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I look to Rage and he pulls a still shocked Riot along. I don’t need to verbalize what they need to do.
Harlon bends and lifts Polaris in his arms and leaves just as silently as they came.
It’s just Nova and me now. Smeared with my brother’s blood and my soul sated from his death I stand in the center of another hell.
“Nova.”
“Don’t Nova me, Ares. You lied to me. I trusted you.”
“No. You didn’t. You put yourself in danger because you didn’t trust me to save your sister.”
“And I was right.” Tears fall furiously down her face.
Seeing her torment from my actions nearly kills me. I shrug out shirt and let it fall in the glass at my feet.
“Can you love me? A killer?” I fall to my knees, hanging my head. “The shame I feel for asking you to love a man like me is overwhelming. Yet here I am. I plead. Don’t walk. If you do, you might as well put a bullet in me.”
She stares at me in stunned silence.
“You lied to me,” she seethes. “Lied. How can I ever trust you?”
“I protected you with that lie. Or at least I thought I was. I lied to everyone. I was ashamed of where I came from.”
“I loved you. Can you believe that? Loved a man who bought me and then used me.”
“I never made it a secret as to why I bought you.”
Her gun hand twitches. I can feel her slipping away from me.
“My hands ache to hold you. My arms crave to carry your burdens. Can you love me still?” I fall to my hands. “Beat me. Seek your revenge for my lies but please, Nova Masters, please do not take your trust away. Everything I have is yours. My wealth, my life. It’s yours. My heart. My soul. My blood. My love, as little as it’s worth, it’s all yours if you can only love me as I love you.Ya obozhaju tebya.”
“Keep your money, Ares. I never wanted it to begin with. Never wanted any of this.”
I hold the remnants of my shattered soul together with nothing more than the fires of pain fusing the pieces together as her footsteps drift away.
Twenty
Nova
Ihave a decision to make. I haven’t seen Ares in a month. I’d been so willing to leave him sitting in my past when I had my sister to save. Now that she’s okay, relatively speaking, I can’t help but think about what I want.
And the news of Devil’s death sits heavier than lead in my stomach. As irritating as he was, the man saved my life. I dash a tear away. How can these people deal with death and loss almost daily? It’s probably why they party so hard. They never know when it will be their last.
I stab at the ice floating in glass of water. It’s about all I can handle lately. The ice bobs under the surface and finally settles in the waves. Just like my heart. Only I haven’t resurfaced from the pain of walking out on Ares kneeling on the floor bleeding asking me for forgiveness.
It burns not to run to him. To fall among the shattered glass cutting into his knees and pick up the pieces of our love. But he hurt me. How do I forget that?
The voice that keeps speaking up despite my efforts in drowning it out with as much alcohol as I can drink grows louder by the day.
I hurt him, too. I know that. I am responsible for his brother’s death. How do I face him after doing something so horrendous? I can’t close my eyes without seeing his body on the floor, his blood spilling out to stain everything it touched.
Acid swirls and boils in my stomach.
He opened up to me and shared his past. I did the same. I failed to trust him even though he said he would help. I didn’t give him that chance. I see that now. But I couldn’t risk that he would fail me. Like every other person in my life.
Blurred city lights feed through the blackened windows. Summer days in Chicago are beautiful, but the nights are spectacular. All the glittering lights and busy streets nestled within the backdrop of dusk. I imagine all the big cities look this way, but the view from the fifth floor of Genesis is breathtaking. If not a little nostalgic.
I can feel my sister’s nervousness before I see her reflection in the glass. She walks in behind me and her shimmering reflection mirrors what I sense. The day I walked out on Ares, the men of Genesis offered Polaris and me a place to regroup. I couldn’t get out of New York fast enough. A couple of days later they offered us both permanent residence in the penthouse over top of their club in return for helping them dig through their files looking for inconsistencies. The irony is they are as dirty as Ares and the Savages. But here at least I was given a choice.
