Sweet Hope (Sweet Home #4) (17 page)

“Who the fuck are
you, Elpidio
?”

Aliyana’s, no, Ally fucking
Prince’s
words haunted my mind. No, they had taken
possession
of my goddamn mind as I drove my Camino like a damn bat of hell toward my studio. I’d bailed on Austin and Levi. I hadn’t told anyone I was leaving. I couldn’t. I couldn’t face everyone in that damn rich-assed suite, everyone who wished I wasn’t there. The people who thought I was trash, looked at me like they wanted nothing more for me than to disappear… Aliyana and Molly looking at me like I was gonna walk up to them, pull out a gun and fucking murder them.

Aliyana! Christ, how could she fear me now? Now that I’d shown her the real me?

Did none of them fucking get that I did what I did in my past for my famiglia? I took the only path available to me and kept my famiglia going, I kept my mamma’s medication flowing in. And yeah, I fucking paid in blood,
King
blood… but what the hell else was I meant to do? I was a kid on my fucking own trying to fix problems I couldn’t fucking fix…

Seeing a red neon sign for a liquor store, I abruptly turned right and screeched my car to a stop. Storming out of my car into the store, I headed straight for the rows of whiskey. And grabbed a bottle of Patron and Jägermeister while I was at it.

I needed to drown in liquor for a while.

I wanted to forget who I was for a while… at least for tonight. Forget it all. The last few weeks, the last few years… everything… just for a fucking while.

But as I walked to the cash register, the damn Spanish record blaring through tinny speakers changed, the familiar Latino tune making me stop dead in my tracks.

It seemed as much as I wanted to forget, God had other plans.

Closing my eyes, I could still see Aliyana dancing to this song, “Amor Prohibito”, standing in her white shirt and pink Doc Martin pink boots, swinging her hips as she painted the wall of the gallery.

Hearing the little Mexican guy unlatch something from behind the counter, I opened my eyes to find him watching me, a terrified expression in his eyes. His hand was tucked under the caged counter. I really had to work hard not to lose my shit.

I’d tried real fucking hard inside to learn how to rein in my anger.  But at times, I struggled,
really
struggled with it.

Marching forward, the man’s face paled as I slammed the three bottles on the counter and pulled out some cash. He swallowed, then shakily reached out his hand to take the cash.

Narrowing my eyes, I snapped, “Keep the change,” before grabbing the bottles and skulked out of the door.

As the cool evening air hit my face, I paused, muscles tensing as I tried to calm down. Gasping for breath, I headed to my car.

As I slid into the driver’s seat, I glanced to my right seeing a group of guys hanging out the back of the strip mall. My stomach churned. Everyone of them was dressed in dark loose clothes, crew tattoos covering every inch of their skin… and inked teardrops running down their cheeks, proving who they belonged to.

Staring at the brothers laughing as they stood together, dealing coke or whatever the fuck it was they were pushing, I felt a moment of nostalgia. The only time I’d ever felt like I belonged in this life was with the Heighters.

With Gio.

A sharp pain sliced through my gut at the thought of Gio. He’d pulled me from my shit life and had given me something to live for. I spent every day with him, he was my best friend… and I’d had him killed. The fact of which fucking haunted me every minute of every day.

I’d had to get my best friend killed to protect my brothers. No one knew what the guilt of that did to me.

I huffed a laugh to myself. My brothers that I’d done everything for didn’t even want me.  Gio’s death buried any ties to my crew. And now I had a price on my head… and a damn ugly scar on the back of my neck to show how close my old crew brothers came to cashing in on it.

Moving my bottles of liquor to the passenger seat, I reached into the glove compartment and took out a roll of fifties I kept in there.

I stared at the crew again, and before I talked myself out of it, I headed in their direction.

A member of the crew clearly saw me coming, and pushed to the front of his brothers, his face stern and ready to take me on. I smirked as he did. The asshole had no idea who I was, who he was fucking with if things went south.

