Cassius kept quietly staring out at the rough exterior of the rundown neighborhood they lived in.
“What’s wrong?” she asked worriedly. She’d never really seen him this way before. She had only ever seen him upset once, and that was when Drago had chosen her.
The young boy flexed his jaw tightly. “Dom’s been pissed since you left. He’s acting like he’s going to fuckin’ kill somebody.”
Her mouth going dry wasn’t from the cold wind. A shiver shook her whole core, unsure if she wanted to know, but she didn’t have a choice but to ask... “Who?”
* * *
Drago watched Katarina walk away until she disappeared. Once she did, Dominic wasted no time speaking his mind.
“I was so fucking careful,” the Luciano boss’s voice cut like a knife into the dead air. “So fucking careful to not let you Carusos know we had a sister, and somehow he found out.”
A part of him felt bad for Katarina’s brother. It was obvious he felt as if he had failed his sister. He just didn’t quite get the scope of whom exactly he was up against. “You’ll come to find out Lucca always knows everything.”
But then again, he assumed Dominic now did.
“It’s quite annoying, really,” Drago continued, finally glad to face his guilt head on. “But it’s not him you should be mad at. I’m the one who chose her, and for that… I’m sorry.”
Dominic looked at him with a flex in his jaw.
“I want you to know, choosing Katarina had nothing to do with her and everything to do with you. I wanted you to hurt for what your father did to me. She just happened to be in the way.”
That flex in his jaw seemed to relax slightly.
He began to show Dominic that any hatred he had toward him, didn’t compare to the hatred Drago had towards himself. “Sometimes it’s hard for me to look at her, to know that I used her.”
“Good.” Dominic’s fierce hazel eyes pierced his soul. “I’ve had to wake up every fucking day for the last seventeen years paying for the sins of my father, and I’m glad to know I won’t be the only one anymore.”
“No, you won’t,” he agreed.
Feeling the release of some of his guilt, he had wanted to talk to Dominic ever since his feelings for Kat consumed him. Both of them coming to a silent agreement helped, but there was one last thing he needed to do. “Can you show me the basement?”
Nodding, Dominic didn’t even have to ask why he needed to see it as he led him down a hall, taking him to the door that opened to the descending staircase.
Drago walked down it, not knowing till he finally saw it that what he would see would be something he would never forget. It was a cold concrete room that sat under the house, used to hold old things, but up against the wall in the middle of it sat a cozy pink rug. There was a single bed by a heater, a little nightstand with a lamp on top. Even a poster of flowers hung above, creating a little room that wouldn’t look so bad if it weren’t surrounded by the cold concrete.
It was what it was, a basement that was forced to hold a room for a little girl.
“It won’t get any easier….” Dominic’s grave voice echoed through the space.
Looking back at him, Drago saw only the man who’d raised Katarina. “What won’t?”
“Looking at her.”
Drago’s eyes went back to the makeshift room, seeing what he had missed the first time… It had been made with love.
* * *
“Anybody,” Cassius told her. “He thinks Lucca knew about you before they came in, and he doesn’t understand how he found out.”
“Oh.” She scooted closer to her brother, so she could put her arm around his shoulder. “He’s just upset, Cass. I’ll talk to him and tell him to take it easy.”
Cassius continued to stare out at the trash-filled land.
It was never like talking to a young teenager when she talked to her youngest brother, with their talks consisting of mature material most of the time. She had always tried to keep him on the side with her and her older brothers, the good side, and away from their father’s, the bad side. But… he was so much like Lucifer.
She could always see the battle of good and evil in his head, the devilish boy being talked back off that line before he crossed it, and it couldn’t be undone. Except this time. Something was different.
“What happened?” she asked, terrified, afraid that she was too late. The crime looked like it had already been committed.
Cassius finally looked at her with his malevolent eyes. “I did something, Kat, and I don’t think you’ll never forgive me.”…
…At a very young age, Cassius wandered out the house when no one was looking, which happened too often because of all the fighting.