Hey, loves. We’re back for another outtake on this wonderful Friday. Once again, for this I pulled from the requests. And frankly, this specific outtake wasn’t so much a request as someone simply asking something with Cara and Tommas.
Well, this moment has been weighing on my mind for a while. It was bound to happen, and I thought … why not write and kill two birds with one stone by fulfilling the reader’s request?
Remember also, that I am not currently posting the outtake form so that I can work through some of the requests already in there. I literally have a whole pile. It does get overwhelming at times when I write like one a week and then get like 15 requests every Friday at the same time.
Now … onto the outtake.
Now … onto the outtake.
*
The Truth
Tommas & Cara
Tommas POV
“Gian,” Tommas greeted.
Standing in the entryway of the Trentini mansion, Gian kept his back to Tommas while he stared out the side window next to the grand doors. “Tommas—we made it up the driveway this time, at least.”
“A feat, was it?”
Gian let out a slow, but hard, breath. “Painful, I think.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Don’t apologize. You’re not the one who created those memories for her, you know. And she’s so determined to … get over it. I think she’s given herself a complex about it, really. She helps everyone else, and yet, hasn’t been able to help herself in the same ways.”
Tommas understood.
Well enough, anyway.
“Where’d the boys go?”
“Ran off with Tommaso. Abriella said she would call when lunch was finished. You were busy on the phone—I told her not to bother you. The same for them.”
“You’re not a bother. Besides, I was waiting for you to arrive. Next time, get her to call me down.”
“To watch my wife with me?”
Tommas chuckled. “I can do that, too, of course.”
“She said to just … let her work through it. She’ll come in when she’s ready. It took her ten minutes to get out of the car after we arrived. Now, she’s just out there sitting on the curb staring at the marble steps.”
“Oh.”
At the simple statement—but not with any surprise—Gian turned to give Tommas a raised brow. “What was that—that oh. What does that mean?”
“The steps—it’s where Lea died.”
“I know that. What I don’t understand is why she wants to stare at them. It’s been years since she’s even been back to this house, Tommas.”
“Or maybe … she’s trying to see something else, Gian. Something other than what she sees now when she looks at them.”
Because even Tommas couldn’t forget those steps.
That day.
His sister’s blood.
None of it.
He knew it was worse for Cara—it had to be. She’d been standing right beside Lea when their sister was shot. It had been her twin. Because even when Tommas hadn’t been able to be there for Cara in her life, Lea always was.
“Could I go out and speak to her?” he asked.
Gian cleared his throat. “I try to follow her wishes—she asked to be left alone.”
“Well, you married her. I did not.”
“True.” Gian hummed under his breath. “How about I leave the decision up to you while I go find my monsters and round them up for lunch.”
Tommas smiled. “I can work with that. Plausible deniability.”
“Exactly.”
They were different men, him and Gian.
In a lot of ways, they were also the same.
***
“Do you remember the sounds she made?”’ Cara asked suddenly.
Tommas drew in a sharp breath as he came to stand beside his younger sister where she sat on the curb of his long driveway. “I do—gasping and gurgles. She asked for help. It sounded like pain; I remember that the most.”
“Do you remember how it took a week for them to get the bloodstains out of the marble grain?”
“I do.”
“And—”
“Cara,” Tommas murmured quietly.
For the first time since he exited the house—because she hadn’t even looked away from the steps then despite the fact he stepped down them—his sister glanced up at met his stare. There, he found the tears ready to fall staring back at him. One blink, and they’d be tracking lines down her cheeks.
“Why didn’t anybody pay for that?” she asked. “Everything you all stand for—an eye for an eye. And nobody answered for her, Tommas.”
“Would you even want them to?”
Because even if he could make someone answer for the death of Cara’s twin—his own blood—he wasn’t sure that’s what she really wanted. Cara had long since settled her role in this life; obviously, because she’d married a made man who eventually took over his own family. That didn’t mean she wanted to ask for someone else’s blood to be spilled because of her own pain, did it?
It took Cara a moment to respond. Her answer was exactly as he thought it would be. “I don’t know, Tommy.”
Yeah.
Him, either.
“I have questions, though,” she added, “but I don’t think they’re ever going to get answered.”
“Depends on the question.”
Cara turned back to stare at the steps again. “Who pulled the trigger—why?”
“I have those answers.”
In a flash, her head turned back to him. Fast enough to make him stand a little straighter. Her eyes widened, nailing him to the spot. He could hear the answers that wanted to rapid fire right out of her mouth.
Who.
Tell me who.
Why.
Tell me all the whys.
Before she could say anything at all, Tommas said, “I know who killed her. Who really did it—not all the rumors or assumptions that people in the Outfit have. No, I know the truth. Every last fucking detail. All the whys and hows and anything in between that probably didn’t even matter. I know it all. I only know it because people who love me felt they needed to share that secret because they couldn’t stand the guilt of knowing otherwise.”
Cara’s chin quivered. “Is the person—”
“Gone.”
She didn’t ask how.
Instead, she asked, “Was it even supposed to be her that day?”
“No, but it doesn’t matter because it was.”
Cara turned back at stared at the steps again.
She didn’t ask who.
She didn’t ask anything else.
Instead, she said, “Sit with me for a bit?”
“Absolutely. You don’t ever have to ask.”
*
(please note: before sending me requests, when I do link the form again, of Cara finding out who did it - she didn't ask here because she didn't want to know; she never will)
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