“What the fuck do you want?” the pint-sized punk asked as I joined them in the shadows.

Smiling coldly at the little Hispanic leader’s ballsy attitude, I reached into my pocket. All the brothers staggered back, reaching to the front of their jeans to pull out their guns. Without flinching, I pulled out my roll of fifties and held it up.

“Snow,” I said coldly. The leader relaxed and gestured, calling off his boys.

Handing me a couple of bags filled with white powder, the leader pressed them into my palm, the feel of those plastic packets so familiar that, weirdly, it soothed me. Turning on my heel, the leader shouted, “You with a crew? You got enough markings that say you are.”

Stopping, I glanced back, seeing the camaraderie amongst the guys standing protectively around their leader. I missed that. That shit was family to me. That was life.

“Not no more,” I replied sharply, feeling that long scar at the back of my neck burning like the day it was made.

Walking quickly, I got to my car, shoved the bags of coke into my jeans, cracked open the Jim Beam and drove back to the studio.

Kicking open the old wooden door to the studio, I pounded through holding the stash of liquor to my chest, whiskey already open, half empty from my ride home. The amber liquid was warming my chest, giving me a perfect fucking buzz. The studio was dark and cold and completely silent.

Silence… I couldn’t stand fucking silence.

Stumbling through the hallway, tripping over old boxes and lumps of discarded marble, I eventually reached the entrance of my studio, but not before stumping my foot on a large box just beside the doorway.

Frowning in confusion at what it was, I staggered to the workstation beside my work-in-progress, dumped my liquor on the wooden top, pulled out half of my coke, leaving the other bag for later. I threw it down beside the glass bottles of mind numbing perfection.

Flicking on a lamp on the workstation, I walked back to the hallway, picked up the strange box and brought it into the studio. Dropping the box next to my current sculpture, I grabbed the bottle of whiskey and slumped down to the floor. Taking four long gulps of Beam, I placed the bottle beside me and ripped the box open.

The contents immediately came into view and chased the breath from my lungs. The titles and text boards for my show.

Closing my eyes, I inhaled through my nose and used my hands to push myself to my feet.

Silent… it was all too fucking silent.

Reaching into my back pocket, I pulled out my phone, attempting to open my music, when all I could see were a shit ton of missed calls and text messages from Austin…

AUSTIN: Where are you, Axe? You still here at the stadium?

AUSTIN: Been looking for you all over. Where are you? Want to take you out for dinner.

AUSTIN: Back home now. I’m worried. Why did you take off without telling me? Did something happen?

Feeling a rush of guilt pass through my chest, I pushed it from my mind the minute I pictured that blond Redskins punk kissing Aliyana on the lips, her fucking bright smile and huge brown eyes looking up at him afterward, and her hand pressing on his chest. Then…

You were the only guy that I’ve ever felt that fucking bolt of lightning in my heart with, and you turn out to be…
him! You
!

Feeling like I’d taken a hit to my stomach at the replay of her words, her words that were right on the fucking money, I plugged in my speakers and let the heavy bass beats of Linkin Park pound through the studio.

Looking at the box sitting on the floor, I made my way forward, grabbing the Patron as I did so. Dropping my ass to the tiled floor, the room beginning to spin, I ripped off the top and took a long drink like it was water and not real good fucking Tequila.

Lining up the Patron next to the whiskey, I reached into the box, pulling out the title reading ‘Exsanguination’. My stomach muscles involuntary tightened seeing the title of one of my pieces there in black and white.

It somehow made all this shit real.

