Chapter 8

8

CRISTIAN

I stared at my phone, thumb hovering over Tyrone's name. The screen blurred as my vision swam, the harsh light burning my eyes. Fuck. I'd avoided them all after what I did to Scarlet. The memory of her tear-stained face, the fear in her eyes, it tore me apart like a rabid animal clawing at my insides.

"You're a monster," she'd spat. The words echoed in my fucked-up brain, bouncing off the walls of my skull like a twisted game of pinball.

I slammed my fist against my temple, the impact jarring. "Monster, fucking, monster," I growled, each word punctuated by another blow.

The pain bloomed, a familiar friend, but it didn't drown out the chaos in my head. I deserved every harsh word she'd hurled at me, every ounce of venom in her voice. I'd panicked, lost control like a wild beast. Now she hated me, and my brothers... Christ, they were beyond furious. I could practically feel Ty's disapproval radiating through the phone. Hell, he'd found me and given me a beaten rivaling that of our father's, cursing me out for hurting her despite how I'd claimed she was my person. He'd even told me that such an attack could have her miscarrying if she was pregnant.

Why was I like this? I felt like I was two people, the one who wanted to take care of her and have her love me, and another who wanted to claim her and own her, remind her she was mine. Always mine.

I paced the one room apartment, one of our many safe houses, and now my temporary exile, like a caged animal. The threadbare carpet wore thin under my relentless steps. Taking out her IUD was bad enough, but hurting her again after we'd gotten closer? Fuck. I was no better than the scum we dealt with daily, the lowlifes that threatened our family empire constantly.

"I just wanted us to be happy," I muttered to the abstract painting on the wall, tracing the misshapen patterns with my eyes. "To have the family that was stolen from us." The words sounded hollow, even to my own ears.

Images flashed through my mind, a nightmarish slideshow. Tessa's lifeless body, pale and cold, her wrists slit and the fire gone from her now glossed over eyes. The sonogram of our unborn child, gone forever at her hand, a future snuffed out before it began. The crushing weight of loss threatened to suffocate me, pressing down on my chest until I could barely breathe.

I grabbed the half-empty whiskey bottle, my constant companion these past few days, and took a long pull. The burn in my throat did nothing to ease the ache in my chest, but I welcomed the familiar fire. How could I make this right? The past few days blurred together in a haze of alcohol and self-loathing as I wracked my brain for a solution.

For a moment, a dark thought crept in, seductive in its simplicity, one that had beckoned me over the past week. Maybe if I wasn't around anymore, they'd all be better off. I could protect them from the monster I'd become, the ticking time bomb in their midst. It would be so easy...

But then I pictured Scarlet. My fierce little kitten, with fire in her eyes and steel in her spine. If it came down to it, I'd die for her in a heartbeat. I was the only one who'd put her before everything else, no matter what. Even before my own family and the bloody empire we ruled.

"I have to live," I growled, gripping the bottle so tight I thought it might shatter, mirroring the fragile state of my sanity. "For her."

This life we led was dangerous, a tightrope walk over a pit of vipers. Enemies lurked in every shadow, waiting for a moment of weakness, ready to shed blood at the drop of a hat. Scarlet needed protection, and I'd be damned if I wasn't the one to give it to her. No matter the cost to my soul or sanity.

I took a shaky breath, steeling myself, and unlocked my phone. The screen glowed accusingly in the dim room. It was time to face the music, to confront the mess I'd made.

With a deep breath, I hit the call button, the digital chime like a bell tolling for my own damnation.

"Tyrone," I said when he picked up, my voice raspy, dried out by whiskey and guilt.

He grunted a response, a sound that spoke volumes without a single word uttered. "What do you want, Cristian?"

"I know I fucked up," I admitted, the taste of those words as bitter as the alcohol I'd been drowning in. "I... I want to make it right."

Silence stretched between us, thin and taut like a tripwire. "You put us all at risk," he finally said, his voice low. "You made a selfish decision. And then you hurt Scarlet, destroyed whatever trust she had growing for you."

I closed my eyes, the truth of his words cutting through me sharper than any knife. "I know," I muttered. "And I'm sorry. I just... I wanted my family, Ty. I wanted my child."

His deep sigh was all that greeted me from the other end, and I knew he was still disapproving, my excuses not enough. Nor should they have been. "It's all fucked up," I continued, the words tumbling out in a rush. "I know the family would be better off without me. But I'd rather spend the rest of my life, however long or short, proving to you all that I'm still human to some degree, that I can be of worth to the family, and to Scarlet. Even if my mind is fucked. Even if I'm a monster unlike any other in this business."

