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17
Burns heal.Bruises fade.
But trauma fucks you up. I don’t care how hard or tough you think you are. Trauma is harder. And the wounds it leaves under the surface will stay there for a long, long time. My best friend died nine years ago, and I’m still not “over” that.
I probably won’t ever be.
After a few days, yes, Ella is “better.” But, she’s not. You can see it in the way she flinches when a door shuts too loudly. By her lack of appetite. By the way she wakes trembling throughout the night.
Of course, she tells me she’s fine. She smiles. She sasses me. She delves into my library with her laptop to work on some new coding and design project. But I can see through her.
I always have.
A week after the explosion at the Charm, Inc loft, we’ve fallen into a sort of work from home schedule. For one, there’s no fucking way she’s going to The Slipper to work right now. And for once, she doesn’t fight me on that.
But we’re also both working from home because as capable and as trusted as my staff and security are, I’m not going to the office and leaving Ella. Not after what happened.
So, when the workday starts, she goes to the library, I go to my home office. She works on what she needs to work on, and I…
Brood.
Dig.
Turn over stones, looking for the answers. But a week later, I’m not finding a thing.
The one glimmering highlight is the day I choose to give her the good news.
Or rather, the day I choose for “Leo” to give her the good news.
I’m sitting in a chair across from where she’s curled on a couch. Her phone goes off with a text alert.
Sent from the phone in my hands—Leo’s phone—which I’ll be shredding later today, now that I’ve used it for its last purpose.
I casually glance up at her, biting back a grin when I see the way her eyes grow wide, and how her jaw drops. When I see the shock and puregleeand relief on her face.
I appear curious when she looks up at me quickly, her face red and her eyes stunned.
“Everything okay?”
She just nods vigorously, swallowing.
“Yeah… it’s…” a smile spreads across her face.
“Everything is great,” she whispers quietly, beaming.
“Glad to hear it.”
Liam stepsinto the office after knocking. He sinks into one of the chairs across the desk from me, his brow furrowed in its usual way. But it’s a little deeper than normal.
I’ve been asking a lot of my head of security lately. Even knowing that Adrian’s people paid a visit to Leo and his men in the hospital, and the runner, I’m still not satisfied. So Liam’s been keep tabs on the now-former loan shark, just in case.
He’s also trying to help me dig into Prince, and to follow the strings I’ve been pulling at involving the past.
Involving the fire.
“I know what you think about me, Noel. And I know the suspicions you have about me. Because I’ve harbored the same ones about you. But I think we can say this rules either of us out.”
Like fuck it does.
