Page 39 of London Has Fallen
“I have only ever brought one person here.” The sound of my brothers voice rouses me from my daydream. I push off the tree I was leaning against and peer around it to see him and London sitting at the end of the wooden dock. The fucking thing is so rickety and looks like it’s going to break.
“Who was she?” London asks, I creep closer so I can hear them better.
“Who said it was a she?”
She looks over at him and pushes her lips to the sides. “There is always a she, only a woman can have a man sitting out here in the middle of nowhere all up in his feels.”
“Her name was Aida.” Holy fuck, is he going to tell her? Cronos has never told anyone this story, not even our brothers. I was forced to give them the cliff note version. “She was fucking beautiful, too beautiful for this world. She was pure and innocent, fuck she was so radiant that each time she walked into a room you couldn’t help but stare. Every time I saw her she would steal the air from my lungs. I remember the first time she spoke to me I couldn’t even form a sentence or string two words together, she was my angel.” Jealousy rears its ugly head inside me when she moves toward him and they hold each other but when he places a kiss to the top of her head, it takes everything inside me to keep still and not march down and punch his teeth down his throat.
“It sounds like you loved her very much.”
“I’ve never stopped loving her, Lon.” My anger eases at his declaration.
“What happened to Aida, Nos?” she asks.
“I was going through the trials with Artemis, we were neck and neck through the whole thing but on the knowledge challenge I managed to best him and won which meant he needed to complete the final trial without a single mistake in order to take over for Costa. The final trial is the one that separates the men from the boys the Godfathers say, but the truth is, it’s for the sick and blackened hearted bastards.” Shame washes over me.
“What’s the final trial?”
Tension riddles me as I pray for him to keep his mouth shut and not tell her. “If Artemis completed the final trial, he would take over but what I didn’t know at the time was if he won, I would die. Costa knew Artemis couldn’t kill me so he made sure that neither of us would win the trials and used Aida to do that. I was forced to watch… they fucking brutalized her and destroyed the most beautiful thing I had ever seen in this world. When it was all over, I took her out of there and tried to fix my fuck up but I knew the moment we left that room that her soul died in there and only her body left with me. She killed herself two days later.”
“Nos, I’m sorry.”
“She left a note, she blamed me for everything and wished she had never met me and honestly, I wish I never met her either. If I had left her alone, she would still be alive and happy, living her life with some guy who actually deserved her and could keep her safe.” My breath lodges in my throat when she straddles his lap and grips his face between her hands. My grip on the tree turns punishing as I watch on like a masochist waiting for the moment she seals her lips against his signing her death warrant. If she crosses that line with my brother, I will have no qualms in strangling the life from her.
“This is all your father’s fault, not yours.”
“That motherfucker isn’t my father,” he sneers.
“All the greatest loves in history are designed to be painful, Nos. Most people think love should be easy and comfortable but that isn’t the type of love people like us crave. We want painful, soul shattering, groundbreaking love that consumes us and drives us insane. What you shared with Aida is something that can never be replaced. She was your first love and don’t you dare push me in the fucking lake for saying this but… she wasn’t your greatest love, your soul breaking, death craving love.” His hands grip her waist and my vision blurs, I grind my teeth so fucking hard they begin to ache as I wait for my brother to betray me in the worst possible way.
“How do you know that?”
She leans her forehead against his. I will myself to turn away and not watch as she kisses my twin but I can’t. I need to see her do it and watch as my brother stabs me in the fucking back like a pathetic piece of shit! “Because you're still here. Romeo couldn’t live without Juliet and vice versa. Your Juliet is out there, Nos, you just need to find her and let her break down your walls and destroy the fuck out of your heart until she owns every goddamn fucking piece of it. If it doesn’t hurt, then it isn’t worth it.”
“Is that how you feel about my brother?” My eyes snap wide at his question, my breathing accelerates. Everything she just described about love is us. No way am I in love with her or anything like that, but the fighting, the hurt, the pain and all the baggage that comes with us sleeping together is her way of seeing me worthy. Am I fucking crazy for thinking that or was this just a game to her to bag the headmaster?
“I don’t know how I feel about him.”
He reaches up and tucks a loose strand of hair behind her ear. Standing I watch with rapt focus as the two of them sit there looking so comfortable with each other but there is something wrong with this picture. When she’s with me there’s a fire that burns in her eyes but with him, she just looks… safe.
“But you do feel something for him, don’t you?” Cronos pushes.
“If I say no will you believe me?” She tries to lighten the mood but Cronos isn’t having it.
“Lon, he is a good guy and if these trials weren’t a problem, then I swear you would see a different side of him.”
“He’s a dick and was fucking some blonde bitch!” The bitterness that coats her tone has a smile pulling at my lips.
My little demon is jealous.
“Blake wishes he was still fucking her.”
London scrunches her face. “What?”
“Lon, he will never admit it but you have gotten under his skin. You make him feel and that isn’t something my brother is used to.”
“All he feels for me is anger and hatred.”