Stealing in a quick breath, Morana asked, “So they became a team?”
“Hell, no!” Amara retorted, shaking her head in fond memories. “Dante was always a charmer on the outside. He could seduce you in one breath while planning a million ways to kill you in the next, and you wouldn’t even know. Tristan didn’t trust him an inch, but he couldn’t shake him off either. Dante was, still is, deceptively stubborn. And though he was the oldest son with responsibilities, Dante went against his father repeatedly by sustaining his association with Tristan. Maroni wanted them to compete. They basically gave him the finger. Over the years, they just sort of fell into this relationship – they’re not really friends or brothers, but they’d not have anyone else on their side in battle. It’s complicated with them.”
Morana stayed silent, digesting all of it.
Twisting the cap off the bottle in her hand, Amara took a sip of water, swallowing slowly and leaning back against the headstone, quiet for a long moment as Morana soaked up everything.
“I was taken a few years later,” she spoke quietly into the space between them, her voice husky, eyes dulling with the memories. “Tristan was the one to find me.”
Morana started at that.
Amara nodded. “Yeah, he found me and left me with Dante while he took care of the men who’d kept me captive. It was after I was found that I truly interacted with Tristan. While I was recovering, he became… more present, I guess, without being obvious about it. I didn’t know back then that it hit too close to home for him. He was being protective of me. Not obviously, and never with people around, but he just… became a presence in my life. He never talked much but the fact that he looked at me, listened if I talked said it all. That’s why I know he’s incredibly protective of women and children. I’ve seen him be that way for years now.”
It was dawning on Morana – his deep-rooted need to protect. The fact that he’d survived all of what he had and not rid himself of that need to protect said more about him than anything ever could, more than he could ever show.
“He’s never trusted anyone, Morana,” Amara continued, her voice tinged with sadness. “He’s never had much of a reason to.”
“He trusts you and Dante,” Morana reminded her.
Amara smiled sadly again. “Only to an extent. He lives behind his walls, all alone, dead to the world. We’re allowed to come close to that wall but never behind it. That’s why he’s so feared. Everyone knows he’s got nothing to lose. His weaknesses were exploited out of him. Now? No weak spots. Nothing. I’ve never, in all the years I have watched him, seen him be anything except deadly. He’s not happy. He’s not sad. He’s not in pain. He’s just made himself nothing…”
Memories came to Morana in a rush.
‘Did I hurt you?’
His sleepless eyes, the intensity of his question, the stillness in his body.
The rage in him when she’d come to him hurting. The heat in his eyes when he'd fucked her in his mind. The curses in the shower when he'd cut himself open, bleeding in pain.
Amara was wrong - he wasn’t nothing.
He felt.
He felt so deeply he didn’t let himself feel.
He felt so deeply he feared his own reactions to it.
Or had it all been a trick to manipulate her? To make her compliant for his vengeance?
A loud clap of thunder rang across the skies, startling her.
Morana looked up, surprised to see the sun was low on the horizon, hidden behind thick, dark clouds roiling over each other. The wind rushed through the graveyard, whipping the leaves on the trees in a frenzy, whipping her hair around her face, whistling through the columns, making her aware of the dried blood on her arm from where the gunshot wound had opened in the blast.
Borrowing the bottle of water from Amara wordlessly, Morana tore a relatively clean piece of fabric from the bottom of her shirt, cleaned the wound the best she could with the limited water she had, and wrapped it in the cloth to keep it from bleeding again. The bottle nearly empty, she handed it back to the other woman, aware that she was being watched by her quietly.
She needed to be alone.
She needed to be by herself to even begin to process everything she’d learned. She needed time to herself, to grasp the magnitude of how intertwined they had always been, how defined they’d both been – him more so than her – by their pasts. But more importantly, she needed time to figure out her future, their futures, or if they could even have one.
Taking a deep breath and shoving the heaviness in her throat back down, Morana looked Amara in the eyes.
“I just… I need...” she scrambled for words, not really sure what to say.
She saw the other woman’s eyes soften as she nodded, pushing herself off the ground to kneel. Picking up her spacious bag and putting the bottle inside it, Amara stood up, hitching the bag over her shoulder, brushing her backside to get the grass off.
Morana remained seated on the hard ground, leaning against the headstone, and looked up at the tall woman, the light in the sky falling right on the scar across her slender neck. The scar she’d received when she’d refused to rat on her people at fifteen. Morana had never clearly seen it before – because of scarves or makeup or shadows – but it was naked to the eye now, a thick, jarred white line of raised flesh going right across her throat.
Morana looked up at her beautiful eyes before she could stare. Amara had come to her with her scar exposed, showing a kind of trust Morana had never felt before, and she wouldn’t let it down by making her feel conscious.
“I can’t even imagine how hard this must be for you, Morana,” the beautiful woman spoke softly in her raspy voice, the voice that had somehow started to soothe Morana. “Just give me a call if you need me.”
Was this what friendship was like?
She didn’t know. Tears threatening again at the kindness this strange woman had shown her repeatedly, at the hard truth she’d brought to light despite being bound by her own word to someone she loved, at dropping everything to come to her aid at one phone call – Morana was alien to these. But heaven help her, she was going to try.
She swallowed, trying to keep her lips from trembling.
“Thank you, Amara,” a whisper escaped her, wrenched straight from the bottom of her soul. “Thank you… for everything.”
Amara sniffled, wiping her tears, smiling. “I’m just happy to have you. In my life and especially in Tristan’s. He’s… he’s spent twenty years in pain without acknowledging it. I love him, Morana. He’s like a brother I never knew I had. And he’s been through so much, so alone… just…”
Morana inhaled at her hesitation, waiting for her to continue.
Amara took a deep breath. “I can understand if it’s too much for you… if he’s too much for you. Frankly, I’d be surprised if he wasn’t. Just – if it is too much – just don’t give him hope if there’s none. He never shows weakness. He doesn’t expect anyone to stay with him, stay for him. That’s a reason why he doesn’t trust anyone. So, please, this is my only request to you, Morana. Please don’t encourage him to trust you if you’re going to leave in the end.”