into the still-idling car.
She doesn’t say anything else. In fact, she doesn’t even look at me, as I power out of the city and weave the long roads heading out towards Canyon Lake. I don’t know why I’ve chosen there to do this, but I need some peace to cool down again and maybe, just maybe, she’ll listen if I’ve calmed down enough to tell it straight. That’s all I’ve got now before I have to force her to behave. She needs to hear it, understand it, and realise what all in means to me and her.
I stop when we’re almost there and grab some coffees from a diner, handing one over to her. She takes it, but barely acknowledges me other than that. I nod to myself as we keep driving, understanding her resentment about everything, but it doesn’t change a goddamn thing. This is what we’ll need to be going forward, and, like it or not, shewillagree.
Eventually, we pull into one of the old parking spots and I inch the car forward until we’ve got a view of the lake. There’s barely anyone here this early. A few people camping out a way off from us, but other than that, it’s quiet and lonely as fuck. Always did like that feeling. Isolated. Detached. Left to my own devices.
I drink the last of my coffee and get out, ass resting on the hood as I light a smoke and look over the view. She can come out when she’s ready. She’s not going anywhere without me, so she might as well swallow whatever she’s trying not to say and listen, or get out and get it said so I can say what needs saying.
She does after a while. She comes and rests beside me, still clutching her coffee and seemingly ready to hear what I’ve got to say.
“You remember when we were kids, Wren? And they’d beat on me, and you’d try holding them off? How long did that last?”
“I don’t know. A few years, I suppose,” she says quietly.
“Yeah. Do you remember what I did that last time it happened?”
“Well, that’s hard to forget, Dante. You flipped out when one of them grabbed hold of me and lost it. That kid was in the hospital for two weeks.”
“Yeah. I never went down for it, did I? You know why?” She shakes her head. “My mother was fucking the commissioner. Weekly visits to try getting Abel out. She blackmailed him, I stayed out here, and everything changed.”
She’s quiet for a while, and I try thinking about what I need to tell her and what I don’t. “First time I proved myself in her eyes.” I look at her, watching that frown, then turn away again. “Look, I know I'm not much of a talker, Wren, but you need to know what's going on here, and if you want the kind of relationship that goes all in, I need you safe and protected.”
Another smoke gets lit, and I walk forward down to the lake shore and beckon her to follow. “You don’t need to speak. You need to listen and learn until I’m done, and maybe then you’ll understand why what happened last night happened. And why it’ll happen again if you don’t get on board with what I’m talking about. One-time conversation, yeah?”
She side-eyes me and drinks some more coffee. “Go on.”
“Alright.” I huff and try searching for words. “We didn’t just drift apart, Wren. I made that happen to keep you safe and out of what Cortez was becoming – what I was becoming – and now Cortez is everywhere. My part in that is to hurt, threaten, and kill people, Wren. I’m not ashamed of it. That’s who I am. No changing it.”
She stays quiet, and I’m not looking at her anyway because the truth is all I’ve got to give. “The guy you saw some of last night is what I’ve become. And yeah, I tried to keep that from you. Not because I didn’t think you could handle it or you’d go telling people about it, but because I didn’t want you involved in it.”
Still fucking don’t.
