Chapter 49: Chapter 49

LUCIA AMATO

‘YOU’RE A LOT MORE BEAUTIFUL THAN FLAMES DESCRIBED’

Misha complimented, I swept my hair out of the way giving her an ‘I’m too nervous and too scared of you but thanks’.

“We knew you two were coming but I still insisted on being hard on my boy. He never visits except for the holidays and not all the holidays, when we heard he was bringing a woman here well any mother would behave the same way I did when I saw you”

“I get it and like he said he’s doing me a favor really because the truth is I don’t have anywhere to go, I don’t know where to move from here”

“Well, whatever happened is in the past the best thing to do is move on. This is your home from now on, Lucia you can at least count on that”

Sweeping my dark hair across my shoulder, I turned to her giving her a faltering smile and I couldn’t help kissing both of her cheeks before I leaned in for a hug.

“Oh”, a startled chuckle escaped her lips but she still couldn’t resist my bear hug.

“Thank you”

My eyes crinkled with mirth holding back tears. She was nice, homey even and I hadn’t expected that.

Pulling away from me, her strong hands on both of my cheeks, her eyes twinkled with pride,

“You don’t have to thank me. I’m the one who should be thanking you for bringing my son home. And speaking of son, be a darling and call them here for me. If it were up to them, I’m pretty sure they’d catch up till tomorrow”, she joked.

After an assurance that I would drag her son and husband back to the house, I was already making my way outside when I caught a glimpse of one of the PICTURE frames hung by the foyer.

I had looked at them when we first got here but I had missed the girl in the picture because all my attention had been on a young Jace and how sinfully gorgeous he had been even at the age of eighteen.

This girl—ginger haired--and missing two upper incisors in the first picture stood next to Jace who was about ten years old. And the girl in every picture was a constant. And not only a constant no—but she was close to Jace, her smile was directed at Jace, her energy, her hands were with Jace.

I smiled.

She must have been his sister.

The next picture though halted my thoughts. Taken on a holiday—thanksgiving—judging by the half-eaten turkey behind them, Misha and her husband kissed below a glistening mistle toe while Jace stood serious left to his kissing parents.

On the right was the ginger haired woman, all grown up than she was in the last picture she took with Jace.

Rocking a slit waisted blue dress, dangly earrings and a high ponytail, she looked gorgeous and if she smiled just a little bit for the camera, I was so sure she would be the center of attraction from the whole picture.

But you know what made my heart feel like someone was crumbling it down with a jack hammer? It wasn’t jealousy...

Ok maybe jealousy was in the mix but confusion was the biggest cherry on top.

This was her!

The woman I saw that day with Jace! The woman he was kissing, the woman he was consoling in the mall.

Taking a closer look at her and her hair, her eyes…she was an exact replica of Misha only younger and extremely pretty.

I choked. They grew together but they weren’t related---yes, I remember Jace talking about his parents to me—Misha and Jason were his adopted parents and the red-haired woman was his adopted sister?

Possibly the love of his life.

The minute I stepped outside for a gulp of air, this new feeling inside of me wasn’t going away.

Why? Because the possibility that Jace fancied another woman didn’t sit right with me. Still, I couldn’t demand anything from him, he wasn’t my boyfriend but there was something there.

From me. From him. God, I don’t know!

Channeling as much courage as I could garner, I put on a brave face, slowly walking my way up to the barn.

The minute I stepped into the doorway of the barn, the smell of old hay, fur and manure hit my nostrils and I grinned despite the heavy stone weighing my heart down.

I never thought I would ever leave New York much less be here—with nothing but a bodyguard who might have or might have not liked me as I did him.

I had taken only a few steps into the barn full of stables lined on both sides of the hallway when something crept from the shadows nearly making me scream.

It tilted its head at me, my hand flew to my chest calming myself down.

“I didn’t see you there boy”, I exhaled, moving towards it. It jumped slightly breying at me and puffing steam in my direction.

Scared, my first time approaching a horse since I was kid, my hand rested on its muzzle to calm it down.