Tyrone scoffed, the sound bitter and weary. "You think you're a monster?" he asked, his voice tinged with a dark amusement. "I've known worse monsters in this world, Cristian. Men who did horrible things."

I could picture him leaning on the kitchen counter of our apartment, a glass of whiskey in hand, his dark eyes reflecting the glow of the city as he looked over it. "Do you remember the German gang that tried to come in?" he asked, his tone carrying the weight of old battles.

"The Alters," I said, the name a curse on my lips. As if I could forget that damn family that had burned into this city. They'd come in so hot and fast, threatening our family's place here, along with the other founding families of this city. Thankfully, we'd all come together to eradicate the parasites that tried to claim Starwin as their own.

"I remember killing one of them," Tyrone said, his voice dropping to a growl. "He was... desecrating a woman in one of our brothels. Fucking the stab wound in her chest."

A twisted shudder ran through me, the image searing itself into my brain. For a moment, I allowed myself to wonder what that would feel like, the perverse act of plunging into a gaping, bloody wound. But I shook the thought away. That was a darkness too deep, even for me, and that was saying something. I could murder easily, rip people apart, but an act like that? No, it was too wrong, too twisted.

Besides, Scarlet was all I wanted now, my eyes couldn't wander, despite my attempt to pick up that first night away from home. I'd tried to charm one woman, but as I'd gotten her to agree to come home with me, I realized she was not what I truly wanted. She'd only ease my craving for a moment, before my need for Scarlet would come back full force. She was my entire world, ever since she'd first stabbed me, a wildcat fighting for her life. She'd won me over with her fire, her tenacity. She was alive in a way Tessa had never been, her darkness born of a need to survive, to fight. And I... I needed her like I needed air to breathe.

"I can't live without her, Ty," I confessed, the truth of it settling over me like a shroud. "She's everything to me."

The silence on the other end of the line was a living thing, a beast crouched and waiting. "Then you need to get your shit together, Cristian," Tyrone finally said, his voice hard but not unkind. "You need to show her, show us, that you can be more than the chaos you thrive in."

I nodded, even though he couldn't see me. "I will," I vowed, the words a solemn oath that bound me more securely than any chains ever could. "I'll do whatever it takes."

"Good," Tyrone said, and I could hear the relief in his voice, the cautious hope that maybe, just maybe, I could be salvaged. "We'll talk more when you're sober. And Cristian?"

"Yeah?"

"You should stay away from Scarlet until you've got yourself under control. You've done enough damage."

The words stung, but I deserved the reprimand. "I know I should, but Ty…"

"But what?"

"I wanted to try to win her back tonight, if you would allow it. I want to do something big for her. And I think we should let her unleash everything. Her anger, her hate, not just on me… but him," I said, hoping he'd allow it.

Tyrone's heavy intake of air was followed by a low hiss. "Yes, he is taking up valuable resources being held there. And I don't like the idea of us having to care for him until we're ready for Scarlet to show just who she is."

"So you're okay with it?" I dared to ask.

"How do you want to try to win her back? We left you alone with her before, and that was a mistake." Tyrone's words burned deep, and I gritted my teeth, hating their truth.

"You can be nearby, have a live feed in the room, come in if you think I'm going to be a danger or too much. But Ty, I promise, I won't let my… the other side of me do anything like that again. I can't. Not to Scarlet. I won't," I said with finality. It was a fact, and I knew it to be true now. I wouldn't hurt her like that again, not now. Not if I intended to win her back. I could never do it again, take her like she was mine already, a thing I owned, rather than won. She was a prize, I knew that now, not something I could just take. I had to earn her.

"Then what?"

"I want to make her food. Roses, a suit, do everything that I can. Something big," I said, hoping it would help my case. It wouldn't win her over, but it was a step in the right direction.

"You know that one grand gesture won't fix what you did," he said, echoing my own thoughts.

"No, but it's a start, right? A stone on the path to rebuilding anything between us."

"I don't know, Cristian. Let me talk to Jules about it, and I'll let you know in the next two hours."

"Okay, thank you," I said, fighting the urge to argue and demand a response right now. I was in no position to do such a thing.

The call ended, and I was left alone with my thoughts, a landscape as bleak and barren as a battlefield after the last shot had been fired. I had a long road ahead of me, a path fraught with the shadows of my mind and nature. But for Scarlet, for the family we could be, I would walk through the fires of hell itself.

And maybe, just maybe, I'd emerge on the other side, not a monster, but a man almost worthy of the woman who'd stolen my heart.