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Nineteen
Aidan
Savannah wasn’tthe kind of woman who cried, so when she actually did, it took me by complete surprise. I had no alternative other than to hold her. To give her what I’d never been given—a shield of safety, a haven of comfort. The need to take her pain away was acute, but the need to hold her was even more powerful.
I had no idea how long we stood there like that, but I knew, and maybe she did too, that we reached a turning point.
She cried in front of me.
That was as much of a weakness as a creature like her was capable of.
Her walls had never been lower, and truth be told, I didn’t want them coming back up.
I loved her strength, loved that she was capable of going head to head with me, but this was more of a gift than she could know.
People weren’t weak around me.
They couldn’t afford to be.
I was Aidan O’Donnelly Sr.’s heir.
I was the future king of the Five Points.
Weakness around me was tantamount to asking for a target to be placed on your back.
Yet Savannah, in spite of knowing all this, hell maybe because of this, lowered her walls and handed me the key to the door that was her. Presenting me with something more precious than she could begin to imagine.
"I’ll help you make it up to Star," I told her, rubbing my lips along the still-damp hairline at her temple. Rage fluttered through me when I brushed against the Band-Aid I’d put there last night.
She gulped. "You will?"
Once upon a time, my word had been a promise. Pain and drugs had skewed that. Made me unreliable. Had taken away the power of the words that spilled from my lips. But she made me want to change that. If, for no other reason, than to help her claw back what she thought was broken between her and Star.
"I will," I promised, gently squeezing her. Curiosity had me asking, "You said you saw it firsthand. How?"
"I wasn’t talking to her and she finally got me to bite with news of the NWS. She knows I live for that shit. Anyway, I wasn’t sure whether to believe her or not, and I wasn’t about to risk the last of my rep on some of her BS, so she arranged for me to have a video call with some of the victims the Sparrows trafficked.
"I met them and I believedthem." She rubbed her forehead against my chest. "We let her down so badly, Aidan." Guilt rippled throughout the admission. "Until that video call, I didn’t believe her. Not until she showed me proof. What kind of a friend am I?"
"We always hurt the ones we love the most," I murmured, trying to soothe her but knowing nothing would other than her being proactive in this and bridging the chasm that had been allowed to develop between her and her childhood friend. "You have time to resolve things between you."
A shuddery breath escaped her, and I felt the heat of it against my chest as the warmth seeped into the fabric of my silk shirt.
That heat resonated on so many levels.
I’d been cold for years. Internally frozen in survival mode. Had she just started a thaw?
What was it about her that made me feel human again?
How did she do that?
How did she make it feel so right?
I’d never believed in chemistry other than the sexual kind. I saw a woman, wanted to fuck her, we fucked, that was it. Orgasms usually cleared up most cases of it, but not only had this chemistry not abated after we had sex, I’d actively avoided getting involved with her for years.
She’d triggered a level of selflessness in me that I didn’t even realize I was capable of. Maybe I wasn’t ordinarily, and maybe I was always bound to be different around her.
When she sniffled a few more times, then squeezed my waist in quiet thanks, in silence, we drifted apart and finished up in her apartment.
