All He’ll Ever Be (Merciless World Series Book 1)

I have three hours and a single bottle of wine. I should’ve grabbed a second bottle, knowing Carter will be waiting for me in his bedroom when this rendezvous is over.

There’s a tension in my chest, a faint flicker of life in my heart with the nerves of what’s waiting for me.

The idea of running back to the hideaway room flutters into my mind every so often. Carter held up his word that he wouldn’t come for me the first time I fled there, but what are the odds he’ll do that again? If I try to avoid the punishment and him, I have a feeling everything will only get worse. There’s a single distraction I’m grateful for though. Someone to talk to and someone who doesn’t know what I’m going through. I’m indebted to Addison, even if she has no idea. In fact, I’m grateful she has no idea.

Popping the cork out of the bottle, I stop pretending as if hiding will do anything at all. I may fear Carter at times, along with the thoughts of punishment, but there’s a darker piece of my soul that craves it.

I can’t deny the idea of being throat fucked or tied up by the most powerful man I’ve ever met has every nerve ending in my body lit like a fuse waiting to go off.

Even as I pour the wine, listening to the sound of it, I think of every way Carter’s punished me before. How hot and eager he made me for more as he played my body against my emotions. Even still, I’m numb with grief.

It makes no sense. Save the fact that my heart is truly torn and in disarray.

The dark liquid swirls as I set the bottle down and lift my glass to my lips, breathing in the dark blend to fill my lungs. Maybe I’ve truly lost it all. Maybe I’m crazy at this point.

I need something to give. Everything is about to fall apart in front of my eyes and just out of reach. But how do I change any of it? What I truly need is mercy from a heartless man dead set on revenge.

“There you are,” I hear Addison before I see her and my heart attempts to leap up my throat, beating chaotically as if caught in an unspeakable act.

“Hey,” I breathe out and my voice wavers. The wine in my glass swishes from being jostled and to steady it, I hold the stem with both hands.

“This kind of feels like a blind date, doesn’t it?” Addison jokes with a genuine smile. Her mood is greatly improved from yesterday. She almost seems like a different person from what I’ve seen before.

Carefree and excited. There’s a sweetness about her and the air around her as she walks into the room. Without hesitation, she picks up a glass and fills it.

“It kind of does,” I agree with a dry laugh and a half-smile and the awkwardness wanes. My hands are clammy as she lifts up her glass for a cheers and I do the same.

“To new friends.” She tilts her head with the same smile on her lips, but it’s softer as the glass clinks.

Sighing, she settles into the sofa, making herself comfortable. “I’ve only been in this room the one time,” Addison starts talking although she’s not looking at me at all. She tucks her legs up under her as she sets the glass down on the end table and stares at a black and white photograph framed just to the right of the mantel. “Carter wanted to show me he’d hung my pictures,” she says softly and then glances at me. “I think he just wanted to make me smile and feel welcomed, you know?”

My brow raises in surprise. “These are yours?” I ask her, finding the conversation a wonderful distraction for the well of emotion that constantly pulls me into the tide of depression I’ve been feeling. The idea of Carter doing anything for her just to make her happy has questions drifting in the forefront of my mind, but I swat them away. No thoughts of Carter or anything else. I’ve proven to myself I’m incapable of processing it all.

Every few minutes, my mood has changed today. Whether I think of Nikolai and his impending execution, my father and what he did to Carter and the Cross brothers, the fact that he hasn’t come for me, or Carter himself and the cruel things he says and the murders he has planned.

Yet the prospect of falling into his arms for him to soothe all the painful twists and turns this week has given me, somehow clouds my judgment and that’s where I want to stay. Accepting a comfort and turning my back on reality.

Maybe that’s why I’m growing to hate myself. Yes, I truly think I’m going insane. And I’d blame Carter if only I could remember what he’s done and what he plans to do when he kisses me and takes all the pain away.

“All of them but those two,” she says and points out two abstract watercolor paintings behind us that straddle the entrance to the den. Tugging my skirt down, I clear my throat and smile. The kind of smile I’ve given others before when I know that’s what they expect to see.

