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He stands closer and, to my utter surprise, pulls out the seat beside me, spins it so that it’s facing my way, and sits.
Gideon sips from his glass and sets it carefully on the table. “I don’t intend to kill you at all.”
“Do I know you?” I finally ask, observing him carefully. “We’ve met before.”
Nodding, he leans forward, staring hard into my eyes as if he’s willing me to remember him. “Think, Rowan. Where do you know me from?”
“You’re awfully close to me, man. My sight’s not that bad.”
He chuckles as he sits back. “I didn’t know you were funny.”
“I’m not. Now fucking tell me what I’m doing here, or let me go.”
“You won’t believe me if I tell you,” he says.
“Try me.”
Tapping the glass with his fingernail, he bites his lower lip in thought. “First, I want to know how much your uncles told you about my father.”
I shrug. “Nothing. Everything I know about Stephen has been through the Sinacores. He was a traitor and died like one.”
For the first time since I got here, Gideon’s grin vanishes. “It sounds like you need some reeducation.”
“I don’t need anything from you, except to turn you over to Luca so you can pay for your sins.”
In the blink of an eye, Gideon is out of his chair and standing behind me. He fists my hair and pulls my head against the high seatback and presses the edge of a sharp blade I wasn’t aware he had on him against my throat. I can feel it slicing through the skin there, but only deep enough to sting.
“What are you waiting for, Ferryman. Kill me.”
Gideon shoves me away from him. He peers at the large knife, turning it back and forth, as if he’s looking at his reflection in it.
“I’m not going to kill you, Rowan.” He lifts his steel gaze to me, and I’m suddenly struck with the realization of why, since the moment we met, he’s seemed so familiar. The same reason he seems so much like the painting of his father. It’s the eyes. I see them every single time I view myself in the mirror.
“What is this?” I ask, my mind reeling as it desperately tries to fit the puzzle pieces together. But I can’t. There’s not enough information. “Who are you?”
“Me?” Gideon smiles and tilts his head. “Why, I’m just your big brother.”
* * *
Seeing is believing.
I’ve never been one for idioms, but Lou always was. Made me laugh every time she said one of her Spanish ones, because the meaning was often lost in translation. Sounded funny as fuck.
They were sayings her father taught her. Though her mother had had an American education, she’d lived most of her life in Mexico, so she didn’t teach Lou anything different either.
I bought her a little book of idioms I found at the bookstore. Not that she hadn’t heard them before—she was raised in Boston, after all. But she hadn’t been exposed to them in her day-to-day life, always around her Spanish-speaking friends and family.
She studied that book and inserted a saying any chance she got. It was a challenge for her, and every time she did, a huge smile painted across her beautiful face.
God, I loved to see her smile. That was my favorite part. It’s why she so easily distracted me while Declan worked against me. It was thinking she was finally happy by my side that controlled me, not her pussy. Though I have to admit that played a part too.
I don’t do drugs, because they’re a dangerous addiction that creates dangerous vulnerabilities. Instead, I did something far worse. Louisa Duran.
Seeing is believing.
Axle begged me to tell Lou the truth. That if I’d shown up at the church that night, my uncles would have killed her and sent her head to her father. That they’d used her to keep me bound to them, and it was only through some miracle that they didn’t see my real feelings when I told them I didn’t love her anymore.
But I was sure Lou wouldn’t believe any of it until she saw for herself that we still belonged together.
