Thorns of Roses

Hell

Song for this Chapter:

I don’t Wanna Live Forever-ZAYN feat. Taylor Swift

CHAPTER 25

CORINNE

Blaze immediately took me to his car without even looking back at his bloody cousin, I know that he doesn't care about Diesel but at least as a human being, he has to make sure that the person he left who almost died from the beating is okay. I don't know if I'm stupid or if I just had high expectations for the boy I grew up with then, I didn't think he would grow up to be like this?

“We should tell our parents we’re going.” I told him, as if it will help me not to be with him tonight, I can’t be with him, he’s making me sick and wanted to vomit all the food I just ate. I don’t know if I am just being exaggerated or I must so drunk to all the wine I chug down earlier, but looking at him, and feeling his touch all over me is making my stomach churn in a very bad way.

“I just told you, you don’t have to be scared when you’re with me.” He shoved me inside the passenger seat of his car, the same place I used to sit down with him for almost 43 hours of driving.

I can’t stop but panic as he was putting the seatbelt on me, my hands were shaking and breathing is uneven. “I can do it.” I clicked the belt on my own.

He leans closer as his hands caging me inside his car “Are you scared of me?”

I can’t see his face too much because it’s so dark. But the hair all over my body prickles. “I am.”

“By the next two months, you are going to marry me.” He said that didn’t help to calm my nerves in fact it made me nervous and scared even more. I know what this man can do, I know what his kind. “In the next three weeks our engagement will be announced all over the world, you will be known as mine and mine alone.”

I swallowed hard “Is that why your investigation with Gian’s death will be released in three weeks? Because of this?”

“No, if I can I will f*****g shove you to the result right now.” He snaps.

“I can’t—I can’t be with you, you’re scaring me.” I told him in all honesty.

“You have to deal with it, you have to f*****g deal with me because you’re not going anywhere.” There’s a venom laced on his tune.

“You’re a manipulative, psychotic killer, Blaze. You should get some help—”

Before I can finish what, I was about to say, he put his huge hands all over my neck, shoving me deeper in my seat, controlling the air that’s going inside my lungs. My eyes were burning. I am not going to escape the prison my father had put me in. in fact, Blaze is just another monster lurking under my bed. He’s just like him, he’s one of them.

“You don’t know anything.”

I sob “I love Diesel. And he loves me—”

Another hard shove that made me squirm and close my eyes “You’re mine, Corinne. And you can’t escape your destiny.”

While he’s driving, I tried my best not to look at his way, I can’t, actually.

He just shows me his true colors, he made a phone call and I figured it was my Father, he told him that we’re going to stay for the weekend in his house here in Malibu, and he fake chuckle knowing that he doesn’t give a f**k about my father.

He stopped in a bungalow house that built in mirrors, it’s kind of sophisticated and captivating look. I figured that the mirrors were bulletproof and anyone from outside can’t see the inside. But it’s the other way around when you’re inside of his house.

The view from the inside is exquisite. You can see the dark ocean and the beach with no people around it. He said the beach is his private property. And I just nod, he’s back from being cruel to the Blaze I saw for the last weeks. I am sure he needs to see a psychiatrist, he’s bipolar or something and it’s making me sick.

The only lights inside were the Moon from outside that illuminates us. I sat down on his couch feeling as uncomfortable than ever and he sat down in front of me.

"We need to agree on something in order for this family merger to work." He starts.

He’s making me feel that whatever it is were doing or going to do is purely business, but what did Diesel told me about Blaze’s sick fascination towards me.

“What did Diesel meant earlier when he said you planned this yourself since the first time you saw me?” I pressed.

He smirks “It’s true. I want you.”

I swallowed hard “Why me?”

“Because you remind me of someone I just knew when I am young, turns out her and you are the same person. I am sure you know the story about me and you back in the past, right? Do I have to repeat the story in order for you to remember me?”

I sigh “Blaze—” I looked at him, truly look in his eyes and tried my best to see him as my Matty, but I can’t. I just keep remembering him the night he almost killed me too when I found Gian lying on the floor, dead. “I remember you too well, but I can’t remember the way I feel about you by then.”

“You told me, you make me promised to you that I should do anything just to find you, and even marry you when I do.”

I remember that, Matty was my first love and not Diesel. I used to cry a lot when my Mother decide to resigned in his family. And how I used to miss him every time.

“We were young, and naïve and innocent and we didn’t know what we’re doing back then, Blaze.” I can see a hint of pain in his eyes when I said those words. “I am so young when I told you that.”

“Too bad—” he smirks darkly “I don’t care.”

I took a deep breath and massage my temple “Three weeks.”

“What?”

“Give me three weeks for me to prove what I am. In three weeks, we will figure out what happened to Gian Montgomery and in three weeks you will f*****g give me a chance.”