“Hi boy”

Soft, white as snow with brown enlarged eyes, it breyed a second time, I raised a brow.

“You’re not a boy, are you? You are too pretty to be one”

It breyed again, I ran a hand against the bridge of her face. Her silky coat felt so good against my palm and just because I could, I moved forward another inch hugging her.

She licked my face, I laughed.

“I think I like you too”

“Yeah I don’t doubt that”

A voice shot a couple of stables away and my moment with the horse that had grown on me shattered just like that.

The horse retreated to the edge of its sleeping quarters and I gazed down at the eerie hallway being dimly lit by two bulbs.

I almost forgot the whole reason I came here.

I strode further down knowing for a fact that at the end of my walk, I would find Jace and Jason catching up.

“You like this Italian girl”

“This Lucia Amato and by the look on your face, it’s more than a baseless crush. If it’s serious and you fancy this broad, you should start by spilling the truth before it’s too late”

What truth?

My heart hammered against my chest. I was standing right in front of them but they hadn’t seen me yet. Did I want them to see me?

No.

Because Jace’s face concocted into something else. Like whatever his father was saying was true and I braced myself for the truth eavesdropping without a care in the world.

“Flames talked me through what went on. You weren’t there for her or to be her bodyguard, you were there to take down her father and when shit went sideways the plan was to let her be, leave her with Markovich and scram from there but you didn’t and she deserves to know you cared that much for her you abandoned direct orders from your commander”

If I thought I was hurt before then nothing could have prepared me for whatever the man in the stripped red and black flannel shirt said.

To take down my father?

Jace was at my house to take down my father?

And suddenly everything I had done with this man haunted my mind. Had he been close, had he showed that he cared about me because his job dictated so?

Had he hang out with me…the carnival, every conversation we had because he needed information from my side?

“Misha she—“, MY VOICE CROAKED, tears sprung my eyes as both men whipped their heads to face me, “she says dinner’s ready”

Once Jace’s eyes met mine, needles pricked my throat and I couldn’t stand there and pretend I hadn’t heard everything his father said.

It stung and right there at that second, I folded. I turned to my heel and started running.

I hadn’t ran for long but my heart felt like it had scraped every place on earth and when his callous hand captured my tiny wrist, I couldn’t stop crying miserably.

“Just wait princess”

The name princess didn’t feel so nice anymore.

It felt like a word that had been tossed around to get me groveling for him and maybe I groveled by giving him my attention, for feeling like this.

I spun around, I tried to pull my wrist away from him but damn him and his muscles.

“Don’t call me that. Don’t ever call me that. I heard what was said in there—”

“I know”, he gritted.

I smiled bitterly amidst the tears streaking down my face.

“No, you don’t know because for a minute you were the only one, I trusted. The only one who didn’t use the name ‘princess’ on me to get something in return—”

“I didn’t want anything in- “

“You were hired to take down my father! You used me as a way of getting to my father and up until minutes ago, I trusted you with my life when I didn’t know if—I don’t know if you are actually the one who killed my father in the first place”

His hand loosened on my wrist giving me the leeway to yank it from him. Whatever neutrality he had achieved on his face gave way as he jaw ticked and his brows fell with disbelief.

“Your father wasn’t exactly a saint Lucia. I didn’t kill him, Markovich’s goons did by poisoning his wine and I stood afar off watching his body writhe on his damn floors knowing you would be the next person dead.

And in that moment, I didn’t think, I reacted, I shot my way through tons of men to get to you because you were the only good in that damn mansion. I didn’t give a shit if your father died or lived, all I knew was once the job was done, I was getting you out of there”

“Why? Why would you save someone who wasn’t part of the plan in the first place?”

Because I heard Jason loud and clear.

The plan was all about my father not me. he should have let me be, he should have left me with Markovich, he should have followed his superior’s orders.

