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“Not gonna happen.”
Her voice hardens. “I told you I would pay my debt and get out of here no matter what it takes.”
We’re getting close to downtown now, the buildings crowding together.
“The interest is mounting faster than you’re paying it off,” I counter. I mean, that’s by design. That was the whole fucking point of the deal I made with O’Malley.
“We’ll see about that,” she whispers. Her voice remains quiet when she suddenly asks, “But what happens if you don’t want to deal with me anymore? If I do something to make you angry, or you just want to be done with me?”
“Also not gonna happen.” I want to wring her father’s neck even more than usual at this moment. He’s made her feel like something dispensable, something to abandon.
“You never know. You could get bored with me.”
My jaw tightens as I manoeuvre through Toronto’s downtown.
“I have watched you and waited for you since you were eighteen years old. You have turned me into a bleeding goddamn heart, or at least a bleeding wallet. I just paid six figures to find out what is going on in that head of yours because I can’t stand not knowing a single thing about you. Getting bored is not even in the realm of possibility.”
We’re outside the building for her first class of the term, a lecture for her Musical Developments from the Middle Ages to the Renaissance course. There’s nowhere to pull over, so I stop the car in the middle of traffic. Honking bleats from behind me, but I ignore it, focused solely on Deirdre.
“I just need to know where I stand,” she says, unbuckling her seatbelt.
I take off my sunglasses and put them down, then grab the bag I arranged for her.
“You will stand where I tell you to,” I reply. I get out of the car and walk around it. After opening the passenger door, I grab her hand and pull her to her feet. I hold her hand a second longer than is necessary while traffic piles up behind us, our covered palms sealed together. “You stand right beside me.”
Chapter 32
Deirdre
Elio’s gaze is so absorbing, dark and expansive, that the sound of angry Toronto drivers behind us is completely wiped out. The sun is bright on the buildings, wet with winter, creating a sparkling, steely backdrop. One of Elio’s wayward curls has fallen forward again, and I both want to brush it back into place and tug it further forward to make him look more mussed, more human.
“All clear, Boss.”
A voice from directly beside us pulls me out of Elio’s void. Elio lets go of my hand, but quickly loops an arm around my waist, drawing me into his side as we turn to face a tall man with short hair and hazel eyes.
Elio hands the keys to him.
“Good. Go park, then keep your eye on things, Enzo.”
Enzo nods and gets into the car, putting it into drive and taking off down the street.
“Ready?” Elio asks me. I glance from him to the building behind him. Students are streaming through the doors, carrying normal, everyday things like coffees and laptops and books.
“Not really,” I say. “I don’t even have my school stuff.” I’ll just have to pay really close attention since I can’t take any notes. Yeah, pay attention with the most dangerous man in the city breathing down my neck. Sure.
Elio hoists a bag, holding it up in front of me. I hadn’t seen it before, and now that the car is gone it’s like he’s pulled a rabbit out of a hat. Like the bag came from thin, cold air.
It’s a gorgeous bag – a creamy leather backpack the same colour as the fur on the hood of my new coat. I take it from him, opening it to find a brand-new rose gold laptop, along with the books I’ll need for the two classes I’m attending today.
“I already have a school laptop,” I say with dismay, imagining more money piling on top of my debt. I picture it like a leaning tower of Piza of bills in my head. Like it’s about to topple and bury me. I close the bag. “I feel like there should be a rule where if you buy me something I already have, don’t need, and didn’t ask for, then I shouldn’t have to pay for it.”
“I highly doubt you still have a laptop,” Elio says. “It’s pretty likely that Sev’s guys took anything of value after your dad left. Or Darragh ransacked the place. Maybe both.”
My stomach lurches. I don’t know why I assumed the house and my possessions would still be waiting for me after this whole ordeal is over, but I did. Stupid. I am so stupid.
“How come you didn’t do that? How come you haven’t started repossessing all our stuff?”
Elio doesn’t speak for a moment. Instead, he takes one of my hands, then the other, lifting each arm and sliding the straps of the backpack up until it hangs on my back. He tightens the straps at the front of my shoulders.
