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“Hey,” she whispered into my ear and I realized that I was crying. “Hey, oh, Poppy. It’s all right. It’s okay. Give us some privacy, would you?” Zilla snapped, and because I didn’t want to show my fear to Ronan, I didn’t lift my head. I only heard him lock the door and walk away into the kitchen. I wiped my eyes, putting on the bravest face I had, but Zilla, as usual, saw right through it.
“Stop,” she whispered, sitting me down on the couch. “Don’t pretend. You’ve pretended you’re okay enough for two lifetimes. Tell me what’s wrong.”
And suddenly, it was all pouring out of me. The girl in the shop. Men being killed around me. Being on the run. Being married. So much had happened and I hadn’t processed even a second of it. Until now.
Until the comforting familiarity of my sister’s arms.
“Is he hurting you?” Zilla asked.
“No. God. No. He’s not,” I said. I took a deep breath, getting myself under control. “That was just…it’s been a fucking week, Zilla. How did you get here?”
“We got back from London like three hours ago and that asshole came knocking on my door.” She jerked her thumb back towards the kitchen where Ronan lingered near the doorway, not even pretending he wasn’t listening to us.
Ronan went and got her, because he knew I’d be worried. Because he knew I needed her. Something sweet pierced my grief and I took a deep breath.
“Now. Come on. Tell me why you had to get married,” Zilla said.
I sensed Ronan and glanced over at the kitchen where he stood in the doorway. Very carefully and very clearly, he shook his head no. Don’t tell her everything.
I felt another sob rise up in my throat. After getting married, I’d kept part of my life to myself. The worst of what the senator did to me, in fear of Zilla and her vigilante justice and perhaps because I was not brave enough to say out loud the things that happened to me in the dark rooms of my house.
And I appreciated that I needed to keep some of what was happening a secret from Zilla, in an effort to keep her safe. But she was my sister and I was really alone. I told her what I could. Aware every minute of Ronan watching us. Me.
“I never liked Caroline,” Zilla said.
“I know. And you were right to not trust her. I’m sorry,” I said. “So much pain could have been avoided if I had trusted you and not her.”
She pulled me back into her arms. “It’s all right,” she whispered into my hair.
“I don’t know if I would be so forgiving if the roles were reversed.”
“You’ve forgiven me plenty, Pops. We’re family. That’s what we do.”
It felt for a moment, on that couch in Ronan’s apartment, like we were young and safe beneath the branches of that willow tree. Safe for the time being. Safe because we were together. But it was as much an illusion now as it had been then. Maybe more.
Zilla wore a dark skirt that swished around her knees and a pair of black Doc Martins. She didn’t have any makeup on and I couldn’t help but think she looked so young.
“Hey,” she said. “I have something for you. I went by your house before your guard dog over there made me go to England.” She cast a narrow-eyed look at Ronan. “I grabbed these.” She had a giant purse with her and she pulled out a stack of frames. All my old photos of us as kids that I had on my dressing table. There was one picture of the two of us and Mom, looking glamorous at some Constantine Christmas party.
“Zilla,” I whispered. I’d forgotten about the pictures, and now that they were back in my hands, I couldn’t believe I would have let these go. The only thing in that house that meant anything to me. “Thank you.”
“And this.” She grabbed a bulging plastic grocery bag out of her purse and held it out to me.
“What in the world?” Inside the bag there was all my jewelry. The good costume stuff and the very good real stuff. A velvet box in the bottom with the black pearls from Jim’s mother. “You grabbed my jewelry?”
“If we were going on the run, I thought we could sell it.” Zilla sounded a little sad that we weren’t going on the run. I thought of Caroline telling me to leave. To drain my accounts and take Zilla and run. We could have a well-funded escape.
But there was a reason she wanted me to leave. And I wasn’t going anywhere until I found it out. I set the jewelry down on the floor with a thunk.
The senator had been fond of giving me jewelry as if it made up for what he did to me. The more of it I wore, the more smug he’d look because it added to the sense that we belonged among the Constantines. Like it was camouflage. He really was such a small man. It was ludicrous that I gave him as much power as I did.
