I don’t say anything. She’s staring up at me, tears streaming down her pink cheeks, her nose red and flaring with fear and fury. I let her hands go only to cradle her cheeks instead. Her small hands wrap around my wrists.
“Listen to me,” I plead. “I love you. I will love you forever. Even when we’re nothing but bones in the ground, I will find you in the afterlife and cherish you like I always have. I will hold you and kiss you and fall asleep with you wrapped in my arms. I will spoil you and give you a wedding ring with my last name to match. I will buy you yachts and islands and mansions all over the world so you can feel safe. I will do all of this even if you fight me because you know better than anyone that boundaries have never stopped me. One day, only when you’re ready, I will fill you with my love again, and I promise I will do it so thoroughly you will forget all that pain you went through for me. You’ll forget about the secrets and the lies and how betrayed you felt when you found out the truth. I will chase away all your demons because you know I’m scarier than they’ll ever be. I’ll do everything for you until the only thing you know how to do is love me back.” I take a deep breath and wipe away her sorrow with my thumbs. “But I can’t do any of that if you leave me, Elena, so I ambeggingyou to stay.”
“I know why I did it,” she says, her voice breaking.
I just poured my heart out to her, and she’s making no sense.
She stares at me with those big brown eyes with so much intensity it feels like she’s burning a hole through my body straight to my soul, like she’s ready to grab it by the throat and shake it until I understand.
“Ask me why, Christian.”
I open my mouth to tell her I don’t know what she wants, but I stop myself when the realization hits me like a truck. She wants me to ask her why she let Frank and Neil do those horrible things to her.
I let out a nervous scoff, my own voice cracking when I ask, “Why did you keep my secret?”
She sucks in a sharp breath, flattening the letter I wrote her against my chest, her words coming out as pathetic whimpers.
“Because I love you, too.”
The sound that escapes me is somewhere between a prayer, a whimper, and a scoff. I think I’ve gone into shock. I think I’ve gone into cardiac arrest. I think I’m dead.
She cries out a hurt laugh, shrugging her shoulders as her hands fall to her sides and the letter falls to the floor. “You’re not going to say anything?” Her face twists painfully into a look of betrayal and defeat. Tears fall off her cheeks and onto her shirt as she tries to pull away, but I don’t let her move a single inch before I’m crashing our lips together.
I can taste her tears on my tongue. Or maybe they’re mine. She’s fighting me. Struggling to break free of my grasp but at the same time, she doesn’t stop kissing me. Not until we’re out of breath and panting.
Her sad eyes look up at me and all I want to do is kiss away her tears and hug her until I’ve fused us together.
She takes a deep breath and pulls away from my hands. “Will you give up the Silencer?”
We’re in a quiet standoff. She’s so brave for keeping her eyes locked on mine. Not many people can hold my stare without breaking, but she can. She knows that right now, in this moment, she’s the one with all the power.
“Yes. If that’s what it takes to get you to stay, yes.”
“Don’t say that if you don’t mean it.”
I take a deep breath and ask, “What about Frank Valenti?” It’s an important question. If she asks me to spare that fucker, then there’s no point in me pretending I can give up the Silencer. I will kill him, it’s just a matter of when. As soon as he stands downwind and I catch his scent, I will hunt him to the ends of the Earth until he is nothing but a mutilated heap of flesh in my hands.
She’s quiet for a heartbeat. My blood thrums in my veins, pulsing loudly in my ears.
“Kill him,” she finally says. “But he’s the last.”
I nod. “Okay. He’s the last,” I say, examining her. She looks frail. Not necessarily malnourished or skinny, but her spirit, her aura, looksfrail. I’ve never seen her look so uncomfortable in her own skin. “Did your parents bring you here?”
She shakes her head. “Gavin.”
Thank fuck for Gavin.
Carefully, I place a kiss to the crown of her head and whisper, “Let’s go home.”
A few minutes later, we’re in my car and headed towards the estate. Elena is rigid in her seat, staring blankly out the window. “Do you want to talk, Elena? About what happened to you?”
Without looking at me, she says with a monotone voice, “You know what they did to me. You saw it.”
“That’s not the same thing and you know it. You know I’m here for you, right? If you ever want to talk, or cry, or scream or hit me. I’m right here.”
She shakes her head. “There’s nothing to talk about, Christian.”
I nod. “Okay. I understand if you don’t want to talk right now, but it’s not good to keep it bottled up. Just…I’m here for you. Whenever you’re ready.”
