Page 96 of Queen of Ruin

The tea is sweet and fruity to taste but slips gently down my throat and within a few minutes, it’s as if the entire drink has pleasantly numbed my tongue and throat. It’s pleasant, more than pleasant, and I drain the entire cup within two minutes, then rest back and gaze up at the ceiling.

I’m overthinking things.

No one has asked me to leave. Valentina loves me and I love her. Then again, she has given me a bunch of building leases to scroll through. Is that a sign?

Groaning, I lie there for ten more minutes, then pick myself up and limp back to our bedroom. My thoughts are spiraling, but I know it’s because I’m worried about her being out there in the city tracking the very people who fucked her up and tortured me. This time, she’s with her team and her people, but I can’t shake the uncomfortable feeling that something is wrong.

Back in the bedroom, I sink down onto the bed and return to my phone. A couple of days ago, Valentina presented me with several leases to buildings that can easily be turned into the bar of my dreams. A gift from her to me, apparently a thank-you for saving her life. I tried to turn her down because it was far too much, but she saw right through my lie about returning to my old job.

They fired me for not turning up, so even if I wanted to go back, I can’t.

Valentina is offering me the opportunity to be my own boss. My own bar. Free from debt, because the Suit all paid that off, apparently, as a thank you for keeping Valentina alive and safe.

It’s a fresh start. A new place that’s all mine. One that I can grow and cultivate to be a safe haven for people like me, desperate for a place to connect after struggling with drugs or alcohol, or hell, kidnapping. Every building is close to the Empire State Building too, and in Valentina’s own words, it’s to ensure that I stay safe since there’s no leaving a world like this once you’re in it.

That should be proof enough that she wants me to stay.

Resting back on a pillow that smells like her, I scroll through all of the leases she found for me. A couple stand out to me immediately. Rustic bars, old-school pumps, and warm, unassuming entranceways that could create the cozy bar of my dreams.

Maybe I died because the fact that this is my reality is insane.

“Diego!” Valentina suddenly bursts into the room with her gorgeous hair flying, her eyes sparkling, and an alarming amount of blood staining her skin and dress.

“Val!?”

“Don’t panic, I’m fine!” she gasps, kicking off her heels and stumbling toward me. “I’m totally fine!”

“You don’t look fine!” I sit up just in time for her hands to collide with my face and she drags me in for a deep kiss that halts abruptly.

“Is your tongue okay?”

I nod. “Tender but okay. What about you, though?”

She kisses me again, harder, then darts away from me with the widest smile I’ve ever seen on her beautiful face. “I did it! Can you believe it? Everything we’ve been doing, everything I did before we even met, it finally paid off!”

“And the blood?” My stomach twists as the sight of her looking like this is painfully similar to the first time we met.

“Not my blood,” she assures me while removing her earrings. “I swear. All I got was a busted lip, but it was barely even that.”

“You swear?”

She pauses at her mirror and turns to me with a warm smile. “I promise, Diego. I’m fine.”

It’s difficult to swallow down the worry, but after a few seconds of staring into her eyes, I nod. “Okay. So, today was good?”

“So good! You remember how I said Ruslan and I would need to pretend to be husband and wife so we could sneak in there without raising suspicion?”

I nod. “Because you still haven’t found all the moles in the police force yet so you didn’t want him to be alerted.”

“Exactly. Well, it worked perfectly. We got up there and then it was like old times. I haven’t felt that alive since… oh, can you get my zipper?” She approaches me and turns while sweeping her hair over one shoulder so I can access the zipper on her dress, then she continues. “Well, I felt alive, but I finally felt like I was in control of my own body again, y’know? Like what I felt and what I knew finally meshed together. We killed all of the guards.”

The zipper, slightly sticky with blood, finally glides down her back after several tugs from me and she walks back to her dresser while slipping the straps down her shoulders.

“And then that fat fuck was out by the pool, sunning himself as if he hadn’t sentenced God knows how many children to a life of hell. So I killed him. Ruslan made some great shots and I scared that fucker. I know he knew the end was coming, and part of me wishes I’d killed him slower, but Diego, that’s not even the best part!”

Stepping out of her dress, she spins to face me with an excited smile.

“Don’t keep me in suspense!”