Placing the title plaque by my feet, I then picked up a larger board. The lettering was the same non-descript font, the color scheme black against white. But there was a lot more writing, and I began to read…

“The sculptor’s inspiration for his dark and highly emotional ‘Exsanguination’ piece is one born of man’s intense inner conflict with guilt. The subject’s fetal position is due to his inability to face his grief, his inner turmoil bringing him physically to his knees. Each carefully black painted dagger plunged into the cracked Carrara marble portrays the heavy burden of sin on a soul, the reparation of man’s deliberate violation of morality. The punishing daggers are irremovable and a permanent reminder to the subject that his crimes can never be forgotten or redeemed. Nor can he ever be saved. He bleeds his guilt in an eternal ever-flowing state of desolation.”

As I finished reading the last word, I dropped the board to the floor and slumped back against my newest sculpture, feeling like my chest had been ripped open, exposed for everyone to look inside.

How the fuck did she know to write the board that way? How to write what I was feeling this way? How the fuck did she know how to read my work and
me
perfectly? Like a goddamn fucking book.

Feeling like my lungs were being squeezed in a fist that I couldn’t friggin’ fight off, I pulled out my smokes and lit one up. Taking alternate long hits of my Marlboro and huge swigs of my whiskey, I looked up and stared at the young marble boy holding a gun, crying red painted bullets and a fucking uncontrollable rage swept through me.

With every drag of my smoke and every swallow of whiskey, I was pushed farther and farther to the edge. Images of Levi’s rejection tortured my mind. Aliyana’s damn disgusted face when she realized it was me, Axel Carillo, not her precious
Elpidio
, Molly’s hand shaking in pure fucking fear as she took mine in hers. And that cunt, Rome Prince’s stupid fucking scowl as he glared at me with nothing but hatred, acting like he was Austin’s blood, not me.

Fuck them.

FUCK THEM ALL!

Standing, I began to pace back and forth on the studio floor, gripping the glass neck of the whiskey bottle tighter in my hand, the ash from my nearly-done Marlboro falling on my chest.

My heart beat faster and faster keeping rhythm with the heavy metal of Pantera’s “Walk”
now vibrating off the walls.

I was done. I was done with trying to prove to everyone that I’d changed. I was done with this art bullshit, with motherfucking Elpidio!

I didn’t know how to do 'normal'.  Because I wasn’t fucking normal! Never had been. Having a drunk abusive cunt of a papa, a cripple as a mother, and forced to be the man of the house at ten years of age kinda fucks up a kid’s idea of ‘normal'.

Draining the rest of the whiskey, I threw my head back and screamed out my fury, launching the bottle against the wall, hearing it smash.

Spitting my finished smoke to the ground, I marched to the workstation and poured a packet of coke onto the top, reaching into my back pocket for my driving license. Taking the rectangular piece of plastic, I chopped the powder into lines, that sense of excitement swirling in my stomach just imagining the hit that would follow.

I’d never got addicted to this shit, too busy pushing it on the streets, but I’d sure as fuck take a line every now and then, when things got bad. I liked the buzz, the damn mind-numbing buzz the magic dust takes away.

And I needed that now more than ever.

“…You’ve been in prison! Shit, Elpi! What we’ve shared these past weeks… what we shared last night… and you’re fucking Axel Carillo!”

Aliyana’s words throbbed in my skull, her disappointment feeling like the worst kind of migraine. I lifted my head to try and shake off the damn pain, only for my gaze to settle on the image of that fucking sculpture.

Levi…

Levi who couldn’t look at me with anything other than fucking contempt…
The memory of him shooting me down today cut me in half.

With the whiskey running thick in my blood and that motherfucking sculpture torturing my mind, something inside of me snapped.

Seeing my hammer lying on the workstation, I picked it up, feeling the cold metal in the palm of my hands and turned to the almost completed sculpture. Wanting nothing more than to have it gone from my sight… gone from my fucking life, I positioned myself behind it, raised my hammer and—

“ELPI!!!!
NO!
”

Freezing on hearing
her
voice cut through the loud music and my drunk ass mind, I snapped my head to the doorway, only to see Aliyana friggin’ Lucia staring at me, mouth open and her hands held out trying to stop my destruction of this pathetic sculpture.