“Why? The answer is as easy as the sky. It isn’t day without the fucking sun. it isn’t night without the stars. I’m not ‘good guy’ Jace without you”

The tears were still streaking my puffy cheeks, I paced across the grass pulling the edges of my sweater even hard.

“What’s that supposed to mean. Good guy Jace?”

His lips curled into a smile; I rolled my eyes. I was not falling for that manly smile that had panties soaking with desire.

“I could be anywhere by now. I could be on another mission, exercising my frustration by killing any dipshits in need of extermination but I’m here with horses and under the moon with you. I don’t itch to kill; I don’t crave blood or guns like I used to since I met you. You make me a good guy”

How could I not melt to that?

“It still hurts, Jace. I know you are not Micheal but I still feel betrayed”

“It was never personal princess; you have to get that”

I shot him a distrustful look.

“In the house, I saw you and your sister. She’s still the same woman we met in the mall, the one you—”

“The one you saw me kissing. She’s my sister and it’s complicated, it has always been complicated between me and Cassie but there’s nothing between us. What you saw was us getting closure”

I looked behind him to the barn then back to him.

“Do Misha and Jason know?”

“I think they did a long time ago but there’s nothing to know about me and Cassie”

“Okay. Is there anything else you want to tell me? I hate lies, Jace after everything I’ve been through, I can’t take any more surprises”

His eyes bore into mine intensely than before, my knees might have buckled and became goo.

He slithered his way in front of me taking a lock of my hair between his fingers, all eyes on me,

“I call you princess because you rendered me fucking speechless the minute I saw you in that bathroom. Dark hair, dark eyes, that flimsy black dress you had painted on your body, you looked like the kind of princess I wanted in my fairytale books when I was a kid. None of that cliché shit about princesses being blonde or wearing pink.

In my dictionary, princesses look like you Lucia Amato. Dark and all consuming”

Then before I could answer him with something incoherent, Jason’s voice rocked the air,

“IF THAT FOOD GETS COLD WITHOUT US EATING IT, MY WIFE WILL KILL US ALL”

JACE ‘JR’ ASHER/ TRIGGER

SHE LEFT MY ASS HIGH AND DRY FOR TWO WEEKS.

She was still mad, maybe or maybe she didn’t feel the fucking same and that shit ate me up.

But you know what ate me up than Lucia’s silent treatment? The fucker that had clung to her ass in the past few weeks.

“Why did you hire him again?” I asked, Misha handed me another piece of wood and I had to lean in from the ladder to take it.

“Your father’s back ain’t what it used to, if it were up to him, he’d rather die taking care of this farm than do what Dr. Rob tells him to so I hired another set of hands and Jimmy’s quite handy”, she grinned.

I knew what she was doing and in all honesty it pissed me the hell off.

This Jimmy man never did his job because every fucking second, he was with Lucia, laughing, giggling with her about shit that probably wasn’t even that funny to begin with.

“I’m here, I can take care of things”, I grunted.

By now, Jimmy was already guiding Lulu around the open field with Lucia riding the horse.

She looked breathtakingly beautiful in mom jeans, a cowboy hat and a tank top. Every time Lulu moved, Lucia moved too and her boobs jiggled and Jimmy got a front row seat to that and I wanted to impale Jimmy with the hammer I was holding.

“But for how long? You never stay”

Hammering the last of the board needed to fix the roof, I wiped the sweat off my forehead stomping down the ladder as Misha held onto it for me.

And when I was down, she already had a pitcher of lemonade for me like she always did when I was in my youthful years.

“I never stay because Cassie never wants me to”

She frowned, her eyes losing their sheen.

“Cassie’s always been tough to deal with even when she was young you didn’t see me abandoning her, did you? Perhaps she might have hated you but she still needed you here as her brother. We all wanted you here you know that”

I chugged down half of the lemonade wiping my mouth with the back of my palm.

“I know and it was just hard to accept the fact that you guys loved me genuinely. I love you, Misha and me being away from here didn’t change that”

“You were always a sweet talker. Your father taught you well”

I wrapped a sweaty hand against her shoulders pulling her to me.

