41. Rueben

Rueben

I rush after Tyson, hoping to catch him in time before he does something reckless. But he is much faster than I am. Cursing and yelling, I force my legs to move quicker and when I finally enter the kitchen, I yell, “Are you fucking stupid or what?” thinking Tyson is already throwing punches left and right.

Luckily, he is only arguing with Ansel, and I stay the fuck away from their fight, not because I don’t have anything to say about this entire situation, but because being so close to the Slutty Nun…has me feeling all her pain and anguish and fear. It almost brings me to my fucking knees. Breathing becomes hard and my heart throbs painfully. What the fuck is going on?

For a moment, I see the Slutty Nun, no, Olivia, as she was years ago—happy and carefree. She is no longer like that. She is like a…shell of her former self. Has she been like this all this time or is this recently?

And I care because….?

What if Levi is right?

What if Tyson is right and we were played? But how? I saw the video of her in her room with the gun in her hands and Camila’s cold body sprawled across the rug. Or did we find her in her room with the gun in her hands? I don’t know anymore.

Ansel finally gives the Slutty Nun to Tyson and he leaves the kitchen with her.

Mose drops onto a chair and drags his palms down his face. “I fucked up big time with Olivia. I didn’t think she would be triggered this badly.”

Ansel starts smoking. “It was me who fucking failed her. Again.” He rubs his temples. “Tyson had no right to take her away from me, not when I’m bonded to her.”

“Drop it,” I snarl.

Jasper starts cleaning the kitchen and I give him a hand.

“She is not ready for heavy stuff,” Mose murmurs. “We need to take things slow with her.”

Thinking of the video Levi showed Tyson and me, I comment, “No shit.” I start washing the dishes in the sink. “You claim to love her but you made her cry.”

“What the fuck is your problem?” Ansel demands to know. “You and Tyson are suddenly acting as if you never hurt Olivia. I might be a piece of shit, but at least I own my mistakes. But you? You won’t admit you fucked up even if your life depends on it.”

What the fuck is my problem? That’s a good question. And I might have hurt Olivia but she hurt me first. An eye for an eye.

It’s more than that.

My fucking problem is that for the first time since Camila died, I have doubts about everything. And then Tyson goes ahead and drops a fucking nuclear bomb on me by saying Olivia is our soulmate.

I refuse to accept it, because if that is true…then, I tortured the woman that I was supposed to love. And there ain’t no way, no fucking way, she is ours. Because there’s no way in hell I’m supposed to be with the woman who ruined my life.

I think we’ve been played, Rueben.

By who? And how? And why?

Ansel suddenly gets up. “I don’t trust Tyson to take care of Olivia. To make her understand she is fucking perfect and she did nothing wrong—”

I cut him short. “Sit the fuck down and drop it already!” I yell.

My blood-brothers look at me, waiting for an explanation for my behavior. What can I tell them? That probably Tyson and I tortured Olivia for nothing? That we broke her when she probably did nothing wrong? I can’t accept that I might have screwed up big time.

Impossible.

Tyson and I found her after she killed Camila, my sister’s blood still fresh on her hands.

But are we sure?

I need to find out the truth for my own sanity. Because up until now, I never doubted the things I saw with my own eyes, but I fucking trust Tyson more than I trust myself. And if he says something is wrong, then surely something is wrong. But what?

“Levi showed a video to me and Tyson. This guy who sold Olivia to us, he and his buddies did despicable things to Olivia. Malaky,” I add when I remember his name. I might be a fucking piece of shit, but I’ve never done what he did to Olivia to anyone.

Ansel’s eyes turn red. “Show it to me.”

“Tyson has the video but I have to warn you all, it’s one of the most fucked up things I have ever seen,” I let my blood-brothers know.

Jasper, who is sweeping the floor, grips the broom so hard it breaks in two. “How fucked up?”

I finish washing the dishes. “Dark web level fucked up.”

Mose looks at me, his face grey as the ashes. “And we spanked her.”

“And I broke her ribs. It’s on my mind constantly. I know she hasn’t forgiven me,” Ansel says next.

Jasper leans against the counter. “I abandoned her when I learned she can’t have kids. Looks to me like we all have failed her.”

No, I didn’t.

If I’m so sure about it, why do I have the feeling that I have failed her big time?

“Tyson thinks someone might have screwed with our heads big time,” I say to Ansel. “We need to talk to the Elders and tell them everything.”

Ansel pulls out another cigarette from his pack. “No. That’s out of the question.”

“What do you mean by screwed with your heads?” Jasper asks.

“Altered our memories? I have no clue. Tyson said that we have been played,” I reply. “This is why we need to contact the Elders. If Tyson is right, then who knows what the Dukes are capable of.”

Ansel slams his palms on the table so hard he breaks it. Mose gets away from it just in time. “I fucking said no! I’m already dealing with this!”

I’ve never seen Ansel this angry. Not to mention that he broke the sturdy oak dining table. How strong is he?

Mose and Jasper are just as shocked as I am.

“Fine, no Elders then,” I give in, wanting Ansel to calm down. “How are you dealing with it? What do you know that we don’t?”

