Page 56 of Reckless Witch

Raith stiffens, hand on the doorknob of the open door. In the next instant, he steps through the doorway and the door clicks shut with a finality that startles me.

Chapter Twenty-Four

ETHAN

Old Wounds

Five minutes later, I nod at Rebecca, Raith’s assistant who’s seated at her desk outside his private chambers, then enter his room without knocking. “What the hell was that?” I demand.

Raith looks up from the document lying before him on his desk.

I’ve known Raith far too long to get angry over his typically cold and calculating manner. But his laissez-faire attitude after Leilah’s near death—and his willingness to let her die—kindle my fire almost as violently as did the attempt on her life.

“Don’t think I won’t make good on my threat,” I say.

“Leilah is alive,” he says, unperturbed.

“No thanks to you,” I snap.

His brows rise. “It was my blood that saved her.”

I stare for half a dozen heartbeats, as much out of the need to gain control over my temper as shock. “Would you have really let her die?”

With a deep sigh, he leans back in his chair. “Think about the last forty years,” he says.

“You mean the years we spent mourning her, then fighting a war, then trying to protect Margidda from The Shadows?” I say.

He nods. “We’ve been focused, calm, content, even.”

“Content?” I snort. “We haven’t seen Caleb and Matthias in decades. Lie to yourself all you want, but I see the strain in you.”

Anger flashes in his eyes. “Nothing compared to the strain of having them in our lives.”

I stare, this time in complete shock. Only days ago, I was contemplating how I might have Ciarah more to myself if Caleb and Matthias weren’t here. Can I really be angry with Raith for being honest about how much easier our lives are without them? Is it possible that the issue is more than just not wanting the others in his life?

“You don’t love her anymore,” I whisper.

Something flickers in his eyes.

“You can’t even successfully lie to yourself,” I say.

“Love and hate are two sides of the same coin,” he replies.

“What the hell has gotten into you?” I begin, then his words slam into memory.

Ciarah cut out my heart forty years ago.

Why hadn’t I seen it before?

Forty years have passed, and I still don’t know exactly what happened the day Ciarah put a knife through Raith’s heart.

Ciarah’s grandmother owned a popular bakery in Chicago’s Latino district. That got Ciarah noticed by John Cordero. Her grandparents immigrated to the US from Greece, and their only daughter married a young Cuban bookkeeper who helped run the bakery. With jet black hair that brushed her waist, olive skin worthy of the gods, and emerald eyes, Ciarah was as much of a beauty as she is now.

But that beauty proved her undoing. Try as we might, we couldn’t convince her to stay away from John. Even if he’d intended to marry her, she would have been miserable inside of a year. Men like John know only how to conquer. But, like most women, she foolishly thought she could control the mob boss. As a result, Raith nearly died by her hand, and she had died, shot by John. Then died in Caleb’s arms.

Raith had been too weak to save her. I often wondered if Caleb never forgave him for that. No one was surprised when Caleb disappeared. A wolf licks its wounds in private. What surprised us was that he never returned. Just before The Shadow attack, Matthias went looking for Caleb and also disappeared.

“You haven’t forgiven her for her relationship with Cordero,” I say.