Chapter 29 Keeping Secrets

I knew there was going to be trouble the minute Vega stepped through that door. What I also knew for certain was that I would be shooting him today. Now, if I say that I wanted to only wound him, then that would be a blatant lie. I have been wanting to plant one in that miserable face of his for a while now. What I did not expect, though, is for one of these ladies to get shot. Giselle is lying on the floor, and my princess is hysterically crying while she is kneeling next to her body.
I cannot see how badly Giselle is hurt and sadly enough to say that if she is even still alive. Very understandable, but also somewhat frustrating, my princess does not give me a second to look at her mom. She is squeezing her so hard that even I have stopped breathing. Much too both our shock, a familiar voice comes mumbling from underneath Cassandra's chest.
"Cassie, I cannot breathe; give me some room here."
"Mom! You are alive! I thought that you are dead?"
"Not so easily. Lucky for me, Antoni is a lousy shot."
Giselle points to her shoulder; her beautiful lavender blouse is now completely stained red from the bullet she took.
"Can I?" I politely ask.
"You are such a gentleman; of course you can."
Giselle smiles at me as I loosen some of the buttons of her blouse. The moment I start to pull it off over her shoulder, that very smile soon disappears. She winches in pain as I gently press around the corners of her wound. There is blood gushing out, but it does not appear to be serious at all.
"Nothing seriously harmed, but it seems to be another one to your collection there."
She only but laughs at me when I point out a previous gunshot wound in the nearby location. It is a very rare sight to see such a beautiful woman with what appears to be two other scars that were caused by a bullet wound.
"I was married to Joseph Cummings; there would be something wrong with me if I had not been shot before."
"Hahaha. That is very true. I will get someone here to have that looked at. If you ladies will excuse me, I need to phone my father and give him the news."
But before I leave, I pull my princess into my embrace and wrap my warm and protective arms around her shoulders. I lay kisses so soft and gentle against her forehead as to calm her still racing mind. She is clearly still shocked and somewhat shaken as her body trembles against mine. She buries her face into the crook of my neck, and we stand like that for a while.
"Are you okay, princess?"
"I don't know yet, maybe ask me in an hour. I cannot believe what the fuck has just happened."
It takes all my willpower not to burst out laughing at her remark. She has just but seen the first real glimpse of the world that she is about to enter. And my own damn ass is so happy that she did not have to shoot a man today.
But apart from her trembling body and stunned silence, well, that is when she is not cursing, she seems to be doing fairly well. What amazes me the most is the calmness of Giselle? Here this woman is sitting with a bitch of a wound, and she is calming her daughter down. I can only imagine what she went through with Joseph Cummings as her husband. It does explain why Cassandra has not completely lost it yet. She does take a great deal after her father.
I go to the far side of the lounge to make the call to my father. It but only takes him a few seconds to answer; it is as if he was almost waiting for the call.
"Don't tell me?"
"Yes."
"Goddammit, Christian!"
"He shot Giselle."
"Don't tell me?"
"No, she is alive but needs to have a bullet removed."
"I will send someone."
"And Vega?"
"I am on my way. I want to see this fuck dead."
"See you just now then."
...Cassandra POV...
I am watching Christian as he phones his father. The man is so calm; he has not even shown a slight tremble throughout this whole thing. My mom equally the same; she has got this damn hole in her shoulder where blood is gushing from, and she is casually having a whiskey sitting at the bar. Am I the only one in the real world here, or is this the actual real one now?
I assume that we are now waiting for someone to come to clean up the mess. Antoni Vega's body is about to find itself somewhere down the bottom of the dock. It is as if he has never existed at all. Nearly the same as what happened to my father, we could not find his body, but only got word that he was dead. It was very painful when we had a funeral with no body in the coffin. Guess this is how things work around here.
Once Christian is done making his call, he joins us back at the bar. "Now, if I may be so blunt, Giselle, why did you marry the man?"
"It was purely for business that I did that."
"What kind of business, if I may ask?"
"We had a suspicion that he was the one that shot Joseph."
"Yes, I think we all had thought that. But why marry the man to find that out?"
I watch as my mom goes dead quiet. There is something that she is not telling us, and I get the feeling that no matter how hard we try and push her, she is not going to tell us the truth. And as if just convenient, Christian's father shows up at the door. What does seem to be a bit strange is the smile that forms around my mother's mouth. She is up to something, and I get the idea that we are going to find out soon.
"Foster," she ever so politely say. "It is lovely to see you; it has been quite a few years since we last spoke."
"Almost twenty-two years, to be exact. The kids were about seven when they used to play hide and seek together."