Sometimes that smile turns into a genuine one, and that’s what I hope this turns into. I pray that’s what it will be.

“You’re very talented.” I have to admire her work yet again. It’s not the first time I’ve noticed them. “They’re stunning.”

Her fair features blush and her shoulders dip a little as she waves me away and jokingly says, “Aw shucks,” causing me to let out a gentle laugh. “That’s kind of you.”

“I love art,” I tell her and for some reason the generic statement makes me scrunch up my nose. “I love the ones that make you feel.” My hands gesture in the air toward my chest to make my point. “Like with yours.” My words fail me, and I have to close my eyes, shaking my head for a moment, so I can put the right words in order to get out exactly what I mean. “It seems so simple, even with the black and white taking away even more of what we’d see normally. But in the simplicity, there’s so much more there that speaks to a raw side of your soul like you can feel what the photographer feels, or any artist by focusing on an object that would have such little meaning if you saw it in passing. In the art, it begs to tell you a story and you can already feel what the story is about.”

“I knew you were a girl of my own heart,” Addison says and offers me a kind smile. “I have to admit,” she leans forward, hushing her voice, “I’ve seen your drawings and I could say the same right back to you.”

“Thank you,” I tell her, feeling the happiness of a shared interest, but also realizing the ice has been broken and the questions she has for me are probably similar to the ones I have for her. The questions beg to slip through and bring me back to the train of thought I was on moments ago.

It’s too easy to just be friendly, to sit on the surface of the world we live in and pretend that everything is just fine.

“So where are you from?” Addison asks me, taking another sip, her lips already staining from the wine, and then she reaches for the throw blanket. I finally take a seat on the armchair I’ve been leaning against. The leather groans as I sink down in it and sit cross-legged to be comfortable.

“Close to here,” I tell her and ignore how my heart beats harder, my fingers tracing along my ankle to keep them busy while I carefully avoid details. I can’t look her in the eyes as I wonder if she knows where I come from and who my family is. My throat dries but before it can cause my words to crack, I quickly ask her, “What about you?”

Glancing at her, I can feel the anxiety course harder in my veins, but her expression stays casual and easy. I get the impression that Addison is more laidback than I am. Harder to shake. Stronger in a lot of ways. And for some reason, that thought weighs against my chest heavily as she answers.

“I grew up around here, but left and traveled for the past, like five years, almost six years now?” Her voice is light as she continues. “I’ve lived all over.”

“That’s amazing,” I say with wonder. I’ve never left home. I’ve never ventured outside of the parameters I was given.

“Did you live on your own?”

Addison nods with a sly grin and then clucks her tongue. “I was kind of running away at first,” she says, and her voice is lower as she shrugs and then takes a heavy gulp of wine. She licks her lower lip and stares at the glass as she says, “It was too hard to stay.” She peeks up at me and her piercing green eyes stay with mine as she says, “It was far too easy to just keep going, you know? Rather than staying still and having to deal with it all.”

The jealousy I felt only moments ago instantly turns to compassion. Her tone is too raw, too open, and honest not to feel the pain of her confession.

“Yeah, I get that,” I tell her and settle deeper into the seat. “I really do.”

Time passes quietly as I slowly pick through the questions, one that won’t open up a raw wound unless she cares to go there herself. “What brought you back?” I ask.

“Daniel.” She rolls her eyes as she says his name, but she can’t hide how her smile grows, how her cheeks flush and she pulls her legs into herself as if his name’s only home is on her lips. “We bumped into each other a few towns over and he brought me back.”

My smile matches hers as she continues her story. “We grew up together—kind of. I kind of grew up with him and his brothers I guess. It’s a complicated story,” she says then waves me off, wine glass in her hand, although she takes a long minute before sipping it again, staring past me at the mantel.

“This one is delicious,” she says before finishing it off.

“I love the dark reds.” My statement is spoken as absently as she spoke hers.