Ansel rubs the back of his neck. “I’m having a meeting with Cirro in a few days. He’s been digging into some stuff for me.”

This irks me more than I like to admit it. “Are you going behind our backs now?”

“I’m just doing my duty,” Ansel replies.

“What is that supposed to mean?” I try to make him speak.

Ansel runs his fingers through his hair. “I don’t think you’ll understand even if I tell you.” He looks at me, his brown eyes a little strange. “In the beginning, I tried to resist, but…she was mine since my eyes first landed on her in my past life.” Ansel suddenly seems to snap out of some sort of a dark hole. What the hell was that about? “I’ll go buy a new table.”

“At this hour?” Jasper asks.

“Yeah. Do you want to come with me? This way, we can buy something nice for Olivia to let her know we are sorry for being huge assholes.” Looking at me, Ansel adds, “And not from a fucking thrift store.”

“A gift sounds like a good idea. I’m also coming,” Mose says. After grabbing his coat, Mose tells me, “Make sure Olivia knows she has been a good girl.”

Right.

I wait for them to leave before I go over to Tyson’s office. Even if he has a bedroom, he barely spends any time there. Besides, Isak and Steven are staying in his room for the moment.

From the second I enter the office, I start pacing around, trying to sort out the mess inside my head, which ends up annoying Tyson.

“If you only came here to walk around, you can go ahead and patrol the farm,” Tyson raises his tone at me.

I stop and look at Olivia. Even thinking of her as Olivia and not as the Slutty Nun or as the Diseased Cunt is hard. A blanket is wrapped around her and she’s trying to make herself as small as possible. Then it hits me like a ton of bricks. She fears me. Tyson might have done some really messed up shit to her, but she really fears me. I should be happy about it, but the truth is that I don’t like it. And it bothers me. Because I should be angry, not concerned for her.

“Back in the kitchen, I felt her anguish. I don’t know what to make of that.”

How can I feel her?

“You know what’s going on, but you are too stubborn to admit it,” Tyson sighs.

I liked Olivia from the moment Camila introduced her to me but I kept my distance because she was so fucking young and I didn’t want to come off as a creep to her. But I would do everything possible to be around her, even touching her from time to time. There had been moments when I would try to convince myself that she was a dumb teen because I liked her too much. But what Tyson is implying is pure madness. “She can’t be our soulmate. She can’t! I refuse to accept it.”

Tyson goes over to Olivia. “Do whatever you want, man. Believe it or not, I don’t care.”

I fold my arms over my chest. “Why are you doing this?”

Tyson puts Olivia in his lap, the blanket still around her, and she hides her face in his chest. “Because I’m tired, man. So fucking tired. Of the hate, of the fucking drama. I just need this to be over.” He kissed the top of Olivia’s head. “I don’t like the person I’ve turned into.” His arms come around her and she whimpers. “I thought that by breaking her, it would make me feel better.” He leans his head on the sofa. “But it only made me into a monster.” He makes Olivia look into his eyes. “I needed a fucking reality check and Levi gave it to me. He forced me to look at what I did to you earlier in the kitchen. And then he showed Rueben and me another video of you and….” For the first time in years, I see Tyson tear up. “What have I done, Olivia? What have Rueben and I done?”

She puts her palms on either side of Tyson’s face and kisses him. Looking into his eyes, she says three words that cut deep even into my soul. “You destroyed everything.”

And then she cries. The way she fucking cries shatters me. Tyson holds her tight while I look at them hopelessly because I have no clue what to do.

She cries for hours and I stand there looking at her while I feel all her pain. And it breaks me. My demon claws at my soul and I let him. I hope he fucking consumes me. It would set me free.

Suddenly, Olivia stands up and comes to me. “You are a fucking coward!” she yells at me while hitting my chest with her tiny fists. “Coward!” she continues to yell before falling to her knees. Tyson rushes to her. “Why couldn’t you kill me in the forest!? I shot Camila right in her chest while staring into her eyes and I never once felt bad about it.”

What the fuck?

“Kill me already!”

Tyson lifts her up in his arms and she fights him before suddenly passing out. Probably from exhaustion. “We need to talk to the Elders and find out if my assumptions about our heads being fucked with are correct.”

I go over to the sofa and pull it out, turning it into a bed. “Ansel is more than against going to the Elders. He even broke the table when he slammed his hands on it.”

Tyson is quiet, so I look over at him. He sits at his desk, cradling Olivia to his chest. He looks…lost. I take the pillows and the blankets from where Tyson keeps them and throw them on the sofa bed.

“We’ll get to the bottom of this,” I finally give in because I have already experienced Tyson moping around. Once was one time too many.

“It doesn’t matter anymore. Olivia will never forgive us.”

I sit. “Are you sure then? About her, I mean.”

“I keep seeing the video Levi showed us in my head over and over again. I try to stop the images, but it’s impossible. Levi spent a lot of time with Camila and Olivia. If there’s one person who knows Olivia better than we do, then that person is Levi. My mind might scream that Olivia is a whore and I shouldn’t trust a word coming out of her mouth, but I choose to trust Levi when it comes to Olivia.”

I run my fingers through my hair. “She just confessed to killing Camila in cold blood.”