Did I just hear him, right? Is he referring to Christian and me? "Hold on a minute here. Do you want to tell me that Christian and I used to play together?"
"Our families were not always at war with each other," Foster explains. "Joseph and I used to be quite close."
"So I had known Cassandra when I was a child?" Christian asks.
"Yes, Christian, even then, you could not keep your damn hands off the girl."
"Why do I not know this?"
"Joseph and I had a fall out when you kids were about seven, and we never sat around the same table since then."
"Wait!" I immediately stop him. "Were we supposed to have met then?"
"It is by pure dumb luck that Christian stumbled across you, but unlike me, your father always wanted for you two to end together."
...Christian POV...
Something is oddly strange around here. How can I not have remembered Cassandra from my childhood? Even more of a shock is that Joseph and my father were very close friends. Like Cassandra is asking, were we always supposed to have been together then. Not that I am truly complaining, it just seems that our parents have some secrets that they have been keeping from us.
"Is there anything else that you guys are hiding from us?"
"Son, it was never a secret; you just never asked."
"Is that why you are against Cassandra and me being together?"
"Hey, when a man holds a grudge, then it is hard to see past that."
"What was it in any case that you stopped talking to each other again?"
I watch as my father goes dead silent. He looks on over to Giselle and smiles; I do not even have to guess what his next words are going to be. By only that look, I know what exactly happened.
"You and Giselle?"
"Not the way that you think, but yes, Joseph did suspect that something had happened between us."
"And mom?"
"As I said, nothing happened."
"Somehow, I don't believe you. I am going to take Cassandra to have her cleaned up, don't think that I am done with this yet."
I lace my fingers into hers and pull her closer to my side. We slowly walk in silence to the bathroom that is in her old bedroom. Once we are inside, I lift her gently off her feet and put her to sit down on the counter next to the basin. I stare deep into her deep brown eyes that are red and puffy from crying earlier on. Then one by one, I start to undo the buttons of her white blouse that are stained with her mother's blood. I slowly slide them off over her shoulders and down her arms.
"Are you feeling better, princess?"
"I think this whole day is hard to absorb. First Antoni and now both our dads. I don't think this day can get any weirder than it already is."
I only but smile at her with my own confused eyes and tuck a stray hair behind her ear. With one flick of my finger, I unclasp her bra, she wants to protest, but she sees that it is a deep red and not the beautiful pink that it was when she put it on.
I nudge her chin with my thumb; her touch as she wraps her arms around my waist sends warm ripples of shock through my body. There is a gentleness in her eyes, a vulnerability, and fear all at once. All I want to do is hold her and reassure her that everything shall be okay.
My gaze falls down to her lips; they are parted and full, just waiting to be kissed. In slow motion, I bend towards her. I close my eyes as our lips touch and softly rub against each other. A weak gasp escapes me. With a fierce hold, I cup the back of her neck and kiss her deeply and gently. My fingers twine in her hair as I deepen the kiss and desperately try to explore her mouth.
She has never kissed me like this before. She is feeding my rising passion and my craving desire. I hold her tightly and lock her full body against mine. I consume her mouth with a deep burning hunger. Her hands flutter to the sides of my face, and she strokes the fine bristle of my cheeks and jaw. Her mere gentle touch makes me quietly moan in my throat.
After what seems like a few long minutes, we finally pull away. With a wicked grin, I look at her, and she knows exactly what I am thinking.
"I am not having sex with you; you might as well scrap that idea from your mind."
"Princess, I promise I will be real quick."
"We both know that quick does not exist in your vocabulary, Mr. Caine."
"Why, Mr. Caine now? What happened to tiger?"
"Because you are being naughty now."
"But is it not naughty that you like princess?"
"Not when my mom and your dad are standing downstairs."
"Fair, let's go clean this mess up so I can take you home."
...Cassandra POV...
I cannot believe this man wants to have sex after he has just put a bullet into a man. I am still trying to catch my racing heart, and he is as calm as a feather.
He is standing here with nothing but that stupid smile on his face. I watch as he gently and lovingly rubs the blood from my body with a wet facecloth. Something tells me that this is a very first for him. It completely blows me away how one minute he is raging and the next he is peacefully quiet
After changing into some of my old clothes that I left here, we make our way downstairs. It appears that Antoni's body has already been taken away. We go to take a seat where my mom and Foster are sitting at the bar. Christian wastes no time to ask her the question.
"So, Giselle, why did you really marry Antoni?"
Just then, we hear a scuffle of feet behind us, and out of complete nowhere, a man speaks...
"I can answer that,"