Magnificent Ruin (Everlasting Series Book 2) (9 page)

Chapter 11

I
n the morning, I wake up feeling disoriented. Last night I went to bed early to avoid Tomas in case he decided to come home like he said he would. He didn’t show up in time for dinner nor by the time I went to bed with my e-reader at nine. I stayed up reading until I literally passed out, leaving the bedside light on.

My head feels like it was just hit with a hammer. A relentless banging lingers in my ears, probably a remnant from some strange dream or other. I stay under the soft satin sheet for a moment before the banging returns. It’s not a dream. Someone’s trying to break the door down.

All my senses go on hyper mode as I try to comprehend why anyone could be knocking on the door so violently. My ears scan the air for additional auditory information, like a police siren or people talking.

Nothing. I step out of bed and go down the stairs, clutching onto the cell phone. In a moment of panic, I realize I don’t know who to call since I never bothered to ask for the Greek equivalent of a 911 number.

My thoughts do a one-eighty turn when I get to the hallway downstairs. Tomas is standing in front of the door in nothing but his boxer briefs. Only now do I realize I’m wearing nothing but a thin, barely-there tank top and underwear myself.

A nice pair we’ll make if that’s the police banging on the door. Tomas arches his brows. “Go back upstairs,” he commands me. Immediately I want nothing more than to stay until I know what’s going on.

I face him with the most determined expression I can muster. I make quick calculations in my head. His hair is messy on one side which means he was sleeping but the redness in his eyes betrays he hasn’t had more than a couple of hours of sleep. He must have come back home right before dawn.

He shakes his head at me disapprovingly as he opens the door. “Why so much noise?” he says with a fake yawn as two oversized goons in tight T-shirts and jeans push the door wide open to waltz through it.

“You sure took your time, Keller,” one of them says. “What are you up to?”

Tomas scratches his crotch with a grin on his face. “What do you think?” he says.

The goon looks at me, laughing. “The little lady is keeping you company, huh?”

“All right, Lester, what do you want?” Tomas says.

“You took something that doesn’t belong to you, Keller,” the goon says. “Mister De Luca would like it back.”

De Luca. The appalling man from the beach. I knew he was a scumbag the very moment I laid eyes on him. I’d love to know what business it is that Tomas has with him. Whether I like it or not, I allowed myself to get involved with Tomas and I can’t pretend not to care about what happens to him.

“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” Tomas tells the goon—or Lester as he called him earlier.

“Do you like games, Keller? Cause we could play all year and you’d lose every time.”

“I’m not a thief,” Tomas says, getting pissed off. “I haven’t even been to the villa in weeks.”

“Cut the crap, motherfucker. You know what you did.”

“Tell De Luca I don’t have anything that belongs to him,” Tomas says, walking to the door that’s been left wide open the whole time. It’s a good thing we don’t have any neighbors.

“The loser of this game, Keller, loses everything,” Lester the hoodlum says. “I would advise you to stop.” I begin to wonder if the second beefcake can actually speak. He looks like he could be American but who knows.

“Thanks for stopping by,” Tomas says sarcastically. “I’ll deal with your boss face to face.”

Lester smiles as he takes a step toward the door. He turns around, swiftly throwing and connecting with a punch to Tomas’s face.

Tomas takes a few involuntary steps backward, holding his nose. Blood drips through his fingers, making my heart stop for a second. I want to run to him, throw my arms around him and check to make sure he doesn’t have a broken nose. And then I’ll punch him myself.

What the hell is Tomas thinking? Does he always feel compelled to provoke monster-sized goons and bouncers?

Tomas laughs as he brings his bloody hand in front of his eyes. “Solid shot, Lester, I didn’t see it coming.”

The goon grips the back of Tomas’s neck. “Consider yourself lucky we don’t have orders to inflict permanent damage,” he says. “Yet.”

Tomas nods. “No hard feelings, man. You have your orders. But the thing is, I don’t take orders from anyone.”

He spins around grabbing Lester’s wrist with both hands and bending over to toss him over his shoulder and onto the second goon. It happens so fast they’re both caught off guard, their bodies rolling into a messy hump of shell-shocked limbs.

In a flash, Tomas snatches a gun out of Lester’s back pocket and trains it on them. “Get the hell out,” he says, teeth clenched. “Tell De Luca to grow some balls and come after me himself if he thinks I stole from him.”

The goons get up slowly and, for the first time, it is the unnamed one that throws the threat, “You’ll pay for this.”

Brooklyn accent, hoarse voice, eyes so narrow it’s a wonder he can see through them.

“What fresh kind of hell is this?” I tell Tomas as soon as he closes the door behind his assailants.

“I’ll straighten it all out,” he says, wiping his nose with the back of his hand—the one holding the gun. “It’s a misunderstanding.”

Blood trickles down his chin to his chest and all the way to his abs. Grace is good with handling emergencies like this and the sight of blood doesn’t faze her. Not so much the case with me.

I drag Tomas by the arm to the kitchen to clean him with a wet rag and put some ice on his bleeding nose. I stare at the gun silently until he realizes he’s still holding it and sets it on the table.

“Do you think it’s broken?”I say as he flinches when I put the ice pack on his face.

“No,” he says.

“How could you even tell?”

“I’ve had a broken nose before.”

“Of course, you have.”

I’m so mad at him for valuing his life so little, for putting himself in harm’s way constantly and for building up walls to keep out everyone who might care about him.

He reads my thoughts on my reprimanding face. “Don’t be mad, Taylor,” he says. “I have a big booboo.”

“At least, all that martial arts training finally paid off,” I say, looking away, not willing to be amused just yet.

“You sound judgmental.”

