Chained Princess

Chapter 24 : Vendetta

A A R O N ' S P. O. V

We heard the shot go off as we pulled in by the docks. In an instant I saw my worst nightmare flash between my eyes. Kiara lying dead on the floor with a bullet between her eyes.

No. Quickly, I shook away the sickening vision.

"It came from the warehouse." Tristan grabbed the handguns stashed underneath the seats and thrust one into my chest. I clambered out the car, clumsily checking if it was loaded at the same time.

The bullets fell out, pinging harshly against the solid granite. I stared at them unwaveringly.

I heard Tristan's sigh of aggression, violent with fury. "f*****g hell." He passed me his, snatching the empty one from my hands and proceeded to pick up the fallen bullets. "Aaron sort yourself out. She needs you, so go now."

The urge to run inside was swarming, taking over my entire body, but yet my feet stayed planted still with fear. Tristan's hands wrapped around my collar as his shoved me forward.

"Go!" His deafening command followed me in as I stumbled into the darkness.

The pattering sound of water dripped down against the pipes. The raucous noise of machines drilling in the background, the air vents circling fresh cold air to replace the hot. It was haunting.

There were no gunshots to follow, no screams or shouts. That could only mean someone was dead.

Clearing room after room, I trembled as I noticed the pool of blood bathing the floor of the storage room. It was too much to just be one person's.

I placed my hand in the door knob, and sighed. It couldn't be her, it couldn't. Kiara was strong, she was a fighter. I wouldn't lose her like this.

Prying it open, the raw stench of death hit me hard. The urge to vomit was threatening but I clung tight to the gun as I raised it upwards and forced it back down.

"Princess," I murmured into the thick dark.

"Aaron." Her love thrilling voice filtered through and I struggled to contain the smile that threatened to break out into my face.

I tripped over something as I ventured further. It was hard yet soft at the same time. Pulling out my phone, I turned on the torch and grimaced.

It was a leg. A dead leg. One wearing red stilettos that could only ever be branded like that by one person. "Sasha." I breathed out, and yet her body removed still. Immobile.

Gently, I pushed her body aside so I could fully open the door. Light spilled forward into the room and for once the darkness hide the bad. Kiara lay under Andrei's dead body, a hole drilled through his head with a sharp bullet.

Her fingers reached out to me and like a magnet I was drawn to my opposite half. I watched her lips draw up into a small smile, but she winced under the heavy weight.

I shoved him off her, and pulled her into my arms. Her hair and face caked in that bastards blood, and it spilled all over me, but I didn't care. I had her. She was safe and she was mine and I was never letting her go again.

"Aaron, I can't breathe." She mumbled with a slight tinge of humour. I pulled back just a fraction to give her some air.

"You're okay?" My eye meticulously scanned her body.

"A little sore and I have a few cuts but, I'm fine. The blood is mostly his." Our eyes strayed over to Andrei's dead unmoving body. Then I glanced over to Sasha and slowly pulled away from Kiara to check her pulse.

Nothing. Not even a faint thrum against her neck. They were both...dead. And Kiara...I glanced back at her. She frowned in confusion and shuffled over to me, just as Tristan ran into the room breathlessly.

"You're okay?" He panted, staring straight at Kiara. She nodded still watching me curiously.

Tristan sighed in relief, then his eyes followed over the scene and realisation dawned upon him. "Oh s**t. No, fuck." He kicked hard at the door, letting the wood splinter beneath his weight.

"I don't understand. They're dead, isn't that...good?" Kiara was hardly a killer. This...this wouldn't have been easy and she was riding high on the thrill of winning but I knew it would come down soon and sense would take over adrenaline.

"Princess," I cupped her bloody cheek. She automatically leaned into it. "You killed the heirs to the Russian mafia, the children of Mikhail Ivanov. They were his legacy and that meant everything to him."

"Which means?" She'd spent too long away from the dealings of the mafia, from the principles and the laws that governed it.

"It means vendetta. It means he's coming for all of us and you've started a war."

***

We hid the bodies in the bottom of some sweltering lake down near Nevada. Aaron didn't want to take me with him. I forced him too. I needed to see it. Try and get a sense of relief or closure.

Of course it didn't work. Nothing did. I was stuck, playing the same brutal murders again and again inside my head. Witnessing myself killing Sasha, the sound of head hitting the floor forever imprinted in my mind and the way I pulled the trigger without hesitation.

I fought so hard to escape this, only to fall so deep there was no getting out.

Sasha and Andrei Ivanov were officially considering missing people but it wouldn't be long before Mikhail realised that they're wet dead. Before he came after me and my family.

