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“There’s two others as well. Bodyguards or henchman. But they’re both clean. The primary is…” I glance into the bedroom at Luca’s body sprawled across the floor and the brand new red Jackson Pollock masterpiece splattered all over the walls.
“Notclean.”
“I’ll let my guy know. He should be there within two hours. Probably best if you’renot. Leave the door locked with the do not disturb sign on. Shit, I don’t need to tell you any of this, do I?”
“No.”
“Hey, Castle—”
“Yeah.”
My old friend sighs. “Let’s catch up sometime soon, for real. It’s been way too long, brother.”
“I’d like that.”
“And raise one to Bryce tonight, yeah?”
When I slip back into my own suite, I frown at the sound of running water. Callie’s not sitting on the bed anymore, either. I only find her when I push open the door to the sprawling white marble and tile bathroom.
She’s still in her evening gown, sitting on the floor of the glass-walled shower hugging her knees with the water cascading down over her. The knife is still in her hand.
She’s staring a thousand yards past the wall in front of her again.
Shit, the shock is back.
I don’t think. I just step into the shower with her and sink down onto the floor next to her. Instantly, she curls into me, clinging tightly to my soaked tuxedo shirt and burying her face in my chest as the knife clatters to the floor. My arms wrap around her, and I just hold her like that as the water washes over the both of us.
7
CALLIE
They saytime flies when you’re having fun. What theydon’tsay is that it also flies when you’re trying to process trauma.
Wrapped in a towel, I scowl at my reflection in the shower-steamed bathroom mirror and peer a little closer at the dark circles under my eyes. I look tired. Frayed around the edges. Worn down.
Great.Justthe look I want for the night of my twenty-first birthday.
Not.
I exhale, rubbing my face and rolling my shoulders. The thing is, I’mnothungover, though I’ve certainly been drinking a little more than I should be lately.
Since Paris.
Since I felt the life being choked out of me by a maniac gushing blood onto my body. Since I watched the man I’m hopelessly smitten with—in decidedly unrequited terms—killthat maniac right in front of me.
All that was two months ago, and I’m still unable to sleep through the night. Alcohol helps. Pot does, too, though sometimes it’s a little much. Getting my doctor to up my dosages for the Lexapro, Ativan, and propranolol I take for anxiety certainly hasn’thurt.
But I still can’t sleep more than three hours at a time without waking up choking for air and clawing madly at blood on my chest that isn’t actually there.
The only time I’ve felt truly safe, and truly not going insane, was right after the attack, in Castle’s suite. When he came back and found me huddled in the shower and sank down to sit under the spray of the water next to me, and put his arm around me.
For the next thirty minutes, I felt safe. I felt like I could breathe.
I spent that night twisting and turning in his bed while he slept on the couch in the sitting room. The next day, I plastered a smile on my face, used half a compact of concealer on my neck, attributed my haggard appearance to my friends and family as “too much fun and champagne”, and got on that plane back to New York.
The one other time I felt like I wasn’t going crazy was when Castle drove Ya-ya, Kratos, and I back from the airport after we landed. He’d just finished helping Kratos carry the suitcases up when he found me shaking and nearing a full-blown panic attack in the kitchen as I waited for my meds to kick in.
He didn’t say a word. He just pulled me into his arms tightly and let me cling to his chest while he reminded me how to breathe.