“Rueben, I love you, man, but sometimes you can be so stupid.”

What is that supposed to mean? I take a second or two to think. Maybe more. Until it dawns on me that Olivia was trying to provoke my anger.

I let out a big sigh. “That makes two of us.” I pull out a cigarette. “How things change in a couple of hours.”

“Levi was right, you know. We should start getting our knees ready.”

I take a few puffs from my cigarette. “But we still don’t know for sure what happened.”

“Even if she fucked the entire country out of her own volition or if she killed countless innocent people, I don’t care. Not anymore.”

I want to call out Tyson on his bullshit, but then I see how he looks at Olivia. “You love her.”

Tyson takes his time thinking and replying. Meanwhile, he tucks Olivia into bed and sits back at his desk. “My mother changed her boyfriends more often than her socks. I never understood what love was because I never received a hug or a kind word while growing up. Then, your mother had enough grace to take me in after I ran away from home and found my way to…you guys. She was the first person to hug me. Did you know that Camila was the first to tell me, ‘I love you.’ It took me a while to understand what love means. Do you remember our first Christmas together?”

“Don’t you?”

Tyson laughs. “It was the first time I received gifts or celebrated Christmas. It was the first time I realized what a true family means. And I wanted that for myself. I wanted someone to love me and only me. Now I see how selfish I was.”

Even after so many years of living together, there are still new things that I’m learning about Tyson.

“You asked if I love Olivia. It took me a long time to realize that I do, but I don’t know how to love her. What is true love? I don’t have a fucking clue, but I’m determined to find out.”

For years, Tyson hated Olivia as much as I did, and now we are talking about love. “What changed?” I ask.

“Having her under the same roof as us. Seeing how happy Ansel and Jasper were around her. How even Mose started being attentive to her.” He frowns. “I didn’t like when Jasper fucked her in front of us, making her wince in pain. It felt like he was raping her, you know. And then what do I do? Shove a gun in her mouth and a bottle up her ass because I was enraged at the thought that she would dare leave with Levi and abandon me! It took me seeing that video that Levi showed us to realize I was turning into one of those Dukes.”

I let Tyson’s words sink in as I think about my life.

Olivia whimpers in her sleep and Tyson goes to her. As soon as he holds her in his arms, she calms down.

I don’t like the man I’ve turned into, either. I let my hate turn me into a…monster. But how do I become human once more?

Hell, Camila would be so fucking disappointed with me. She would probably beat the living shit out of me for how I treated Olivia, regardless of what happened between them.

“I’m going to kill all those who harmed Olivia,” Tyson says. “Do you think presenting her with their heads will be enough to forgive me?”

“Nah man, because then you’ll have to chop off your head as well. And mine. Tyson?”

“Yeah?”

“I still can’t accept that she is our soulmate.”

Tyson sighs. “Olivia is right. You are a fucking coward.”

Maybe.

I turn off the light before getting into bed, Olivia in the middle.

“This is awkward as fuck,” Tyson grumbles.

“I wish I could sleep in my bed but Ansel trashed my entire room. He put horse dung all over my stuff.”

Tyson chuckles bitterly. “And Jasper got rid of all my pets. Now I have to get new ones.”

The conversation dies out and despite being tired, I can’t sleep, as I keep thinking about shit. Olivia is right. I am a fucking coward. Not because I didn’t kill her but because I’m afraid of living. Is she the same as me? Afraid of being alive? Otherwise, why would she be so adamant about me killing her?

When dawn comes, I’m still wide awake. When the hour for Ansel and I to go to work comes, I feel like I’m on autopilot. And it goes like that for a few days.

“Is she still not eating?” I ask Tyson one night.

Olivia has refused to get out of bed for the past three days. Or drink or eat. Or see Ansel, Mose, or Jasper. She is slowly killing herself and no one knows how to help her. Fuck. I don’t know how to help her. But do I want to help her?

“This has to end today,” I say. “Tyson, go get the bathtub ready. Olivia is going to get cleaned up and then she will join us for dinner.”

Olivia looks at me with big, round eyes. “You said my name.”

Her first reaction in days.

“I’ve been saying it for a few days now, but you haven’t noticed it,” I snort.

Tyson lets out a small sigh of relief. “Dinner sounds like a good idea,” he says before leaving the office.

Since it will take a while for Tyson to prepare the bathtub, I sit next to Olivia on the sofa bed, trying to keep her company somewhat.

“Did you kill Camila?” For the first time in ages my tone is calm when asking this question.

Olivia sits on the sofa. “Will you avenge her if I said yes?”

My first instinct is to get angry but then I pay attention to how Olivia is answering. Not her words but her tone. There is remorse there, but what draws my attention is the raw pain that aches in my chest, mingling with my own. My pain is an echo of her own.

Maybe Tyson is right. What if she is our soulmate? Otherwise, why have I been feeling all her emotions for the past few days?

Instead of replying to her, I pull her into my lap and press my lips to hers. She stiffens. I move my mouth on top of hers. Shit. I’m hooked.

“Tyson will give you their heads and I’ll present you with their hearts,” I say against her sweet mouth.