“Yes. Rose Cruz was my mom’s sister. My father was furious that my mother left him. He threatened to kill her, and once your father learned just how much of a piece of scum mine was and cut business ties with him, he followed through with his threat.
Rose raised me as her own, since her son, my cousin, Alex, had grown out of the house already. We knew it would only be a matter of time before he came for me, just like he did my mother,” I say as a chill begins to creep down my spine, going down this fucked up memory lane that is my family tree.
Sienna shakes her head. “Wait, I’m confused.”
“If you weren’t confused, then that would make you more devious than I give you credit for.” I grin. “My Titi Rose had enough of my father’s bullshit. He was responsible for the deaths of all the people she loved. My father killed my Uncle Victor after a business deal went bad. He killed my mother for escaping his wrath, and he killed your parents for not wanting to associate with him and his shitty business practices anymore. Titi Rose wanted him dead and knew that if she called him and said he could have me on my eighteenth birthday to help carry out the family business, I could infiltrate the business and eventually end him.” The relief that comes from finally talking to someone other than Rose or Alex about this is exhilarating.
“Wait, but how does that explain how or why you look the way you do?”
“Ha, you can also thank my father for that. The night we went to the tattoo shop, my father was infuriated to find out his only living son, who he never gave a fuck about, was dating a Ricci. He had Christian work his magic on me by reconstructing my face to look like someone you would never believe is me. It was his way of taunting me with what he thought would be the end of us.” I shake my head at just the thought of my father thinking he could separate Sienna and me permanently.
She takes in a deep breath. “Well, the joke is on him because you are immaculate.”
“Guess you can say I was derived from an immaculate conception,” I say, not being able to pass up the joke she set me up for.
She smiles at my joke, before her face falls to a serious state once more. “I have waited so long for this; something I didn’t even know was a fucking possibility. I thought you left me, ran off with someone, or were dead. I hated you for so long,” she confesses, and I can sense a trace of guilt in her voice. But she shouldn’t feel guilty. I don’t blame her for how she feels.
I grab hold of her face once more, bringing her into me. “It’s my fault you are like this.”
Sadness and anger blend. “No, you don’t get to take credit for the woman I am. Heartbreak made me stronger. I pulled myself up from devastation, and it wasn’t you or God or anyone else, for that fucking matter. I saw my way out of the flames. You can’t take credit for that,” she says, breaking from my grasp as she rises and walks closer to the fireplace.
“I would never try to take credit for the woman that stands before me. You have grown on your own. Morphed into a masterpiece of strength and beauty all your own. I just ask that you let me know this Sienna 2.0,” I say, following behind her.
“What song was playing the night we went to the cemetery?” she blurts out, clearly not listening to what I just told her.
Our song.
She turns to me, finger pointed at me. I know she is still processing all of this, but fucking Christ, does she look intoxicating when she is angry. “You owe me this. If you even are who you say you are. I need to be certain, answer my question so I can know if you are the monster that I see or the man that I know.”
“Sen,mibeautifulreina, I am both the monster you see before you and the man that you know, that owns your heart like you do mine. Leo was weak; Carmine is strong. He was my father’s creation, but I have survived in this new role. I have fucking thrived in it.”
“Please, cut the poetics and answer my question. I need to be certain,” she demands once more.
She is right. I owe her that much. And she isn’t running; that is a good sign. It’s because, deep down, I know she knows, souls don’t lie when they find their mate. The soul leads and the body and the mind simply follow the soul’s command. Our souls have been branded to each other.Marked.
I pull her close to me with an intensity that even surprises myself. I cup her face in my hand, while my other hand is firmly against her hips. I guess it’s the kind of intensity that would be expected when in the presence of the person who owns your soul. And she, Sienna Ricci, owns my damned soul, every irredeemable, depraved, hollow part of it.
I still don’t answer her. Instead, I move over the speakers on the bookshelf. I still have my old iPod. A dinosaur in today’s technological world. I keep artifacts like that often because they bring me back to a simpler time, a time when it was just her and me. I can sense her impatience as she lets out a frustrated sigh. With the iPod in hand, I swipe to our playlist and hit play on our song. As soon as the guitar starts, I hear sobbing, pure sobbing.
I don’t know whose sobs are whose, hers or mine, but together, we are beautifully broken, trying to sew the pieces together of our shattered past. A shattered past we never asked for. Before I can turn around, I feel her wet tears on my neck as she kisses it.
“Hello, there, the angel from my nightmare,”the Blink 182 song “Miss You” swoons over the speaker. We don’t say a word, there is no need to. This is our song, a somber tale of our angsty youth. Which now feels like the anthem of our love story.
Despite the ignorance of our youth, we always knew that we were destined for each other, even when no one believed we would last. But fate is a tricky thing; you can try to run from it, but you can’t escape it. A marked soul will always find its way home to the one it finds true solace in. My soul has always ached for her, my heart has always had her name etched into it. Love was merely a foolish concept until the day Sienna Ricci walked into my life. Now, I wish the word love could even begin to portray the way I feel for her.
Tears streaming down from both of our faces, we intertwine our bodies and somehow make it in a swift motion from standing to panting on the floor. Clothes go flying as tears continue to fall. Fierce, intense kiss after kiss, we lock eyes on each other and there is nothing else in this world that matters.
“Leo, my Leo,” she cries out between kisses.
“Sen, my beautiful Sen.” I kiss her cheek, reveling in the salt that is her tears. There is not a part of this woman I don’t love, not a part of her I don’t want to know. Her happiness, sadness, anger, revenge, brokenness are hers just as much as they are mine. Every good, bad, and mundane part of her is living breathing art.
With the music still playing in the background, she straddles me as she grinds against my growing length. In a matter of seconds, she guides me into her. The warm embers from the fireplace illuminate her every curve as she bounces with more intensity on top of my dick.
The sound of the crackling fire mixed with her wetness as she rides me is like music to my ears. I look over to the antique mirror across from us. I begin kissing her neck as I stare at our intertwined reflection. It is then I see the pieces of the locket fall into place. My right rib tattoo joins her left rib tattoo. As our bodies collide, the pieces of the locket tattoo join. An insanely poetic way to fuckmi reina.
She flashes a seductive grin as she begins to pick up the speed as she rides me. As if, this didn’t feel good enough already, she lifts both her delicate hands to her breasts as she starts playing with the barbells that pierce through her nipples. She licks her full lips and then says the most intoxicating words I have ever heard.Her poetry.
Out from her mouth pours the words that inspired our tattoo. The words that I have replayed in my mind every single fucking day, to help me make it through the depravity that has engulfed my being.