Fuck, this was all my fault, and now Aaron was working himself to the bone to cover for me, to pretend to be on Mikhail's side. Most nights he didn't come home until two in the morning and he did come home, he was usually drunk.

However he didn't go to bars or clubs, Tristan said he got drunk in his office before passing out for a few hours in the car.

It all felt too similar now. Like before when I first moved in with Aaron, when my father disowned me. I couldn't let the past repeat itself.

On the bright side, I had acquired a job interview to work as a secretary at a large corporate business. Aaron didn't approve, and like I f*****g cared.

I wasn't going to be stuck at home all day playing mother and wife. I wanted a career, money, a sense of accomplishment that I only ever used to get from partying wild every night.

"Miss Romano," I shook hands with the eager balding man. He grinned almost so bright it seemed false, and was sweating profusely with hot red flashes.

"Lovely to meet you, let's sit shall we." I was greeted with a cup of warm coffee and a biscuit to go on the side.

"I'm sorry, but I believed I was meeting with a Mr Salisbury." There's no way this huge spanning office with titanium glass windows that gave view to the entire city, belonged to Mr Salisbury who was manager of the finance department.

"Ah yes, well I'm actually the CEO. Mr Witherby, and after looking at your impressive CV, I have to say that I stole you away from Salisbury. A woman of your finesse should not be the assistant to a mere manger."

"Really?" My high school grades were a little over average but I never attended college, never had a job that wasn't serving drinks and apart from a few online business classes, I had no real experience in this enterprise.

"Of course, so instead I would like to offer you a junior marketing position, working under our leader of promotions. This is the summary outline and at the bottom you'll find the starting salary." Holy s**t.

I let my eyes fall over the document one more time and then pinched my bare thigh just to make sure this was real. My family were rich but living in a waitress' salary this past year was tough, especially with a baby.

"But...you haven't even asked me any questions yet?"

"No need." He handed me a perfectly sharp ballpoint pen. "Just sign on the dotted line." I could hear the rhythmic tapping of his foot beating restlessly under the table.

I read over every clause, ensure there was nothing that would entrap me into some sort of scam. After finishing the last page, I set down the pen much to his dismay. "Could I have a day or two to think it over? Let my lawyer have I read, I just want to make sure everything is...fair."

"Of course." His cheery facade morphed into something more of fear. "I'll be in contact." He personally ushered me out of the building, even offering to buy me lunch for any trouble.

I refused politely and got into my car instead, to drive downtown to Anastasia's new daycare. It was gorgeous farm like structure on the edge of the city, that had real life chickens. She'd only been going a few weeks now, but she loved it so whole-heartedly that sometimes she cried when I came to pick her up.

Aaron, again, wasn't a fan.

He determined there was no need for a daycare when we had Rosa, but Rosa needed rest and a young baby would easily tire her out. She was here for Caitlin, not Anastasia and it wouldn't be fair. Besides, I wanted Anastasia to make some friends. She spent far too long without people her age.

After managing to wrangle her away from the fake kitchen set in the daycare, I strapped her into her chair and we picked up Caitlin. I set Anastasia up with Frozen in the living room, as I got to work on dinner. Throwing in a couple of frozen pizzas and making fresh chips.

I ran Aaron, hoping he would pick up, like he hadn't been doing the past few days and nothing...again. Sighing, I pulled the pizza out of the oven and fried the chips, before we all sat to eat.

His chair was empty before me. It invoked a sad lonely feeling inside my chest, knowing how he promised not to miss any. Pushing aside the feeling, I began washing up the dishes.

I was so sick of this. He was freezing me out, just like he had before. Like he promised not to do. It was my fault, I knew that, I understand it and I would always pay for killing Sasha and Andrei, but I wasn't thinking. I was scared and I still am. All I need is him, Aaron to hold me whilst I cry and listen to my rants but he's never hear to do it.

And I feel trapped, like I'm stuck in this tiresome circle of feeling like my entire life is complete so watching it slowly crumble apart.

"Kiara." The plates slipped between my spot hands and clattered loudly in the sink. I swore under my breath, but forced a smile onto my face as I noticed Caitlin hovering by the doorway.

"Hey, is everything is okay?"

"Mostly." I studied her apprehensive stance. "Can I talk to you about something?"

"Of course." She padded across the room and took the dish towel hanging loosely from the oven. This kid was also. Drying up with our new being asked? God, I would never. "So what's going on?"

"Remember that boy I was telling you about?"

"Of course, the one who liked your friend instead."

"Yeah, well he has a brother in the next year up and he's really...."

