Page 76 of Heir of Fire
The neighborhood was empty now, whereas once before it had been filled with guards and other employees. The once ornate gate was now covered in rust and blown wide open. It was so odd to see an entire fence enclosing around a space that was now completely empty, but a grandiose home had stood there once upon a time.
Cecilia saw a black SUV parked towards the side. She stopped the car and placed it in park, turning it off before getting out. The whole scene in front of her looked like something out of a war movie. Burnt pieces of wood still lingered on the ground along with some ash, but otherwise it was all gone.
That was when she finally saw Finn. He was hunched over on the ground in the center of the large space.
She was careful walking over, not wanting to scare him. But it didn’t seem to matter because the moment she stepped on a twig and it cracked under her weight, he was turning around with a gun in his hands. Gianna threw her hands up, a gasp escaping her lips. Finn’s eyes were red, as was his nose. He looked completely broken sitting on the floor in front of her.
She swallowed harshly, trying to calm her nerves. “Finn? Are you okay?”
“What are you doing here?” he asked, his voice filled with venom. He didn’t move the gun either. It stayed on her the entire time.
“I came to check on you. I wanted to make sure you were okay,” Gianna said.
“You shouldn’t give a shit,” Finn spit out. “No one should. I’m a fucking joke.”
She shook her head. “I don’t think of you that way.”
“But you did. A couple of fucking weeks ago, you wanted nothing to do with me. No one wants anything to do with me. I’m fucking useless.”
“You’re not useless. Why are you saying all these things about yourself? What happened?” Gianna asked, trying to step forward. “Please, Finn. Talk to me.”
He stared at her for a long moment, almost like he was weighing out whether or not he could trust her. She really didn’t understand what could have happened that would have drastically shifted him this much, but whatever it was had to have been extreme.
“Come here,” he muttered, finally moving the gun.
Gianna ran over to him, sitting right beside him on the ground. She waited for him to start talking first. She wanted to grab his hand, to reach for him, but instead she gave him space. She would do things on his time. It seemed like the safest way to play it.
“My asshole of a father left everything in his will to Valerio,” Finn spat out. “Well, more specifically, to whoever Luna was going to marry or to whoever he appointed. He had no intentions of me becoming his heir or of me taking over the Kingsley name.”
Gianna’s eyes widened. She opened her mouth to say something, but she had no idea what to say. The betrayal, there was no way to understand that. Hell, there was no way to justify it.
“This whole fucking time, I grieved him. Hell, I was wondering if there was another way things could have ended. If maybe my mother needed a punishment for killing him.” The words escaped his mouth like fire, threatening to burn anythingin his way. “I couldn’t fucking kill him myself. And for what? Because I thought I was the heir? Because I thought every fucking hit was training, was teaching me how to fucking run an empire!? I let him whip me when I could have thrown him to the ground and killed him. And he didn’t want me as his heir. He doesn’t want me as the Don. The fucking asshole died without even telling me any of this. He put it in his fucking will to make sure I wouldn’t get anything. He’s still making my life miserable from Hell! And I wasted so much time, so much energy for nothing. Every fucking thing I did was for nothing!”
The more he went on, the louder he became. He was screaming by the time he was done. She could feel the frustration in his voice, the hurt, the brokenness. It was all hitting him at once and he needed to let it out before it consumed him.
“Why couldn’t he have fucking loved me? Why me? Why did he do this to me, Gianna?” Finn asked, the words raw in his throat.
Gianna shook her head, begging for her own tears not to fall. “He didn’t deserve you, Finn. Your love, your drive, your intelligence, everything you are, didn’t deserve to be used and wasted by him. You are the Kingsley heir regardless of what your father tries to claim. You were born for it; you were made for it. There is no one out there who could do it better than you. And a real heir would take what is his and prove everyone wrong, especially Reece Kingsley.”
“What if you’re wrong?”
She finally grabbed his face, not caring if he still held the gun. Fresh tears slipped out of his eyes, and she finally let hers fall as well. She could see the little boy in him who throughout his life was subject to such abuse and hurt. He tried to justify the pain and violence by thinking there was an end goal or purpose for it,but now that there wasn’t, he was forced to realize that the abuse was just abuse.
“If I’m wrong, then that would have been the first time I ever was,” Gianna said, letting out a small laugh. It seemed to do the trick, even as ridiculous as it was, because Finn managed to crack a small smile. “Prove me right, though. Prove to me that you can do this if this is what you want. And if this isn’t what you want, we’ll find something else. Whatever path you want to take is the one we’ll go with, and I’ll be there with you every step of the way.”
“You don’t deserve to have to deal with this fucked up shit,” he muttered, shaking his head. “I can’t force that on you.”
“You’re not forcing anything on me. I’m choosing it. I’m choosing you.”
When he pulled her into his arms to hold her in his lap, she was startled at the sudden movement but settled into it within seconds. She let him hold her and in return she held him back, afraid that he would slip out of her arms without a moment’s hesitation.
Gianna wasn’t sure how much time slipped away between them while they sat in silence, but eventually it was broken by Finn speaking up.
“Do you think we grow up to become our parents?”
The question hit Gianna hard. She felt the air get ripped from her chest just thinking about becoming someone like her mother: selfish and narcissistic. Every day, she feared that she was becoming like that the more she did whatever she wanted to for herself rather than what might have been the better option, like in her current predicament.
“I really hope we don’t,” she said. “Otherwise, I’m screwed.”
