Page 54 of Cold Mercy

I cross the distance between us before she can throw another accusation. My hands fly up, cupping her face, my thumbs wiping at the tears that won't stop falling. I force her to look at me, to see that there is no victory in my eyes, only wreckage.

“Happy?” I choke out, holding her gaze, refusing to let her look away. “I hate him more right now than you could possibly imagine for leaving you like this. But I would have let him be a saint forever if it meant keeping you whole.”

For a heartbeat, the fire in her gaze gutters and dies, leaving behind something terrifyingly hollow. She stares up at me, her eyes glassy and wide, searching mine. I can see the gears turning, the hesitation. She isn't looking at me like a savior, she is looking at me like a risk assessment. She is calculating the cost of trusting another man, wondering if I’m just another debt she’ll have to pay in blood later. For a second, she almost leans in.

Then, her wall comes back up.

She wrenches her face from my grip, stumbling like my touch burned her.

“Don’t touch me,” she whispers, her voice trembling. “I’ve had enough lies for today.”

She turns and storms upstairs, and I follow close behind. She bursts into the bedroom, but she doesn’t stop at the bed, going straight for the dresser, sweeping her arm across the surface in a violent arc. Framed photos of them crash to the floor, glass shattering, their smiling faces distorting under the cracks.

She keeps going, pushing through the double doors into the walk-in closet.

I stop in the doorway, and my chest tightens with a sick, jealous heat.

It’s a shrine.

While her side of the closet is a lived-in, messy collection of her life, his remains completely untouched, preserved like a museum exhibit.

Jackets pressed, shoes aligned, everything exactly where a dead man left it. She kept him alive in here. She kept a space for him that no one else was allowed to touch.

I want to burn it all down so she can never look at him again.

She lets out a strangled scream and starts ripping the clothes from the hangers. She throws them onto the floor in a heap, tearing at the fabric, then yanks a drawer open so hard it nearly comes off the tracks. She grabs a heavy watch box, spins around, eyes wild, and hurls it with everything she has.

It smashes into the glass display doors of the cabinet opposite her.

“He was fucking guilty!” she sobs, the fight suddenly draining out of her.

Her legs give out, sending her collapsing onto the floor amidst the glittering shards and the ruin of his clothes.

I move instantly, not stepping around the ruin of his clothes, but right through them. My boots grind the fabric of Noah's shirts into the floor with each step, a conscious, primal need to obliterate every trace of the man who put that look on her face.

“Sophia,” I breathe out.

She is buried in her hands, shaking. Blood is dripping from her brow, mixing with the tears on her face.

“We need to clean that cut.”

I don’t wait for permission as I reach down and scoop her up into my arms. She doesn’t protest, doesn’t fight, only cries, a hollow, exhausted sound that tears me apart. She feels impossibly light, as if the truth stripped the weight right out of her bones.

I carry her into the attached bathroom and set her on the cool marble of the vanity. Her legs dangle, lifeless, as I immediately step between them, closing the distance because I need her close.

I wet a cloth, my hands trembling just slightly. These hands are used to violence. They know how to break things, how to hold a gun, how to hurt. Touching her like this, trying to heal her…feels surreal.

I tilt her chin up to clean the blood from her temple.

Her eyes, hollowed out and red-rimmed, search mine.

“Why are you here?” she whispers. “I can handle this. I will be just fine.”

I hesitate, my thumb brushing away a smear of blood near her eye. The skin is so soft it makes my chest ache. I want to tell her I stayed because I can’t breathe when I’m not near her.

“I told you before,” I murmur, focusing on the wound. “I wouldn’t miss a chance…”

“To fuck with me?” she interrupts, a bitter, watery laugh escaping her. “Yeah, very funny.”