"Cute?" I offered, and a giant smile broke out over her face.

"Hot. Really, really hot."

Laughing, I urged her to go on. "Anyways, he asked me if I wanted to go to the park tomorrow and I really wanted to go so I said yes."

"And Aaron doesn't know?" She shook her head, as I sighed, switching off the water and shrugging off my rubber gloves.

"And I also want to know what I should wear, how to act, what to say?"

"Firstly, you need to tell him because he's your guardian. He had a right to know."

"But he'll say no." She moaned, and wrapped her arms tight around my waist. "Please, please, can you tell him? You can convince him to say yes."

"I don't know if I can. He loves you so much, a little too much that he won't like you going out with a boy."

"But...but I really him. He's funny, and makes me smile, and laugh..."

I watched her eyes sparkle in the same way all our eyes sparkled as we talked about our first crushes. She was full of hope, vitality, and was yet to be crushed by the hardship of life. I wanted her to experience this with us, me and Aaron, together as co-parents.

"Okay, I'll talk to him."

"Thank you so much Kiara. Now, what should I should I do if he tries to kiss me?" My eyebrows raised high.

"Well..."

"Who's going to kiss you?" That thunderous voice was nothing like the man I loved. I knew he was drunk, again. I could practically smell it, before I even looked up at him, and when I did it only confirmed my suspicions.

The thick stubble over his cheeks seemed harsher now in the dark and his blue eyes seemed dazed with inebriation. He stumbled slightly as he made his way further into the kitchen, his lethal gaze pinned to me with anger.

"So? Who's going to kiss you?"

"No-one Aaron, we were just talking about a show."

"Don't lie to me." I felt Caitlin flinch at the abruptness of his voice. Feeling a creeping anger rise inside of me, I stepped forward and flowered.

"Don't talk to her like that. Caitlin go take care of Anastasia." She left without a doing, shutting the door behind her. I heard the loud click slot into place and suddenly felt claustrophobic, like I had just sealed myself into my own coffin.

"Why are you talking to my sister about kissing?"

"Why are you drunk? Why are you home late when you promised to be home for dinner? Why are anger? Why aren't you smiling like you used to?" I saw a slight c***k in his hard faced expression. My Aaron, lurking beneath the one he put on for everyone else.

"You can't parent my sister Kiara."

I threw my hands up in frustration. "And why not?"

"Because you don't have a right." He harshly spat out. "God, you always do this. You always overstep."

"You invited me to live with you. I'm your girlfriend and we're living together. I love Caitlin, just like I love you. She's my family."

"What did she ask you?"

"Excuse me?"

"What did she ask you?" He gritted out through clench teeth. I felt my fists bawl up right at my sides.

"She asked me if I would ask you if she could go on a date. To convince you to let her, and I think we should."

He laughed humourlessly, the sound grating against my ears. "We? Kiara, there is not we with Caitlin. I make the decisions and I say no."

"You say, so you just decide everything?"

"When it comes to her, yes." I scoffed, shaking my head deftly.

"Then Anastasia. If it was the same conversation?"

"No. I don't want my little girl going out and getting her heartbroken, I don't want my sister doing that either."

"Aaron, this isn't just your decisions. It's theirs, and it's our. I thought we were in this together, I thought you understood now." I watched him groan as he slumped down into the chair and rest his elbows on the dining room table.

The headache was kicking in, and I hated that part of myself that was glad he was suffering right now.

Slowly, I lowered myself to my knees and pressed my head against his thighs. The soft stroke of his hand ran over my hair, stroking my cheek gently. I closed my eyes, and relished in the feeling, before pulling back. "Aaron, what's wrong? What is it? Are you stressed? Is this too much? Do you not love me anymore?"

I braced myself for his answer. For the truth.

"It is you." I instantly pulled back from the harsh pang of pain that hit me from his words. "Everything was perfect, and then you screwed up Kiara. Everyone says it's me, but you ran away pregnant with my baby, you didn't tell me, you just left and now you've killed two people...and that will be downfall of everything."

"What do you mean?" I hastily wiped away my tears. "What does downfall mean? Aaron?"

"If Mikhail finds out, and he will, he'll come after everything Kiara. The vendetta won't just mean you or me, but our lives, The Ghosts, your father, Caitlin, Anastasia. Nothing will be safe, and I vowed to always protect and our family but...fuck, I don't how I'm going to do it. I'm scared Kiara, and it's your fault."

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A/N: ?? No because this really broke my heart.

Okay, thoughts on Aaron? Do you think his reaction was justified?

And Kiara? How should she react?