“They’re the best,” she says wide-eyed and then reaches for the bottle for another glass.

“You two getting along all right?” Daniel’s voice carries through the den before he’s even taken a step into the room.

My skin pricks with unease, being brought back to reality when I’d been slipping into a hiding place of Addison’s story. I keep my smile plastered on my face as he glances between the two of us.

I wonder if he thinks I’d tell her why I’m here and what happened. That I’d warn her away from Daniel and expose that he knew. That I’d beg her to help me and frighten her.

My heart feels like it collapses in on itself as the two of them go back and forth in lighthearted banter although a touch of tension is obvious.

“Always hovering,” Addison says although there’s a quiet reverence there that Daniel doesn’t seem to grasp. He sighs and runs his hand down the back of his head before saying, “I just came to see if you two needed anything.”

Addison playfully slaps his arm as he stops behind the sofa where she’s sitting. “Liar. You came to eavesdrop.”

“You got me,” he says and lets her shoo him away with a simple, “Get out,” but not without a kiss.

Addison lifts from her seat, making the blanket around her waist fall as her ass lifts up. “Love you,” she whispers and then gives him a peck. Then another and another. Three in quick succession.

With the tip of his nose brushing against hers he says with his eyes closed, “Love you too.”

And there isn’t an ounce of me that doesn’t believe them both. My smile falls and there’s no way I could fake one in this moment. Love exists in their exchange; it breathes in the air between them.

It’s undeniable and nothing like what binds me to Carter. It’s not lust, it’s a meeting of souls, the two of them needing one another and recognizing that truth.

“You need anything?” Daniel asks again as my gaze drifts to the side table. The edge of the carved wood grants me a small escape from their display.

“Aria,” Daniel’s voice is raised as he addresses me directly. “You need anything?” he asks me, and his eyes carry his real question, Are you okay?

“I’m fine,” I tell him as evenly as I can and then clear my throat before reaching for my glass again.

It takes a long moment after he’s left for the tense air to change.

“So, you and Carter?” Addison asks me, cocking a brow to be comical. She sips the wine but keeps her eyes on me and the expression on her face makes me laugh.

“Yeah, me and Carter,” I tell her tightly, but with humor.

“He’s keeping you trapped here too, huh?” she asks and the easy interaction that existed before turns sharp.

“You could say that,” I reply but my voice is flat. Chewing on the inside of my cheek, I consider telling her the truth for a split second, but there’s no way I ever would. Not because I don’t trust her, but because I’m truly ashamed in this moment.

I’ve given up. I’m lying in bed with the devil. And as much as Addison appears to like me, there’s no way she’d ever respect me if she knew the truth. I don’t even respect myself.

”I’m guessing he chased you?” she asks speculatively. “The Cross boys tend to chase.”

“Again, you could say that.”

”When I first I met Carter,” Addison starts to tell me a story, realizing I’m not open to sharing my own Carter tale, while her thin finger drifts over the edge of the wine glass, running circles around the rim of it. “He was different from the other brothers.”

“How so?” I ask, watching her finger as my shame eases.

She glances at me for a moment with a pinched expression. “He wasn’t around as often, and he was always quiet when he was around, but you knew the moment he was in the house. He was the authority.”

“What do you mean?”

“Like their father wasn’t the best, you know? After their mother died, he took it really hard.” She swallows as if a painful memory threatened to choke her if she continued, but she goes on. “So, if anyone needed anything, it was Carter who was asked. Carter who made the rules. Carter who got whatever was needed.”

I watch her expression as she tells me their story.

“This one time, it was so stupid.” Her eyes get glassy but she shakes her head and brushes her hair back. “These kids stole our bikes,” she tells me, forcing strength to her voice.

“Tyler took me to the corner store and we left our bikes outside, and these assholes stole them.” She laughs the kind of laugh that you force out when you want a release from the need to cry.

“You knew Tyler?” I ask her, feeling a chill run down my skin, leaving goosebumps along their path. Nikolai told me once that when you have that feeling run through you, it means someone’s walked over your grave.