Okay, that about does it. “Do I? Gee, I wonder why. Two thugs show up accusing you of theft and you seem to be quite familiar with them. Not to mention their boss. A mob boss, I take it? What did you steal from him? Money? Drugs? What are these people even doing in Greece?”

He remains interestingly calm. “I didn’t steal anything from him,” he says. “You have to believe that. I don’t have anything that belongs to him.”

I consider his words, saying nothing.

“What?” he says. “You think I’m lying?”

“I think lying is your profession. You choose your words carefully. I think you did steal something but you believe it belongs to you.”

“That wouldn’t be stealing,” he says, obviously uncomfortable.

“Right, because in your pig head it never belonged to De Luca in the first place. What do they call it? Like blood money, maybe.”

He laughs but stops quickly as it causes him pain. “Lord, you’re good,” he says. “But I still didn’t steal anything.”

“Well the thing you didn’t steal might get you killed. Those people won’t give up,” I say.

“It’s all fine, Taylor. Please, say you believe me.”

“Goons come to where we live with guns. Guns, Tomas. Are you going to just stand there and tell me all is right with the world?”

“I’m sorry,” he says, “it should have never happened. You should not have been exposed to violence again—not after what happened to you last year. But I promise you that whatever it is they’re accusing me of, they’re wrong. Just say that you believe that.”

“I don’t see why you should care what I think. You obviously chose your path long ago. Facts are hardly an issue in your world. Belief, even less so.”

He sighs. “Just because I don’t want to have a relationship doesn’t mean I don’t care about what you think. Or that I don’t care about you.”

“You think that’s what it’s about, you moron? I don’t want to burst your bubble, but I’m over it.”

I’m lying and he probably knows it. If I keep my front up, he might lose some of his cockiness though. He nods as he removes the ice pack from his face. “Okay,” he says. “I’m still not happy bringing you into this. I’ll make sure to keep you away from the untidy parts of my life.”

“Oh, I’ll make sure of that myself,” I blurt out before I have a chance to think it through. I don’t want to sound bitter or resentful.

“What do you mean?” he says, his face already bruising up and swelling around his nose and under his eyes.

I shrug. I can’t help myself. “It might be best if I left, Tomas. We both know that. My safety is also at risk.”

“No,” he says, “I won’t have it. I’ll go talk to De Luca right now.”

He makes a move for the door and panic rises inside me.

“You’re not going to talk to that monster alone,” I say, blocking his way.

“It will be fine.”

“If you say it will be fine one more time, I’ll punch you myself.”

Even through the fresh bruises, I can see how his grin takes over his face. “It might be worth it to watch you get all flustered and panting.”

Are we still talking about me punching him? Lord, what is he trying to do to me? “How do you know De Luca?” I say, doing my best to avoid smiling.

“I met him in Brooklyn a few years back. I had no idea I was going to run into him and his whole crew right here, on a fucking Greek island.”

He laughs but it’s without glee. It’s the kind of laughter that suggests the coincidence is an unpleasant one.

“Have you been to his villa?”

“A couple times.”

“What about Amelia?”

“Amelia?”

“That incredibly beautiful girl on the beach. Do you know her?”

He grows impatient, tapping his fingertips on the table.

“You want me to believe you, you tell me the truth,” I insist.

“I met her at the villa,” he admits. “We started talking and then some drunk guy caused a scene and that was that.”

“So why did she act like she didn’t know you?”

“You’ll have to ask her.”

“Did you sleep with her?”

“What? No! Taylor, please.”

My brain tries to put all the pieces together. The night at the club when Tomas said he had angered a powerful person who was supposed to depart for some other place far, far away. The chance meeting with De Luca on the beach and his demeaning manner toward Tomas. Amelia acting like she didn’t know who Tomas was. Tomas walking out on me. The two goons that came here today to threaten him. What’s the thread that connects it all?

I have a million questions for Tomas but he cuts me short as fast as he can. “I really have to go, Taylor. I don’t know when I’ll be back but I’ll call you every day, okay?”

“Where are you going? De Luca’s?”

“Eventually, but there’s something else I have to take care of first.”

“What is that?”

He shakes his head. “You know I’m not going to tell you.”

Yes, I know it all too well. He’s never lied or tried to hide who he is from me. Well, with the exception of all the sweet nothings he whispered in my ear when he was making love to me.

I ended up doing exactly what I wanted to avoid: I became a number on his list of broken hearts. It’s not like he didn’t warn me. At least I can take comfort in the fact that he still wants to be my friend and shows an active interest in me.

“I’m going to hit the shower before I go,” he says, putting the ice pack back in the freezer.

He heads for the stairs but changes his mind. He comes to me, taking my hand in his. “There aren’t enough lives for me to tell you how sorry I am,” he says, and I don’t know if he means the violence and the gun or leading me on.

He leans in and I jerk my head back, caught unawares. His green pupils turn darker like deep, turbulent waters. He tilts his head to the side as his lips dive for my mouth. They change their course suddenly and end up on my cheek. This intimacy misfire with him is unbearable.

I stare at his back like an idiot as he walks away. For a second or two I’m tempted to step into the shower naked just to see his reaction. Will he get pissed at me and ask me to leave? Will he get a hard-on but tell me to go anyway? Or will he give in to temptation and take me in his arms to give me the supreme fuck that I obviously need and crave?

I shake my head, terribly disappointed in myself. Let’s look at it this way: he desperately needs to be free and wild, while I’m trying to create bonds and ropes for him. Maybe it’s me who’s messed up.

Let it go, Taylor
, I whisper to myself as I hear the bathroom door open. Then I hear his footsteps as he hurries to his room to change. That’s it, he’ll never be mine even though I’d be his in a heartbeat.