Chapter 3: Tirone: Chapter 3

Her eyes darted around, right and left, like they did that night I showed up unannounced at her door. Except back then she wasn’t hiding them behind another man’s shades. I yanked them off. The idea of another man’s anything on her was unbearable.

Pale blue eyes glared back at me, matching my anger. “Stay the hell away from me.”

“Do you know how many nights it took you before you trusted me enough to show me those eyes? Do you know how many strokes I gave your stupid wig, thinking I was soothing you to sleep? And you give it all to him, just like that.”

“Your father earned my trust with the things he’s done for me,” she fumed. “I can’t believe you knew whom he was and never told me.”

“I was going to.”

“When the fuck were you going to tell me, Tirone? After you banished me to Psycho Obsessivia with you?”

Psycho Obsessivia. That’s a good one. “You’re calling me a psycho? You drugged me and left me on the fucking street to die.”

“You forced me to break up with my boyfriend, neglecting to tell me he was your dad, and coerced me into moving in with you God only knew where after you raped me with a gun.”

“Raped you? You soaked the fuck out of that gun. Since you liked it so much the first time, maybe I should do it again. My cock will follow for sure this time.”

“Do that and I’ll kill you myself, you sick son of a bitch.”

I scoffed. “Your threats have always been empty, Miss Meneceo.”

“Well, try me now and see how empty they can be.” She kept the menacing eye contact until she seemed satisfied. Then she backed away against the concrete, folding her arms over her chest.

“Why did you not fight me harder that night?”

Rolling her eyes, she just shook her head.

“Answer me.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about and have no intention to carry any kind of conversation with you. Just shut up.”

“The fuck I will, and you know exactly what night I’m talking about. The first night I came to your place when you thought I was gonna rape you. I’ve always wondered why you didn’t scratch my eye or yell or anything. Same thing happened two days ago. Why did you not fight me hard enough? We both know you’re capable of so much more than a knee to the balls and a few kicks and squirms. Better yet, why did you not take your gun from the drawer and use it…either time?”

She cast a long gaze at me, words written in fire in it, secrets she refused to spill. Yet.

“You’re a glutton for punishment,” I speculated, knowing that much was true. Her body loved it when I hurt it.

Her lips twisted in disapproval or mockery. I didn’t know for sure, but it only meant—even if I was right—I wasn’t even close. I walked toward her, demanding an answer.

“Stay the fuck away from me. I mean it.”

I kept going. “Never.”

“Then I’ll stay away from you.” She tried to walk away, but I linked arms with her and brought her back to the wall.

My palms rested on the concrete on either side of her, and so did my knees, caging her in my space completely so that she couldn’t slip away. “What makes you think I’ll let you?”

“I’ll never let myself slip into that shit of yours again. Don’t touch me.” A hiss faltered on her lips. The way her tits heaved against my chest and the rub of her hips on my thighs were too much to bear. I needed to touch her like an addict needed their next fix.

This was the truth. My truth. Jocasta was an addiction. The worst kind. One with no cure or replacement. I had to have her or my sanity wouldn’t be the only thing destroyed.

“I will touch you any way I like whenever the fuck I like. You’re mine, Jo. Do you hear me? You’ve always been mine, and you’ll stay that way or—”

“Or what, Ty? You’ll kill Laius? Your own father?”

“For you, I will. I’ll kill anyone to have you.” I meant every word.

She mocked me with a snort. “Do you know what’s going to happen if I tell Laius the truth? He’ll kill you. Right before you came in, he was literally forcing me to tell him your name so he’d take care of the punk who did this to me.”

I snorted back. “Have you seen the way his face lit up when he saw me? Furore will never kill his only son. He just got me back after fifteen fucking years.” Slowly, I lifted my knee, placed it between her thighs and glided it all the way up until it hit home. Teasing her with my knee while grinding my hips against her, I watched her squirm.

“Stop,” she rasped.

I used my knee voraciously, feeling her wetness through the denim. That was how fucking wet I could still make her. “And when I tell him my version of the story about the teacher that has taken advantage of me, about how I couldn’t help it because of my daddy issues he caused with his abandonment and violence, about how she ruined me for life just like he did…the way I’ve been raped and violated over and over by her without even knowing that’s what she’s been doing to me… Oh my God…” I feigned a whimper, and then I smirked. “Guess which head his gun will be pointing at.”

Something flashed in her eyes, but it wasn’t fear or rage as I expected. It was…relief. It took me by surprise so much that I froze. “Here he is. The same Tirone that threatened to tell the school lies just to get the English teacher to spread her legs for him, only so he’d dump her like trash after he had his fun with her. The same Tirone that couldn’t bear the idea of her being happy with someone else, let alone with his father whom he loathed, that he had to come back into their lives just to ruin them and get a kick out of it.” She tilted her chin up “I’m so glad you reminded me of your true colors, ones I continuously and foolishly have ignored since that day at the library, so I won’t feel an ounce of guilt toward you anymore.”

I held her face between my hands. “You know none of this is true. I fucking love you, and I only went away to protect you. I know I didn’t tell you the whole truth, but that man Furore is talking to right now has my stepdad in his pocket. I only found that out the next day Furore smashed my stepdad’s bones.”

She jerked her head to shake off my touch. “You and I had burner phones. Why the fuck did you not tell me?”

“The Mafia had bugged our house. What if they’d bugged my car or my other phone and still listened? What if they fucking followed me or found out about us one way or another? What if they forced me to get them information about you? I was paranoid and scared out of my mind for you, Jocasta.”

Her lashes fluttered at me. Could she see the truth now? Did she believe me? She had to believe me because every fiber of me was honest and protective of her. “And I should just believe you, after all the lies you’ve told me, all the stories you’ve always been so good at weaving?”

“You have to believe me,” I groaned.

“The only truth I believe and can’t ignore is that you’re a sick, toxic motherfucker. I genuinely don’t give a shit about what you say or do anymore. You know what else I don’t care about, Tirone? My own life. Yes, I don’t care if I live or die, not anymore. If I can’t be happy with Laius, then what’s the point? You want to tell your father your own twisted version of the lie we had? Be my guest. I won’t even bother correcting you or defending myself. Let him kill me.”

The lie we had? Her words were daggers slicing me open. She’d choose death over me? Because of him? “No.” I shook my head until it hurt. “You don’t love him, Jo. Stop lying to yourself.” I rested my forehead on hers and brushed her temple with my fingers. “You love me.”

She slapped my hand off her face. “You’re the only one who’s lying here, Tirone.”

I grabbed her arms, shaking her. “He’s not the man you think he is.”

“Stop it! You’re hurting me.”

A roar of fury erupted from my throat as I left her arms and banged the concrete with my fists until they bled.

“Ty!” she screamed, her shoulders hunched, fear rippling in her voice.

I tore myself away from her because hurting her was the last thing I ever wanted to do, and right now I couldn’t trust myself. “How can you be so fucking blind? For all I know, he could be barging in here any second, delivering your soul to the Mafia devil outside himself.”

She stared at me with glistening eyes for a few moments. Hope flickered in me. She was mulling it over. Maybe she was finally seeing the truth. Maybe she would finally come back to me before I crossed the line of no return. But then her nostrils flared as she shook her head. “Well, any second now isn’t that long. I guess we’ll just wait and see.”