“Whatever, Enzo. Here is the deal. I will come by and get Amara in the next few days. Mack is on the lookout for you two. Hell, if he could get his hands on Jared or James, he would be splendid as well. I told him I found you, but that I need a few days to lure you out.”
“Yeah, yeah… Get to the plan,” I say impatiently.
“I’ll come in the middle of the night, we’ll scuffle, you’ll cut me, punch me a couple times. Amara has to have some type of damage done to her… then I’ll take her.”
The idea of hurting Amara at all causes my stomach to flip. My mother had raised me better than that. Even if I was a stone-cold killer, it was never my idea of fun to beat on women.
“Where are you taking her?” My voice comes out gravelly. It’s already after one in the morning, and sleep pulls heavy on me.
“Don’t act dumb. I’m taking her to Mack. I’ll make sure he doesn’t touch her or anything.” Eli sounds convincing, but nothing is more important to me than her safety. In the end, if I don’t pick the right path, she’ll have to pay the price.
“I’m not acting dumb, I just want to fucking know where she’s going. A fucking location, not a vague answer.” I want to snap his neck for talking down to me. He isn’t above me, and we both know it.
“You’ll find out. Just make sure she’s prepared. After talking to her tonight, she’s not nearly as naïve as I thought she would be. Seems you have trained her far better than the other women you are known to be with.” The way he compares her to other women I slept with causes my chest to hurt. She is nothing like those women. There is no comparison.
“You’re right. She’s nowhere as dumb as those others. She can stand on her own two fucking feet. Now, if you would like to keep that tongue of yours in your mouth, I’d shut it. As you know, I have a habit of cutting tongues out,” I threaten before hanging up the phone.
It hits the floor with a thud, and I have no intention of picking it up. My mind is all over the place, anger and uncertainty rushing through my veins.
Clutching my head in my hands, I bend over… I’m disappointed with myself for feeling as if I’m strong enough to do this. It’s more than just a war with Mack or John. It’s a war with myself. To be the man I need to be–be the man she needs me to be. At the end of our story, I’m sure we’ll live happily ever after.
I involuntarily kick the table with my leg, anger and frustration boiling over. I can’t do this. Never in a million years did I ever think I would be weak, that, I, Lorenzo King, would fall to my knees. When you live a life like mine, you know nothing but strength and power, and without either, I feel lesser than less.
With all my strength, I shove from the sofa, my mind blazing with things I can’t control. Is loving her making me weak, or is it me bringing myself down?
“You’re what you make of yourself, Lorenzo,” My mother whispered in my ear as she ran her fingers through my hair.
I can’t do this, Mom. I can’t fucking do this… My chest was heaving, and as I whipped open the back door to run, I realized I had nowhere to go
“You’re stronger than this, Figlio… You can do this. I believe in you.” Her voice was a mere whisper in my mind, rattling my heart so much so making me feel as if I would pass out at any point in time. Instead, I sunk to my knees in the back yard. The darkness encompassed me, and it was a welcoming feeling.
“Come on, Lorenzo. We must be going now,” my mother yelled… She was always telling me what to do. Sometimes I wore the wrong shoes, or the tie I had on didn’t look good. She wanted me to be perfect… but for what?
“Mom, I don’t want to go,” I bellowed. Whining never did me any good anyway. Why I was trying it now, I didn’t know.
Looking me straight in the eyes, she smiled. It was breathtaking, beautiful in its own way.
“We all do lots of things we don’t want to, Lorenzo. That’s the lesson in life. Sometimes things are hard, and it’s impossible to see the light at the end of the tunnel,” she said, adjusting my tie like I knew she would.
“But, once you reach the end of the tunnel, you can look back and say, ‘that wasn’t so hard, now was it?’” she added.
I pondered what she said for a moment before asking my own questions… “Have you ever had to do something like that?”