Page 43 of Where Quiet Hearts Scream (Dark Hearts #3)

S erafina

The low hum of the aircraft echoes in my ears as we arrive at the hotel. The staff whisk our bags away before I have a chance to lift a finger, and Andreas gives the concierge a nod like he’s been here many times before.

We don’t linger in the suite for long, just enough time to drop off our belongings and freshen up.

While Andreas makes a phone call, I look out of the windows at the Washington Monument in the distance.

It looks surreal, like a political T.V. show I’ve accidentally walked into.

My heart squeezes at the realization that until a few months ago, I’d only left New York once in twenty years.

Now, I live in a state I’m growing to love more with every fall of a leaf, and I’m also standing a stone’s throw away from one of the world’s most recognizable landmarks.

I hear Andreas’ phone snap shut then his hand slips into mine.

“Let’s take a walk,” he says simply.

It’s cool outside, the fall air nipping at my cheeks.

We wander toward the Mall, silently marveling at the sights I’ve only ever seen before in pictures.

There are people everywhere—tourists, students, families with strollers, a man selling roasted almonds from a small cart—but the city feels quiet, as though we’re the only people in it.

I suddenly feel nervous about asking, but I want to at least try to understand my husband, and from the easy way he greeted the concierge and knew his way to the suite, I’m guessing Washington is, or has been, an important part of his life.

“You seem to know your way around this city. Have you been here before?”

We pass the gardens by the Smithsonian and he slows. His brow dips as though he’s just facing up to the inevitable—if he wants an honest and faithful marriage, he’s going to have to disclose some of his past.

“Yes, I have. Many times.”

I stop and wait until he faces me. “I want to know,” I whisper.

His gaze darkens and his jaw grinds.

“Nothing you tell me is going to scare me away.”

He sighs heavily. “You don’t know what kind of past I’ve had.”

“So tell me. ”

I notice his shoulders tighten as he prepares to speak.

“The only people who truly know about my past are Arrow and Viola. Arrow, especially, has been there for most of it,” he says, looking over my head into the distance.

I catch a glimpse of vulnerability beneath his surface.

“Benito and I… we had a rough start. We grew up in New York. Our father was a small-time, low-life criminal. He used us in his pathetic deals and busts, and thought hurting us made him strong. Especially me, because I was the eldest.”

He pauses, and even though his voice weighs heavy with painful memories, it’s his truth, and there’s something beautiful about it.

“He didn’t make the smartest moves. He was blinded by a thirst for blood and hunger for violence.

I suppose I didn’t want to settle for small-time.

I wanted bigger things—a real legacy. If he left me to my devices, I did things my way.

But then some of his men noticed. They preferred my approach.

I didn’t go into a loaded warehouse all guns blazing only to come away with a couple cases of ammo.

I sat back and watched, figured out the guards’ routines, struck when their defenses were down.

No one got hurt and I’d come away with the whole fucking shop. ”

I try not to let my eyes widen too much. Andreas is a born and bred criminal, but he’s also my husband—a man I’m coming to respect more and more each day .

“So, why did you leave?”

He chews on his lip for a moment. “My father did the usual one day and briefed us all on the next bust—another reckless raid that would have gotten us noticed before we could make much of a dent in the merchandise—then a couple of his guys looked to me. Asked me how we should do it. My father didn’t say a word, but I knew in that moment I was no longer a tool in his arsenal—I was a threat. ”

My heart thumps for him. I literally cannot imagine what that must have been like.

“A few weeks passed and I hardly slept. I knew he was biding his time—lulling me into a false sense of security before he made his move. But I couldn’t wait for the inevitable. I went for him instead.”

I suck in a gasp.

“He pulled out a knife and would’ve slit my throat if I hadn’t knocked it from his hand and punched his lights out.

” He sighs, pensively. “I couldn’t kill him.

Even though I’d got a decent amount of blood on my hands already, I knew that if I took his life, the few loyal soldiers he had left would have come after me, and I didn’t want to be looking over my shoulder for the next few years. ”

“What did you do?” I whisper.

“I ran. I was fourteen.”

I hold his hand tighter as we continue walking past the museums.

“Fourteen,” I murmur. “So young. How on earth did you survive? ”

He smiles faintly, and for a moment the weight in his expression lifts.