There’s a hint of desperation in his voice. I shake my head “I can’t Blaze.”

He leans his back on the couch, infuriatingly calm and put his arms on his chest while his gaze is fixated on me. “What? Are you just going to mope around while the man you f*****g love marry your own sister?”

I sob “You made him do it. He loves me. and you f*****g tortured him just to stay away from me.”

He chuckles “Serves him right for touching something that isn’t his in the first place.”

“I am not yours, Blaze!” I snap. “I will never be yours.”

He stood up, and looked down at me, towering me. “I asked you nicely to date me in three weeks, Now, I won’t give you any choice but to date me.”

“I can’t. how may time do I have to tell you that you f*****g scares me!” I stood up too, trying to get on his level.

He touched my face gently, whilst his eyes held fire once again. He’s surprisingly mad but calm. “Suit yourself.” He turns his back on me “You can sleep there, and just so you know all the door inside this house is locked, don’t even think of going home alone.” He closes the door from what I can say is his room behind me.

I am drunk, tired and exhausted, so I just close my eyes in his soft couch and let sleep took over me.

I woke up from a very familiar tone, I slowly open my eyes to find Blaze already sitting to the position he was last sitting last night, except his only wearing black sweatpants and he’s topless.

He’s watching me sleep.

I looked down to see that I have a blanket on all over my body and I sat down slowly, I looked at my phone and it was Diesel who is calling me.

My phone rang again and before I can grab it, Blaze already did and answer the phone for me, the audacity of this man.

“f**k off.” He said while he’s looking at me.

I didn’t try to stop him, there’s no use. Instead I just looked at the beautiful sea outside his house with the rain pattering outside.

"Try to fight me Diesel, you know what I can do." He warns Die. Actually, I'm used to it, they are like this even before when there are no other people around them. He and Diesel never agreed on everything.

Both of them were really good acting like they are in good terms but the truth is they aren’t.

“I know who you really are behind that mask, Marco Anthony Mayhem.” I find his warning a different one, it’s like there’s a substance from what he said. I looked at him to find him already watching me, he said those words for me to hear.

No, I know Diesel very well. All of the people I should doubt, Diesel was not in that list. I can trust him with my life, for all I know.

He hung up my phone and dialed something on my phone once again “It’s me. Is there a progress in your investigation for Gian Montgomery’s death?”

I guess it’s his private investigator.

He just nods and put the phone on speakerphone and someone speaks on the other line: “I figured that she doesn’t have any friends at all except Corinne Lewis. And she seems to be a very secretive person as she’s acting at the theatre, she was last seen alive. Her parents didn’t know that.”

“I know that.” I whispered. And Blaze looks at me.

"It was said in the theater that Gian Montgomery didn't go there for almost a month before her death. And someone always picked her up in a Black SUV outside the theater every night."

“Okay, is there anything else?” Blaze pressed.

“Nothing for now, Boss.”

“Okay, call me again with my number or here if there’s any lead.” He hung up.

“You didn’t have a Black SUV.” I told him defeated.

“I don’t, and I won’t ever have. SUV wasn’t my type.” He said and I looked at him. “She’s blind, everyone can manipulate her for telling her that he is me. I don’t even know your friend at all when all I can see is you.”

That caught me off guard, “I am still going to wait for the investigation.”

He points to the kitchen island and I saw a buffet of breakfast “Eat.” He said.

I didn’t need to be told twice as I am starving really hard.

I sat down in his kitchen stool and start eating. He sat in front of me, eating with me.

“What’s going to happen if I said no about this marriage?”

“We will look for another politician who have a daughter who is willing to marry me, I am sure everyone will kill to have the position that you have right now, except you.” He shrugs. “We will cut all the ties with the Lewis’ and your father is known for doing some illegal s**t for this country and he won’t have our support with that happens.”

And if that happens, my Mom will suffer. Marcus will also cut my Mom’s health and financial needs, she will suffer. Because I chose to be selfish.

“Is it that bad to marry me?”

I just looked at him and chose not to answer him, he knows too well what I will answer him, and we both know it wasn’t good at all.

Blaze just nods and continue to eat his food “Eat, I will drive you home.”

Home.

Why does when he said that I feel drowning even more than to be with him in this unfamiliar place with no one?

Does this mean that it’s better to be with him than to be with my Father?

“I will play along with the merger.” I told him.

And that must catch him off guard because he stopped eating and chose just to look at me.

“Good.”

I looked up my phone to find Die texted me telling me that we need to talk, I answered him that we should knowing what I need to say to him.

Blaze’s once told me that I should never feel scared when I am with him, maybe I need to hug that down.

What else is scarier in this world than hell, it is better for the Devil himself to hug me than to burn in hell forever.