She only nods, her eyes reflecting a sad secret, and then continues. “It had to be these guys, they were older and there were like six of them. Grown ass men who had nothing better to do than steal bikes from high school kids.” She breathes in deeply before smoothing the blanket down across her lap and telling me, “We walked home and the last ten minutes it rained the whole way. We were soaked when we got back.”

“Daniel wasn’t there; Tyler went to him first because he didn’t like to bother Carter. None of the boys ever liked to bother him with petty stuff, you know?” she asks me, and I don’t know how to respond but she doesn’t give me time to regardless.

“So, Carter was there and asked what happened. He was quick to anger back then, so much different from now,” she tells me, and I look at her as if she’s crazy, but she doesn’t see. She picks at the blanket and continues. “He and Tyler left together in the truck, Carter told me to stay back and within hours, both bikes were in the back of the truck safe at home. Tyler was never one to fight. He was a lover and a kind old soul, but he said those guys wouldn’t mess with us anymore. I kind of wish I’d seen what Carter had done.” She says the last words like a spoken thought that had just come to her. All I can think is that she’s probably better off not having witnessed what Carter did to those men.

“I guess that’s not the best story,” she says and shrugs. “Sorry, I kind of suck at telling stories.”

I offer her a soft smile and say, “I liked it.”

“Anyway, that’s what Carter does. He takes what he wants and doesn’t take any prisoners or put up with any bullshit.”

Her words strike me in a way I can’t explain and the same tears that she’d wiped away haphazardly at the start of her story, threaten to fall from mine.

“Are you okay?” she asks me, although judging by the way her smile wavers, I could ask her the same.

My lips part ready to do what I’ve always done, to tell everyone that I’m fine. To pretend like nothing’s wrong.

“Only if you want to talk,” she quickly adds, practically tripping over her words. Even her hands come up in protest. “I’m not usually this weird, I’ve just been on edge lately and it’s so nice to be able to talk to someone else. Someone who’s not…,” she stops and holds her breath, searching for the right words but none come. I can see it in her eyes that she’s suffering like I am. Something’s wrong and I can only guess that it’s because she’s trapped here. Trapped like I am, but for such different reasons.

“I’m okay, and I get it… I do.” My attempt to reassure her falls flat. She offers me a weak half smile that doesn’t reach her eyes.

“I wish I could tell you something,” she whispers and then shakes her head as if she’s losing her mind. Maybe I’m not the only crazy one in this room. Wiping under her eyes she looks to the door and exhales a harsh breath. “I should go.” Maybe she had a curfew time too. Or maybe she just doesn’t want to break down in front of a stranger.

Glancing at the clock, I see nearly three hours has already passed. I feel like we’ve only just sat down.

“Yeah, I should too.” I clear my throat and try to think of something to say that’s comforting for her even though I hardly know her. A piece of her though, her heart and soul, I know well. “I’m here if you ever want a drinking buddy,” I offer.

“Or to binge-watch something good on Netflix?” she offers, and the genuine happiness lights up her expression.

“Sure,” I offer her a smile with my upturned voice and imagine the loss I can already feel doesn’t exist.

“This might sound weird,” Addison tells me as she picks up her wine glass and downs the last remaining bit before looking me in the eyes, “but you look like you could use ‘a somebody.’” She sets the glass down, the clinking of the glass breaking up the white noise that drowns me when Addison stares down at me, standing up on her way to leave. She pushes the hair off of her shoulder and tells me solemnly, “I didn’t have ‘a somebody’ for a long time. And I know how it feels.”

It’s hard to describe the pain and hollowness of having a stranger seem to see through you and when they look there, they want to help you, to be there for you with a genuine kindness. When you look back at them, you see it too. It’s so obvious but speaking the truth would make it real, and it’s so much more comforting to run and hide or pretend like everything is okay for at least a little while.

I have to clear my dry, scratchy throat before I tell her, “I might take you up on that.”