“I know what I’m doing isn’t going to fix the damage done between me and Derrick. I know what I’m about to do doesn’t even have to be done but I’m choosing to kill them and their men anyway. It’s the darker part of me. It’s knowing that I have the power to take my fury out on others and I’m using that power to snuff out a life. It’s me seeking my own justice. It’s me adding more red to my ledger. Do you understand?”
Her head nods of its own volition. And damn it all but she did understand. She wants that same kind of justice for herself! She’d dream of someone stepping in and handing that justice to her. Why not try and do what no one else has for herself?
“It’s also me owning up to this, Ari. See, I’m the one that set these events in motion. I opened a door and brought fire into my own home. Even though it also brought us you as well, Ari. With all of this, you and Adam found each other.”
“I don’t think it will change what I think of you,” she tells her friend the truth even though she doesn’t quite understand why Stella is blaming herself for what Isabella and Cristian did. Stella has such a good heart. A true matriarch to the King family.
“Thank you,” she tells her friend. “For telling me the truth. For always treating me…like a human being.”
“You never should have been treated beneath anyone else,” Stella retorts with her outrageously innocent smile, even during a bleak time like this.
“Stella, what about the arrangement between the Kings and Romano?” She had to ask. There isn’t much she can do to protect the family but she still needs to know that she isn’t putting them in immediate danger either.
“Don’t worry about that. As long as you love Adam as much as he loves you, it’ll all work out in the end,” Stella tells her with conviction.
Does Adam love her?
He’s so hard to read that sometimes she’s sure of it yet, she couldn’t be sure. He’s never spoken the words but then, neither has she. It wasn’t until they’ve had to spend these past weeks apart that she discovered how much she feels for him.
Beyond attachment and familiarity. Beyond physical need and want. Beyond the control and submission. It’s more torturous than coming off of whatever blend Cristian had stuffed into her.
“I love him, Stella. So much,” she whispers out the words for the first time.
“You should tell him. These Kings are dense when it comes to love sometimes. They won’t believe it until you start hammering it into their heads. They’re worth it though,” Stella says with a gentle smile even though her eyes are filled with so much pain and sadness.
“Listen,” Stella says. “In about five minutes, your half-siblings…wait. I’m going to stop calling them that because I don’t want to consider them even on your level.”
She laughs at Stella for the perfect valley girl act.
“Anyway, those two will be brought in here. They won’t be walking out. You can stay if you want to but this is on me. You don’t need to be here. Brooks is ready to take you back immediately without them knowing you were ever here.” Stella pauses. “And Ari, I can’t promise it’ll be easy and painless.”
“I’ll,” she pauses and tries to convince herself to change her mind. It doesn’t budge. Something in her needs to be here. “I’m staying,” she says.
Does this…does this make her evil? Does she have her own darkness stirring within, her own bloodlust?
“You’re still butterflies and rainbows, Ari.”
How does Stella do that? How does Stella seem to know what she’s thinking? Just like Adam seems to.
“That darkness that you feel sometimes? It’s they who brought it to you and nurtured it. You just didn’t have a way to free it. It might be your blessing in disguise though.”
“I used to be scared of my thoughts. Especially when they drugged me. I used to be afraid of myself for thinking about all the things I would do to them because it’s not normal to have those thoughts by normal people’s standards.
“Every time they handed me over to some prick to be…used…I’d bite down on my pain and imagine holding their bleeding hearts in my hand. But I’d hate myself for thinking that right after. I thought…I thought it made me just as dirty and evil as they were and I’d hear my mother’s voice admonishing me, telling me how disappointed she’ll be for not trying harder to please them.” God, her mother is in part to blame for all of this too, wasn’t she?
“You’re far from dirty and evil, Ari. Adam wouldn’t be head over heels for you otherwise.”
The sound of a phone ringing startles her and she nearly jumps out of her seat, scattering the fog in her head before her mother’s voice can even begin the flogging.
“I’m ready,” Stella says into the phone.
Stella hangs up almost immediately and turns to speak to her.
“Ari, you can blow the candle out and sit in the dark if you don’t want to let them know that you are here. And if you choose to let them see you, remember I’ll be here with you the whole time. Don’t be afraid of them. You’ll never have to be afraid of them ever again.”
She nods at her friend and blows out the candle. The darkness engulfs her like the security blanket she’s let it become. She’s safe sitting there within it.
Chapter Thirty-Six
“This is Gaston’s warehouse. Are you sure she said to be here?” Rory asks out loud.
“It feels like we’re lambs being led to the slaughterhouse,” Derrick says.
“If that’s the case, why do I have to be here?” Chase asks. “I’m not the one who fucked her over.”
“Shut it up, Chase. It’s getting old,” he tells his brother and continues walking beside Derrick.
Brooks nearly gets his head blown off when the man swings a door open and surprises the four of them.
“This way,” Brooks says to them and walks back inside.
Derrick, of course, follows along quickly.
He’s a little more cautious with his speed than Derrick though. Rory and Chase tag along slowly through the dark hallway as well until they enter a dark room with a dim light coming through the window.
“Ariana,” he says, seeing her shrouded in darkness in a chair on the other side of the window.
He feels her even through the wall in between them. His skin tingles at the sight of her. He’s begged for this moment. To be able to see her just one more time.
“Stella,” he hears Derrick say too. His brother walks right up to the window, his hand touching it as if he were touching his wife. “A one-way,” Derrick says referring to the glass.
“Do they know we’re here?” he asks Brooks.
“Stella does. Not Ariana,” Brooks answers.
“Rian?” Derrick asks.
“He is with James and Jason at Gaston’s. Taken care of,” Brooks replies.
It doesn’t take long before the warehouse grows brighter. Isabella and Cristian Romano confidently stride in. He counts six of their men with them. Half of them are high-ranking in their small crew but all of them are dirty as fuck. That’s saying a lot in the business that they’re in.