Happy New Year.
I hope you all get your wattpad moments this year. <3
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Marcello's POV:
"Do you want a drink?" I ask Sierra who sits on the couch opposite me as I enter the room.
"No I'm detoxing, not by choice. Tallia's forcing me to." She shrugs and I chuckle under my breath at the thought of that.
"Speaking of Tallia, where is she? I haven't heard from her recently."
My mouth opens but I shut it again because what am I supposed to say other than curse her out for loosing my cat.
"She's had it rough recently. I'm not justifying her actions for loosing Cat BUT she did almost die so-." Sierra cuts me off.
"What do you mean almost die?" She panics.
Fuck. I wasn't supposed to say that.
"Here. Take a drink." I nervously chuckle handing over my glass of tequila. It's all I seem to drink nowadays.
"You have a nice place." She eyes the apartment. Yes I know that, she didn't need to tell me.
"Yeah I brought it recently, I couldn't really be in that house right now." I explain, too much words leaving my mouth.
"You flew me out quickly, I assumed it was something big, I mean we hadn't really talked since you guys left. I assumed we all just moved on."She shrugs.
"It's hard to talk or...just say words nowadays but I'm sorry." I offer a sincere smile.
I was sorry, of course I was but recently I've had bigger things on my mind.
"Alright," she puts the glass on the table in front of her, "Tell me everything or at least something. I'm not here for no reason Mar."
I sigh, searching for the words beyond the current in my brain that will make sense of a situation that I still don't understand.
I wasn't exactly sure why I had asked Sierra to come, I guess I just needed someone who had no relation to Damien. I needed someone for myself, I guess I needed her.
...
"Brothers? Wow, that's intense." She leans back slightly, "I mean, I sort of see a resemblance now." Her finger moves in the air as she analyses my face.
Yes me too. I can't look in the mirror without seeing Damien written all over my fucking face.
"Why is it so bad Mar? Does it hurt you that much?" She questions.
"You won't understand. No one seems to understand why it hurts except for Damien which is really fucking ironic." I groan, palming my forehead.
"You know this will be my first New Years without Damien by my side." I mutter.
"I'm not really a fan of gatherings or holidays but New Years was a reminder that I had people who let the world spin and slowed it down when I'd span out of my own axis."
"I get it." She nods sympathetically.
"Stop trying to be relatable." I roll my eyes.
"Fuck you." She flicks me off and I smile. I missed Sierra or at least having someone who was a little like me, obviously not as great but it's hard to find a person better than me.
"So why aren't you home for the holidays?" I raise my eyebrow at her and she just laughs, confusing me.
"Christmas and New Years with my judgemental, rich, snobby family is not my idea of happy holidays." She enlightens me, "I rarely do see them and it's my own choice that I made happily."
Touché.
I very rarely sit in silence, I've always been a person to avoid the absence of noise mainly because I don't like thinking. When things are quiet, thoughts are the loudest and I guess that's why I always talk. It's a good trait to have, one that I am happy to have adopted.
But the silence was nice with her, I liked how we didn't always need words, it was never like that with anyone else. Her silence was like a wave instead of a tornado that the quiet always brought me.
I felt comfort for the first time in a long time.
"Alright enough about fucked up families. I want to see Italy, you need to show me around." She smiles standing up and I just raise my eyebrow at her.
"It's really nothing special, you want to play tourist?"
"Yes Marcello. Yes I do. Come on." She grabs my hand pulling me up and I can't help but smile because I was actually, sort of interested in this girl and the thoughts she had in her head. And I'd play fucking tourist if it allowed me to understand her a little better.
Tallia's POV:
Damien enters the room looking pissed as ever and I know exactly why. I mean, the man cheated, so what if his wife shot him?
"Is he ok?" I smile innocently.
"No Tallia he's not ok. He's dead." He looks at me irritated.
"That's terrible, how's his wife? Any PTSD? Why don't we get her a therapist?" I offer.
"A ther- a fucking therap-. Tallia I swear to fuck I will kill you." He palms his head.
"No you won't amore." I roll my eyes. "You like me too much."
He lets out an aggressive breath of air and I chuckle a little, I like the subtle power that I sometimes have over him. It makes me feel liberated.
"I have something to ask you though." I mention. I'm curious about the files and I know that the old me would have jumped off of a fucking skyscraper into an empty pit of conclusions but I'm trying trust that he's doing something out of good intentions so I'd just ask.
"Go ahead Tallia." He's still annoyed about the wife thing. Get over it Dandelion, people die.
I open the drawer and dump all the files and papers onto his desk. "What the fuck is this shit?"
His eyes widen slightly, "uh... pleasure reading?" He smiles.
"Yeah because you like reading about my brother for fun." I lift Malachai's folder from the rest of ours.
"Yeah, he's an interesting guy." He shrugs.
"He literally just smokes weed, listens to music and has complicated relations with a girl called Lucia. Nothing else." I challenge him.
"So what Tallia? I have files, I'm a capo, being informed is what i'm supposed to do." He sighs.
"See I would have believed that if one, you didn't look so suspicious and two there weren't papers and notes that look like a fucking murder investigation?" I fold my arms and the room was silent despite it only being the two of us.
"Murder investigation." I repeat to myself.
