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Retribution.
So that’s why Callum blamed me, even though I’m only here because he and Ciaran brought me here.
It doesn’t matter. Six months under the brutal thumb of Vito Rossi and I’m used to being at fault, even when none of it is mine. I’m just disappointed to find it here. My rose-colored glasses have been well and truly ripped off.
Fear squeezes my chest, making it difficult to breathe, but it’s not for me; it’s for dear, sweet Róisín and the thought of what that butcher might do to her. Hers is the kind of innocence he’d take a deep-seated, twisted pleasure in defiling, and I have first-hand knowledge of just what that might entail. My heart bleeds for the girl who has become my friend because I don’t want her to be tainted by my reality.
“Has he made demands?” I ask quietly, dreading what I’m aware is to come but knowing it’s inevitable.
Ciaran stuffs his hands into his pockets and shakes his head, unable to look at me. “Not yet,” he replies hoarsely.
I don’t think he’s going to supply any more details, but he surprises me. His words are no relief, though.
“He’s had her for three days.”
“Three days… but how?”
How did they not know until now?
Yet even as I think it, I’m availed with my own guilt, because I hadn’t noticed she was gone, either. I’ve been too involved with her brother to miss that she hasn’t been around.
“We thought she was with Emylyah. She was mad at us… at Callum.”
Because of me, I realize. Because of the way he’d treated me. Now it all made sense. This is why Callum blamed me. Róisín must have put herself in danger somehow because of her defense of me and she’d paid the ultimate price in doing so.
It also explains the stark distance I could feel growing between Ciaran and I.
Three days.
The same three days we’ve spent entwined in each other so blissfully.
Blissfully unaware.
I can feel the same guilt I feel emanating from Ciaran, like it’s a living thing, and my soul cries for everything I’m about to lose and everything I’m about to be subjected to all over again.
Things have come full circle, so I say it before he can, once again wanting to be master of my own destiny. “You’re going to have to give me back… a straight swap.”
The words swirl into the air, taking on their own reality in a helpless, hopeless whisper.
It’s not a question. Hell, in my own way, I’m giving him permission. Absolving him of yet another layer of guilt, with my understanding.
Ciaran looks at me, his expression tortured, then looks away, his Adam’s apple bobbing as he swallows.
Then he gives a curt nod and walks away.
The other shoe has most definitely dropped.
Chapter Thirty-Five
MARICELA
It’s another four days before the Viper makes contact.
During that time Ciaran has pulled away completely, and I’ve hardly seen him. When I have, he’s been distant and uncommunicative, but I guess that’s not so surprising. I know he’s been torturing himself about whether he’d have realized Róisín was missing sooner if he hadn’t been so preoccupied with me, and a little part of me dies every time he stares at me with guilt and blame written all over his handsome face. I don’t think it’s true; after all Callum didn’t sense anything was wrong, and he didn’t have the same excuse. But I know better than to bait the bear by saying as much.
I don’t know where Ciaran’s sleeping, but it’s not here, and right now, I’m just thankful I haven’t been thrown back into those basement cells. Though I have no doubt that might have been the case if Callum had his way, so I count my blessings, however small they are.
If anyone had bothered to ask me, I could have told them this type of silence is all part of the Viper’s sadistic strategy. He likes nothing more than to make people sweat, and every day that passes without news increases the tension like incremental cranks of the rack until everyone’s stretched to breaking point.