She was right though; she wouldn’t be here with me if Jason wasn’t a sweet talker. A sweet talker who charmed her to this day.

“I learnt it from the best…”

Lulu neighed hard; Jimmy shouted some inaudible shit. Misha and I had already turned to the direction of where they were with our hearts in our fucking mouths.

When I saw Lucia down, I didn’t think for a goddamn second, I was running to her.

“I’m sorry! I’m so sorry”

Jimmy was shouting.

My heart beat as I scooted to the ground scooping Lucia to my chest.

“Come on, princess! Come on, stay with me!”

I taped her cheeks, her eyes remained close.

I checked her head for any blood and bumps. She had fallen off a fucking horse because of the dip shit who couldn’t stop rumbling.

“I didn’t see—shit—I’m so sorry Luce”

I tapped her cheek again slightly, my face closing in on her to see if she was breathing.

Our noses had barely touched each other when her eyes shot open. Panic crossing her face, breathing like she had just been pulled out of the water, her eyes fell on me.

“Jace? W-what happened?”

And as soon as she said that, I let go of her carefully turning to the dipshit that was calling her nicknames.

“Whoa buddy, it was an acci-“

My fist collided with his nose and he staggered to the ground in front of Lulu.

“Jace!” Misha scolded behind me.

I was already losing my patience with the wannabe cowboy that had been careless enough to let my goddamn woman fall from a fucking horse.

Jimmy held his bleeding nose, his puny muscles struggling underneath the flannel shirt he had on.

I straddled him, I raised my fist about to land another punch when Lucia exhaled,

“Stop it, Jace! Stop, oh God Jimmy. It was an accident! It wasn’t his fault”

I removed my hold from the bloodied man standing up, Lucia passed me leaning down to the crybaby.

“I’m so sorry Jim. I’m so sorry’

Jim, jimmy whatever the fuck he went by spit blood on the grass flashing a smile at Lucia.

“I would react the same way he did—fuck I think I broke a tooth”

Lucia laughed.

“Let’s get some ice on that”

She helped Jimmy up, they both locked eyes for a minute, I moved forward ready to yank all his teeth out of his mouth before Misha held my arm.

“You are not killing anyone on my ranch Jace. Stand down!”

“How about one of my potpies to go with that ice Jimmy and hopefully we can put everything behind us?” Misha offered.

“A knock to my teeth and your famous pot pies? Can this day get any better” , he grinned sarcastically I didn’t find anything funny even as Misha walked away with him back to the house.

Lucia’s hair filled with a few dry grasses, her eyes flaring, she crossed her arms on her chest pushing her boobs higher than she intended.

“You owe him an apology”

“He let you get hurt if anything that punk should be fired”

She sighed, she rolled her eyes at me, I wanted to haul her to my chest and bend her over my lap and spank her so bad she would feel it all the way to her toes.

“That punk has been doing a great job in teaching him how to ride Lulu. If you are so pissed about me falling, why didn’t you go for Lulu? She’s the one I fell from not Jimmy”

“You don’t get it do you? You’ve been avoiding me since we came here, you won’t look at me, you won’t fucking talk to me but you’ve been giggling away with Jamie, Jimmy whatever shitty name he has for two whole weeks. Whether the asshole hurt you or not, he had that punch coming. I told you princess, being away from you does things to me. I become a bad guy and I can’t help it”

She bit her bottom lip; I followed the action hungrily.

“I needed space to think about things, about us. And I think I still need more space. Jimmy he umm—he invited me to this place in town and Misha has been imploring me to get out a lot more and I said yes to him. Well that was before you punched him”

“What?”

I seethed and I wasn’t motherfucking hiding it.

“it’s a small party and Jason offered to drive me there so there’s no need for you to overreact. I need Good Guy Jace to be good while I’m gone. I want to go out and have fun”

She could have fun. I was fun!

Good guy Jace would be left in the fucking house because the real me was going to follow her to town and keep eyes on her like she was MINE.