Page 57 of The Pawn
18
ALLEGRA
My mind is on my mother’s ring. I need to find it and get it back.
I think about what Cassian said. How he told me he loved me. He’d told me as much once before, but to hear him say the words, to hear him tell me he loved me exactly as I am, it fills me with something I’m afraid to feel. Hope.
It’s the one thing I realize I’d lost over the last five years. I never even saw it slip away.
I didn’t say the words back. Not out loud. It’s not because I don’t feel the same way. I do. I love Cassian. I’ve loved him for a long time now. But that hope? It’s dangerous. And loving Cassian is like willingly walking to the very edge of a cliff and peering over as rocks slip from beneath your feet.
It’s taken me a few days to fully comprehend Malek’s plan. When he forced me to say the words, to marry him, humiliating me, proving his power over me, were only the cherry on top. Thefuck youto my father long after Malekput him in his grave was icing on the cake. Those things were incidental. A pleasant side effect. His plans went much further and are much more damaging. He was masterminding everything long before the moment he set Michael up to take the fall for Cassian’s shipment being seized. Long before he killed my father. This plan had been brewing since my father took my mother from him and he put it into play when he began to whisper those lies that turned my father against my mother. The lies that got her killed.
She was his first play.
I’m the final piece. The pawn. Just like Cassian said.
He married me to start a war because for a man like him, this is the only road to power. Those loyal to my father would never accept him unless he forced their hand. When my father died, Michael, weak as he was, was still blood. Malek Lombardi is a usurper.
For years the Moretti family have lived alongside the Trevino family, but he wants it all. And he would not bend the knee to Cassian because after what Michael did, Cassian would demand it. There is no getting around that.
But I don’t know if Cassian truly sees how dangerous Malek is. He has tunnel vision right now. All he knows is that he’s going to kill him. He’s going to tear him apart with his bare hands. I have no doubt in a fair fight Cassian would take him down, but Malek doesn’t fight fair. My father underestimated him. My mother did. Michael. Even me. And look at us. They’re all in their graves. And me? I’m in pieces.
I look down at my hands. I don’t like doing it, but I make myself. Every single day since the bandages came off, I make myself look.
Malek Lombardi has taken my family from me. He’s taken pieces of me.
I can’t let him take Cassian. I won’t.
I sit in my usual place in what I’ve taken to calling Azazel’s chapel. I’m alone in the house for the first time in over a week. Cassian is at a meeting. Jet has gone with him. He’s been leaving Enzo to watch over me, but Enzo’s just gone outside to smoke with some of the other soldiers.
As soon as I hear the door close, I’m up. I hurry across the church to Cassian’s office. It’s where I’d last seen the ring on his desk that first night when I was still half out of my mind. Unsure what was real. What wasn’t.
The night he told mehewas real.
Hope swells in my heart at the memory. It terrifies me. Because when you have hope, you have something to lose and I’m terrified to lose him.
I hurry into his office and close the door behind me. I’ve only been in here that one time and I take a moment to take it in. It’s a good-sized room and more modern than the rest of the church. There’s a fireplace at the far end with a seating area. A leather couch and two chairs. His desk is set across from the door. The surface is neat. Cassian is organized, not a neat freak, but he’s very private. I guess he’s needed to be and so he doesn’t leave much of himself around.
To my right is a wall of cabinets. There’s a bathroom too. The door is ajar, and I peek inside it on my way to his desk.
I’m not sure how much time I’ll have, so I hurry, pulling out his chair and taking a seat. The wood creaks, the leather soft and worn. It feels safe. This is where Cassian spends much of his time.
I lift the lid of his laptop and touch the keyboard to bring it to life. It’s password protected, which I knew it would be, but I’m not here to break into his computer. I am curious, though.
A photograph appears on the screen. I look at it. Three people. A man and a woman and a little boy. I recognize the woman’s eyes. They’re Cassian’s. And I know the boy there is his brother because the woman is pregnant. That must be his father. He looks very different from the raving man at the charity. He’s much older than the woman. The little boy looks sweet. Seth. The smile on his face makes me smile. He’s holding his mother’s hand, and she’s got her other hand on the small swell of her belly. Her husband has one hand on Seth’s shoulder and the other arm is wrapped around his wife’s waist. The fingers of that hand are woven with the one of hers on her belly.
They look happy. They all look happy.
The screen goes black. It startles me, but it’s just gone back to sleep. I shake my head, remember why I’m here.
I want my mother’s ring. Malek took it and he used it against me. He had no right to touch it, to even look at it. It’s time I took it back.
Letting that determination harden me, I begin my search, opening the first drawer. This one has stationery, pens, paperclips. Nothing unusual. I close it and open the one to my right. Folders in this one. I take the one on top out. It’s thick. I open it and am instantly drawn in by what I see. The plans of the church. Lots and lots of drawings, measurements, changes. Pages and pages of it. I could spend hours studying at it all, but now is not the time. The next drawer is locked so I turn my attention to the other side.
When I try to open it, it sticks. I tug, wondering if it’s locked, but it opens abruptly. As soon as I see what is inside, I catch my breath. Because there, right at the top is a photograph I know.
How did he get this? What’s he doing with it?
