Page 7 of The Rook’s Obsession

“I’m sorry, Laura. I really am.”

My name is Ivy, I want to say, but the words dissolve as the darkness takes me.

NICK

She weighs almost nothing.

That’s the first thought that hits me as I catch her once she goes limp. My arm is still around her waist when her body goes slack as the sedative takes over. The gun slips out of her hand and thuds softly on the carpet. Her head drops back against my shoulder, and for a few seconds, I stand there in the dark, holding her, breathing hard, trying to process the fact that this is actually happening.

I spent two days planning this exact scenario, and now that it’s here, the only thing I can think about is how small she is. Compact, all muscle and sharp edges… but there’s a fragility underneath it she would kill me for noticing. She’ll probably try once she wakes up.

Carefully, I lower her to the bed with one hand behind her head, so it doesn’t hit the mattress too hard. Considering I just stuck a needle into her neck, it seems kind of ridiculous to worry about her head now, but I can’t help it. Some old instincts never die, no matter how much the world tries to beat them out of you.

She looks different now that she’s unconscious. No more tension in her jaw. The hard line of her full mouth has softened into something that’s almost peaceful. Without the cold light in her eyes, without her gun, she looks younger. Almost like the girl I remember.

I need to stop doing this. Comparing her to who she was. It’s not fair to either version of her, and if I’m not careful, it’s going to get me killed. I’ll end up forgetting who I’m up against at the worst possible time, and then I’ll be fucked.

So when my hand drifts to where dark hair hangs across her forehead after our struggle, I close my eyes and pull it back before I can make contact.

The handcuffs are in my bag, along with more of the sedative, and I grab them now to secure her left wrist to the metal frame of the headboard. I test the cuff twice, making sure it’s tight enough to hold but not so tight it’ll cut off her circulation. She’s going to be pissed as hell when she wakes up. The least I can do is make sure she’s not in pain.

Next, I collect her weapons. The Beretta from the floor. A Glock strapped to her ankle. A blade in her right boot, thin and sharp enough to fillet a man. Laying them out on the desk, I stare at them for a while. She came here carrying three weapons, and each one was meant for me.

I run a hand over my face before dropping into the chair by the window. I’m too damn tired to think about what it all means, and thinking about it won’t help a damn thing, anyway.

Now there’s nothing to do but wait for her to wake up.

The sedative will keep her under for a couple of hours, which gives me time to think about strategy instead of feelings while listening to her slow, steady breathing. I need to plan. To figure out what the hell I’m going to say when she opens her eyes and realizes she’s cuffed to a bed in the same room where she shot me.

My thigh aches at the reminder. Two days of healing isn’t much. The stitches pull every time I move wrong. I’ve been managing it with ibuprofen and stubbornness, which is about as effective as it sounds. My limp is noticeable. I caught the front desk woman eyeing it yesterday when I went out for supplies, but something tells me she’s seen worse. She only sighed and went back to what she was doing.

Two days. Waiting. Knowing Laura would come back. I cleaned up the blood as best I could, though there won’t be any lifting that stain from the carpet without some kind of shampooer. I did my best. And then I waited. Sitting in this chair, watching from the window in the dark where she couldn’t see me. I caught her rounding the corner tonight, and I took my place behind the door, syringe in hand.

Even then, having the upper hand, I almost fumbled the ball when she reacted like lightning. She almost got free. That elbow to my ribs will leave a bruise for a week. She’s fast, trained, and if I’d been half a second slower with the needle, she would’ve put me on the ground.

This is the worst time for respect and pride to take hold, but I can’t help it. This is the girl who used to scream her head off when she saw a spider—and God forbid a mouse show up somewhere. But here she is now, and she’s incredible.

I lean forward in the chair with my elbows on my knees and watch her sleep. The slow rise and fall of her chest. The way her free hand curls loosely at her side, fingers twitching every so often like she’s reaching for a weapon even in her dreams.

She must have scars from the explosion. There’s no way she could’ve escaped that without at least some evidence of it. So many of the people on the boat were killed, including her parents. The fact that she survived at all is a miracle. There’s no way she escaped unscathed.

I can’t help remembering that day. The day I realized she was gone. The feeling of someone reaching into my chest, ripping out everything that mattered. The explosion on the boat during the reception Laura didn’t want to attend in the first place. I would rather be with you. I’ll never forget her saying that. She was hoping we could take that day for ourselves, with Liam and their parents on the boat and the two of us doing what we usually did when we managed to sneak off together for a little while.

A lot of the details have blurred over time, but not the sense of there being a hole in my chest where my heart used to be. Not the question of how the world kept turning when Laura wasn’t in it anymore. I didn’t know grief could feel like that. Like a wound that never closes. For months afterward, I would forget. I would see something funny and think, Laura would laugh at that. And then it would all come crashing back. The forgetting made it worse because it meant starting over every time.

Liam turned his grief into fuel. It made him harder, sharper. He built an empire out of rage and loss, and I stood beside him through it all. I didn’t know what else to do. Standing still meant feeling it, and feeling it meant drowning.

And now she’s here. Alive and breathing. Cuffed to a bed because she would’ve slit my throat if I’d given her the chance.

What a fucking world.

She’s been out ninety minutes by the time I check the clock. The sedative is reliable—I’ve used it before, though never on someone I’m in love with. She should start coming around within the next thirty to forty-five minutes or so. I need to be ready.

I pick up the room phone and call down to the front desk. The kitchen isn’t exactly gourmet, but that’s fine. I’m not looking for gourmet food. “Can I have two cheeseburgers, please? Yes, French fries with both. And a side of mayonnaise, please.”

French fries dipped in mayo. Laura’s favorite. I never did understand why she loved it, which of course meant she would go overboard sometimes just to make me gag. One of the reasons I loved her. That playful sense of humor. Liam used to tell me I was too serious—which was almost funny, coming from him—but Laura knew how to draw me out. And nobody laughed at a dirty joke harder than she did.

It’s another twenty minutes before the food arrives. I make sure to step out into the hall rather than leave the door open too wide. All I can do is hope any questions the clerk has are covered by the generous tip I give him. I take the food inside and set everything on the small table by the window, leaving it covered so it’ll stay warm. Then I sit back down in the chair and wait.