"You know who helped Slavi kill my father, Don't you Damien?" I look up.
His silence was enough, I didn't need words to read him. "Can we just like go back to the...wife thing?" He tries to change the subject.
"How long have you known?" I ask.
"T, I don't know anything." He shrugs grabbing the files and dumping them back in the draw.
"Damien don't do that." I shake my head, "We've been through a lot but you have never lied to me when I've asked you to be honest so don't lie to me now."
He sighs looking at me as I watch his lip curl into his mouth knowing that he knows more than he wants to let me know but he also knows that if he lies then every bit of trust we've built goes with me.
"Not long. A while. But not a long while." He speaks in pauses trying to stop honest words from leaving his tamed mouth.
"So why did you let me wander a-bliss for so long? Why did you keep it from me?" I plead.
"Because T for the first time in your life nothing was holding you back. All your father did was keep you on chains and now that he was gone so did this stupid fixation to find his killer and redeem your daughter hood. But eventually you stopped caring about finding his killer and cared about finding what you loved and fuck you love a lot of things." He enlightens me.
"So you took it upon yourself to make a decision for me? Nice Damien. I appreciate that." I roll my eyes.
I get where he is coming from but I thought he was the one person who let me make my own mistakes and that was part of why I loved him.
"T. I was going to tell you but your mother begged me not to." He explains.
My mother- my MOTHER?
"My mom knows? Oh for fuck sake." I toss my head back in annoyance.
"So who is it? Who helped Slavi kill my dear old dad?" I definitely felt intoxicated despite not having drunk a thing.
"Tallia come on," he sighs frustrated which confused me because I should be the frustrated one.
"Damien I'm so serious right now, I don't give any fuck what my mother asked you to do,tell me who killed my father." I was so angry, Damien was mine. He was someone who valued the honesty we had and he was the only person to ever give me my own free Will and my mother took that away. She made it so he had no choice but to lie to me. He had lied to me for fuck sake.
"If I tell you, it's going to fucking hurt Tallia and I don't want to hurt you." He explains.
"People get hurt it's part of life. Tell me." I'd had enough of being calm, of heeding questions that needed to be asked.
He sighs but he often does that anyway. I look at him, betrayal beneath my eyes because he'd watch me for days knowing a truth that could leave me at peace. He touched my body with lust and love whilst hiding a truth that I was searching so hard for.
"Damien I need it to stop, I need the truth so please just give me the fucking truth and let me breathe again because I'm so tired of suffocating." I beg.
He wants to hold me, to touch and comfort me but he knows I won't allow that, not until I have something that proves he's still Damien- the one that taught me to embrace my darkness and yield my temptation.
"It was Malachai." He mutters.
Malachai? I look up at him but for the first time in his life his head is down, like he didn't want to see the pain beneath my eyes because he knew that this certain truth would kill me.
"What do you mean Malachai? Stop messing with me Damien, that's stupid." I shake my head because it sounded stupid, didn't it?
"I don't mess with you Tallia. It was Malachai and the truth doesn't feel much better, does it?"
I look away, towards the wall or the book shelves, I look anywhere besides the man I love.
"How do you know?" I question hoping he can't give me an answer because at least then, I'd have hope.
"He told me, after I raised my suspicions." Damien's voice is low because he didn't really want to speak anyway. I didn't want to hear his 'suspicions' because I didn't want to fathom the fact that I couldn't see something in my own brother. Damien takes a step towards me but I take two steps back, his face looks hurt at my reaction.
I don't wait to see another expression, turning towards the door I storm upstairs subtly, I didn't want a scene I just wanted answers.
Bursting through my brothers door I see him typing something up on his laptop and he looks at me in confusion.
"Someone forgot how to knock, huh?"
Then he sees my face and realised how for once, there is no gleam of humour behind my eyes. "T? What's wrong?" He sounds concerned.
"You helped Slavi kill dad." It wasn't a question but I needed clarification.
His face goes blank and grey having not expected that question at all. He searches for an answer like anything he says will be appropriate.
"How did you sit there and pretend to 'help' me for all those weeks when this whole time it was you. You betraying our fucking family." I push him but it doesn't do anything. He remains still and tense, as if he's empty and filled with stone. "Answer me then or do you have nothing to say now? Malachai Kadir Sylveste, fucking quiet for the first time in his life." I chuckle pushing him again.
"You sat there at his funeral and cried then you sat at his goodbye party and gave a speech. Are you fucking crazy? How the fuck do you just pretend like that!" I want to hit him so badly, to bash my fists into him and hurt him like he's never hurt me but I can't.
I can't hit him or scream at him because non of it will express how confused I feel right now.
He opens his mouth to speak but I stop him, "I don't want to hear anything, I don't need you to lie to me anymore. You're supposed to be my brother Malachai?" A single tear streams my face but I suck it up.
"Tallia." He mutters as I turn away and this was the first time I'd ever turn my back on my brother. I walk out of his room and past the doorway where Damien was lingering. He doesn't try to stop me and I keep walking. Down two flights of stairs, past Cebrian and out the door. The air felt good knowing it was cold against the anger boiling in me.
I jumped in a car and backed out of the driveway and out the gate, not conscious of any actions but completely aware of what I was doing. And I was about halfway down the highway when it hit me.
"Fuck, I don't know how to drive."
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