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“I’m sorry. I’m sorry you got shot for me.”
I stare at her so long without speaking that it apparently compels her to continue.
“I just feel like… Like, yes, it was your fault you were there in the first place. Because you were coming to take me. It’s not like you were at my house to sell Girl Guide cookies. But…” She sighs and runs a fluttery hand through her explosive hair. “But I’m not an idiot. I know I’d probably be dead if you hadn’t shown up at that moment.” Her hand falls back to her lap, and her fingers worry against each other. “I keep thinking… I keep thinking, what if I hadn’t raised that gun?”
“Then your father would probably be dead, or halfway there, instead of on some beach in Bermuda fucking a twenty-four-year-old,” I tell her. She flinches at my words, but they’re the truth. She distracted Sev’s soldier, brought the violence down on her own head, just so her piece of shit papà could get away. O’Malley isn’t that old, but he also isn’t fast. I doubt he would have made it otherwise.
He has no idea what kind of loyalty Deirdre is capable of. Not a damn clue how much she’s worth. What he’s lost by leaving her.
But I do. She’ll never feel that sort of loyalty towards me, but I can see it in her all the same. Like gold glinting at the bottom of a river. Shining metal holding strong under currents and ice and the thrashing of the seasons.
“Well, fine then. Whatever. You’re probably right. I snagged that guy’s attention so my dad could get away. And he just went ahead and left, just like he bartered me away, because apparently I’m fucking worthless.”
I stiffen.
“If you want to apologize,” I say slowly, almost menacingly, “then apologize for the words that just came out of your mouth.”
Her brows crash together.
“What-”
“Do not ever, ever, say something like that in front of me again.”
“Say what?” She pauses, her brows getting even more furrowed.
I grip the broken piece of ceramic and pull it out in a swift, sharp movement that makes Deirdre gasp. I disinfect the wound, knowing it stings but doing it anyway, because this is necessary and I know that she can fucking take it. As anticipated, the blood flows much faster now, and I slam a square of plush gauze against it, holding pressure there the same way I hold Deirdre’s gaze.
“I don’t pay millions of dollars for things that are worthless,” I tell her. “I don’t take bullets for things that are worthless.” I get out the white medical tape, sticking it tightly to her skin, holding the gauze in place. “What your father did speaks only to his own non-existent value as a person. Not yours.”
“What am I to you?” she whispers as I lay her foot back down on the towels.
Music and fire. Heaven and hell. Absolution and ruination, all at once.
I don’t say any of that as I rise and snap off the gloves. Her gaze holds the question her mouth just shaped. I look down at her and reply with a single word:
“Mine.”
Chapter 25
Deirdre
Elio grabs his leather gloves from beside the sink and leaves me after that, heading into his adjoining bedroom. I stay on the toilet for a long time, staring at my firmly and very precisely wrapped foot, propped up on a cushion of towels. A cushion he put there for me.
I have no idea what is going on between us. No idea why I can’t seem to hate him as singularly as before. No idea why his touch sets my blood boiling. No idea why I offered him my fucking virginity when he himself told me it would never get me out of here.
No idea why he bothered to bandage me up when he could have just as easily let me do it all myself. He could have laughed at me, mocked me, left me shaking and angry and bleeding after the humiliation of seeing me come twice. But he didn’t. Instead, he carried me up here, sank down on his knees before me, with those fathomless eyes and those terribly scarred hands, and took care of me.
Eventually I ease up onto my feet, limping over to the sink to splash my face with water and brush my teeth. I don’t see Elio in my bedroom, and I don’t hear anything from his. I wonder if he’s already asleep, or if he’s left altogether. Maybe to go see that beautiful blonde from the gala. Elio is more than six feet of pure, bloodthirsty testosterone. A guy like that probably needs to bend someone over nightly just to stay alive. And he was hard before. With me. The memory goes to my core like a heated blade.
And the thought of him sleeping with that blonde woman twists it.
OK, what the actual hell?
I do not care what other women Elio spends his time with. If anything, the more time he spends with other women, the less he’ll spend with me. I should be grateful. Relieved.
Then tell me why I’m not.
Maybe I’m too angry or too traumatized to feel gratitude right now. But then again, I have felt gratitude towards him for other reasons. For telling Rosa to make me tea. For turning off the security camera in the kitchen.
