Page 58 of Vile Emotion
“Three weeks was long enough for your bitch fit.”
“Three weeks wasn’t a long enough vacation, you asshole. We had words. I needed time to not kill you every chance I saw you.”
“What are brothers for?” I shrug.
“Exactly and since I’m your brother, I need you to wake the fuck up.”
“What do you mean?”
“You brought Juliana here? Knowing how they would isolate her, didn’t you? You’re still being a vindictive bastard?”
“I never said I’d stop being vindictive but I didn’t bring her here for that. She used to work for us, I saw her file, granted it wasn’t anywhere where I could see her but still. I thought she’d want some sort of normalcy. Is that a bad thing for me to do?”
“You don’t do anything half-assed or because you felt like it, Ric, what the fuck is happening?”
“Fine.” I sit back on my chair and unbutton my suit jacket. “I want her to learn the business. She’s not going anywhere and it’s better if she’s not sitting in the house idly staring at the fucking walls all day. Let her be of some use.”
“How do you know what she’s doing?”
“How don’t I know, is the question. It’s like saying I didn’t know when she was off running or that I wasn’t following her when she did that? I wasn’t that damned distracted.”
“She tasted freedom then, Ric. I told her you would know but who listens to me? Not you or her.”
“Quit your whining, Cas.”
Cassius laughs and shakes his head, growing serious.
“You need to protect her, Ric. Anyone can come after her here. Sure she’s tough because she survived prison and survived you everyday but she’s still a person. Someone connected to you through bad shit but it doesn’t mean she deserves those who don’t know her to treat her like that.”
“What are you saying? You’re saying you forgive her for what she did?”
Cassius rolls his eyes before running a hand down his face. “It isn’t about forgiving her, Ric. It’s about realizing there was no stopping for her. It was a domino effect of shit. She was running from an abuser. That fucker beat her and raped her. How can someone who says they love you, violate you like that, huh! Theycan’t. You know how many times I wanted to kill him with my bare hands?”
Cassius knows how close I was to doing it when that bastard sat across from me just from hearing that he beat her and from seeing the way she shook around him but hearing out loud again that he ra—, violated Juliana makes me downright murderous.
Knowing that I let myself be distracted for a moment with Mia coming along and everything else, knowing how much I want to make Edwin bleed, enrages me.
Without thinking, I react. Standing and pacing doesn’t calm me down, neither does repeatedly pounding on my desk not caring what breaks. My anger hasn’t calmed down and it’s a side of me that Carmen wanted no parts of but I can’t let it down. It won’t go down or disappear.
“Admit it, Ric.” Cassius says to me and it stops me from destroying something else.
“Admit what?”
“That you care about her. That you’ve somehow got yourself obsessed with her without realizing it. You almost swung at me and you said shit to me that you would’ve never said unless you felt some way about her.”
“I can’t, Cas.”
You can’t, what?”
“I can’t do that. I can’t feel any way about her but anger. She doesn’t have that right in my life, don’t you get it?”
“I get it, Alaric. I do. She’s not replacing your wife just because you care about her. That’s not gonna happen.”
This has me shaking my head.
“Of course it’s not. Carmen was the love of my life. You can’t just replace that.”
“The question is, who is asking you to, Ric? It for sure ain’t me nor is it Juliana. She wants out so give her that.”
