“Not at all. It gets better.” At this, a smile slid over my face. She was going to like this part of the story—a little levity, a slightly-happier-than expected ending. “That was the night I met our boy, Ronan.”
Twenty
GRAY
“What?” I bolted upright in the bed, sure I’d misunderstood him. “Ronan just happened to show up on your doorstep at the exact moment you and your sister were about to die?”
“As crossroads demons are known to do, I guess,” he said. “See, Elena had told me she was going to kill me, and then she was going to kill herself. It wasgoingto happen, the forces already set in motion. I saw it play out like a movie, and I knew there’d be no talking her out of it—not even if I’d wanted to. My sister has always been stubborn—you might have picked up on that.”
I let out a soft laugh. Ihadpicked up on it. It was one of the things I really, really liked about her.
“Anyway,” he said, “she flipped off the safety, steadied her aim. And I nodded and told her I was sorry, and that I loved her, and I understood why she had to do this. Then I closed my eyes, waiting for the bite of that bullet. Praying it would be quick, but knowing it wouldn’t. Silver poisoning is… unpleasant.”
I shuddered again, remembering his tortured body in the warehouse, the way the silver had eaten through his flesh and bones, slowly killing him. A hundred years could pass, and I’d never forget that sight. The fear. I only hoped thathehadn’t remembered it. That he’d passed out long before the full gruesomeness of his predicament had set in.
“But instead of the pop of a gun,” he continued, “I heard Elena gasp. I opened my eyes to see her staring at a point just past my shoulder, her mouth hanging open in shock. So I turn around, and there’s this brooding, black-eyed demon leaning back against our kitchen counter, cracking a beer and tossing the bottle cap into the sink. ‘Oh, don’t mind me,’ he said, taking a swig. ‘Just here for the show. Continue, please.’”
Emilio’s soft smile turned into a full-on laugh, and the sound of it unleashed the floodgates. It was like a needle popping a balloon that just kept expanding and expanding, and now I laughed, too. The things he’d shared with me had been so dark, so tragic, I marveled at the fact that we still remembered how to laugh—that we could do it so soon after talking about everything else. But I cherished that laughter, too. It felt like my wolf and I had been lost in a dark, dangerous forest together, so certain we’d never find our way back to the light. And now here we were. Laughing.
I closed my eyes and took a moment to send a prayer of thanks to the universe.
What bodies, these. What magic. What love.
Then I laughed even harder as the picture of Ronan sharpened in my mind. “Oh my God, he’ssucha drama queen!”
“Well, he knows how to make an entrance, I’ll give him that.”
“But how did he get there? How did he know what was going on?” I had so many questions, all of them rushing out at once. “What was he evendoing?”
“To put it bluntly, Elena was about to commit murderandsuicide, and apparently this is one of Sebastian’s favorite combos. Not to mention the fact that I had the most guilty conscience of anyone alive. I guess he thought we were good candidates to go darkside, so Ronan was dispatched to negotiate a deal for our tarnished souls and carry us back to hell.”
“But youweren’tgood candidates, obviously.”
“Oh, you should’ve seen Elena’s face! The mere idea of working for the Prince of hell got her all riled up again…” Emilio shook his head, almost like he still couldn’t believe the turn of events. “You might say Sebastian gave her back the will to live. Ranting and raving at Ronan the entire time about how presumptuous he and his boss were, she emptied out the bullets and chucked them out the window right then. And when she turned back to meet my eyes, there was so much rage and disgust and fire—fire I hadn’t seen in years. In that moment, I knew she’d survive. Not because she’d get over it or forgive me or forget what’d happened in Argentina, and not because she’d find a healthy way to deal with it. No. I knew that the anger in her now would fuel her for as long as it took.”
Emilio blew out a breath, the earlier levity slipping away again, just as I knew it would. Humor existed even in the darkest corners of a tragedy, but wounds like this didn’t just disappear after a good laugh. This was the first time Emilio had ever talked about all of this—I felt that, deep in my bones. He still had a long way to go to releasing his shame and all the pain that came along with it, and to putting the pieces of his relationship with Elena back together, if that was even a possibility. But he’d done the hardest part tonight—starting the process. Speaking the words. Freeing himself of having to carry it alone.
“After giving Ronan a piece of her mind, and telling him he owed her three bucks for the beer, she looked me dead in the eye and told me to pack my bags and leave the Cape. She said she never wanted to see me again.
“Just the fact that she’d survived the night, that I’d survived the night, that all felt like a gift, and I didn’t want to take that for granted. I knew I’d caused her so much pain already, I just… Honoring her wishes—leaving, for good—it felt like the only decent thing left to do.”
“So you ended up in the Bay,” I said, connecting the dots. “Ronan helped you.”
“You know he has a thing for strays.” Emilio laughed again—not quite as exuberant as the last one, but a laugh nevertheless. “He offered to help me get set up in the Bay, and the rest, as they say, is history. I got a job on the force, met Darius soon after that, did some consulting with him. He was still practicing law back then, before he traded all that in for Black Ruby. Ronan and I didn’t see each other all that much—he had his work, and I had mine, and our paths crossed only on occasion, but we always had that unspoken bond. And he knew, without my ever having to say as much, that when the time came when he needed me, I’d be there. No question.”
I let the magnitude of his words settle over me. “So before I came into the picture, you guys weren’t really all that close?”
“Well, yes and no. Like I said, we had that unspoken bond. But when you did come, it brought us closer once again. And then when Sophie passed away and you started coming into your powers and everything else happened, well…” Emilio sighed. “Now I can’t imagine Ronannotbeing a part of my life.”
I poked him in the ribs and smiled. “So you’re saying that my craziness is the glue that bonds you guys?”
“No, Gray,” he said seriously. “You coming into our lives and bringing us all together like this… It’s the best thing that’s ever happened to me. And I’m pretty sure the rest of the guys feel the same way.”
“Me, too,” I said, holding his gaze, still marveling at all he’d been through, at everything he’d survived in order to end up here. In my arms. In the home of a sister he’d once thought he’d have to turn his back on forever.
During one of our infamous brownie sessions, back before anything romantic had happened between us, Emilio had told me,People do all sorts of misguided things when they’re trying to protect the ones they love, querida. Let’s just say I know something about that.
At the time, I’d sensed that he’d endured some terrible losses in his life, that he’d carried a truckload of regrets. But I’d had no idea the depths of his pain.