“I made friends. Hid in bus stations, stole food. One day, a woman approached me while I was sleeping on a bench. She ran a shelter for street kids, orphans. She took me in.”

I feel as though my heart is breaking down the middle for him. “Who was she?”

“Her name was Agnes. She died a few years back—lung cancer. She smoked like a chimney.”

He stops and rests a warm gaze on my face. “She was the first person to calculate my birth chart.”

I inhale a fast breath. “That’s why you didn’t seem fazed when I talked to you about my interest in astrology.”

“Yeah,” he smiles. “And for what it’s worth, your interpretations were spookily similar. And she’d been practicing for decades.”

“Wow,” I reply, grinning. “I’m pleased.”

“Well, anyway, that’s where I met Arrow—and Viola.

My eyes widen. “Arrow and Viola were homeless too?”

He nods. “Arrow was. His parents were junkies. They didn’t know who he was half the time.”

My heart almost folds in on itself. I’ve only met Arrow a handful of times, but there’s an unshatterable bond between he and my husband that is only now beginning to make sense.

I always knew there must have been good reason for the shadows Andreas and Arrow carry with them like armor, but actually hearing it from Andreas’ lips pains me.

“And Viola?”

“She was a friend of Agnes’. She helped out at the shelter sometimes. When Agnes died, Viola got a job in a grocery store and hated it. So, when I got my first house I asked her to work for me, and she’s been with me ever since.”

My heart warms at the thought of Viola standing by Andreas for much of his adult life. “She’s a good woman. I like her.”

Andreas looks down at me softly. “She adores you,” he says, with an arched brow.

I smile. “I think the feeling is mutual.” Then a frown dips my brow. “Where is your father now?”

There’s no emotion to be found in his voice.

“Dead and buried in the Bronx. He was involved in some gang-related drug bust a few years back, which turned nasty. One day, his is the name on everyone’s lips, because he had this annoying ability to manipulate anyone into believing his lies.

The next, he’s dead. I felt nothing then. I feel nothing now.”

He stops and turns, his eyes meeting mine.

“The weird thing is, I still see him around, like he’s hovering in every corner and every crevice, watching me.

I know it’s impossible, because he’s six feet underground, but every now and then I swear I see him.

Nowak thinks I’m still processing trauma, that it’s a form of PTSD.

I just think I missed out on the closure that comes with watching your enemy’s life seep out of their body. ”

His words make a chill coil around my spine. How tragic to need to witness your own father’s death just to be able to get on with your life.

“Arrow and I had no choice but to make our own way and our own luck. We learned how to wipe and refurbish smartphones and computers, sold them on the black market. We made a lot of money fast and our names became known in some high-end circles.”

I listen with a sense of disbelief because my husband’s world growing up was an entire universe away from mine.

His eyes coast the cityscape. “We were flown out here, to Washington, to meet a middleman for someone who’d got their hands on government devices that needed wiping.

It was a huge deal and we made millions.

We also got a shit ton of intel about backhanders and dirty deals.

We’ve been using that to our advantage ever since. ”

So, this is how it begins? This is how a life of crime becomes so easy to fall into?

“It must seem normal to you now, making your living this way?” I ask.

He drops his gaze back to mine. “It’s not a living.

It’s a way of life. It’s who I am. I was born into it.

I didn’t have the best teacher in my father, but I learned the hard lessons, I have a crazy brilliant partner, and I’m fucking good at what I do.

I guess it’s my calling. I can’t see myself ever doing anything else. ”

My mind drifts back to the conversations I witnessed at the Mayor’s gala and on Grayson’s yacht.

He’s right about that. He is very good at this.

It comes so naturally to him, and to my surprise, I find it incredibly attractive.

I always thought I would hate everything about this life, but it’s not a black and white thing.

So many nuances and complexities are woven into how and why people do what they do.

I’m finally seeing beyond the surface immorality of the criminal world, to the people behind it, their motivations, the hands they were dealt.

He presses a palm to my cheek. In the biting air it feels like a burning stake but I melt into it.

“Is that what hospitality was for you?” There’s a sadness in his eyes and I know deep down he isn’t happy with the hole he believes it has left in my life.