32. Wynn
WYNN
C iel slipped into my room as soon as Cas and Ryuji made sure Leona was clean and settled on the big bed in the living room. It was just after sunrise.
Even after everything that happened tonight, I was restless.
I might have lied and snuck out, but I’d also found Vokshi. I’d found the auto-repair shop. We’d dealt with the Albanians because I’d caught him. Ever since I lost him in the marina, I’d been trying to fix it, and tonight I did.
I thought I’d done well. I thought my brothers would be happy with me, and so would Leona. I thought she’d be relieved we could end Orik Vokshi. One underboss was dead, leaving only his two brothers and the Head, Armir Vokshi, left. It should have been a step forward.
But then I’d killed Orik before we could interrogate him. When I saw him clawing at Leona, I just acted. I set us back again . I should have been more careful, but I couldn’t bear the thought of her being hurt again.
Guilt wracked me while I scrubbed my face in the bathroom.
“Wynn.” Ciel’s voice was firm. Not as angry as before, but definitely not the same soft voice he usually took with me. “We need to talk.”
I knew what he wanted to talk about.
Don’t you dare do it again .
I did what I had to do, and I had found Vokshi. Ultimately, the good of the evening outweighed the bad, didn’t it? So why did I feel so guilty? The dissonance felt like it was tearing me apart.
He knocked on my bathroom door, even though it was half ajar.
“What, Ciel?”
He pushed inside. He hadn’t changed out of his combat clothes. The dark material clung to his muscular thighs and tapered around his trim waist. He wore a black henley tucked into his pants, and bunched around his elbows. His arms crossed over his chest, accentuating his forearms.
Ciel and I had similar builds, and we used to train together often when Obi had first recruited me.
I had always been slightly more built than him, with more muscle on my bones, but since the incident , I’d lost weight.
Lost muscle. He probably weighed more than me now.
It was a stark reminder of how far I’d fallen, and how much I still had to make up.
He took a deep breath. “We need to talk. I—I’m worried about you.”
“There’s no reason to be worried.”
“Bullshit.”
My head snapped up to meet his frowning face. “It’s not bullshit.”
“You lied to me, Wynn!” He caught his voice raised and took a breath to calm it. “I—I know you’re not sleeping. I know you’re hiding how much you’re hurting. I know you’re driven by some need to redeem yourself, but that doesn’t give you the excuse to put yourself at risk.”
“I’m recovering from a gunshot wound. Of course I’m hurting.” I rolled my eyes, ignoring the last part of what he said while I pushed past him back into my room. As I did, he reached out and grabbed my arm, pulling me back to face him. His palm was hot against my skin.
“You keep telling me you’re fine, but you’re not. It’s going to blow back in all our faces if you’re not careful.”
“I know ,” I said, voice dropping low. I yanked my arm from his grasp. “I know I’m ruining everything. I know I have to keep it together. Trust me, I’m trying.”
“You’re not—That’s not what I—” He swallowed, huffing in frustration, throat working as he struggled to form the words. “You’re not ruining anything except yourself.”
“What the hell does that mean?”
“You’re running yourself into the ground, Wynn. You’re not letting yourself heal. Mentally and physically. What happened to you was horrible, and you’ve barely given yourself a second to process it.”
I scoffed. “I’m completely fine.”
I’d had plenty of time sitting in my room, reliving the moment Leona was thrown into a trunk and taken from me. I’d processed more than enough of that day.
If that wasn’t enough, my past had been playing on a loop behind my eyes whenever I had a moment to myself. The day Willow and I were taken. The first time they separated us. The first time someone had bought me. The first time I stabbed someone, the blood running red over my hands.
The first time I’d saved a trafficking victim, and how redeeming that had felt.
I’d been chasing that feeling ever since.
“Is that why you snuck out, then? Because you’re fine ?”
I took a deep breath, running my hands through my hair and trying to get a handle on my emotions. I turned on my heel, stomping to my closet and grabbing one of my shirts. I pulled it on.
“I will be fine when we’ve dealt with them. ”
He followed me around the room, refusing to give me the space I so desperately needed.
“Or you’ll hurt yourself even more.” He grabbed my arm again, eyes flicking to mine. “You’ll hurt the people who care about you.”
I couldn’t count the amount of times I’d let down the people who cared about me. At what point were they going to stop caring?
I couldn’t afford to find out. I couldn’t afford any more mistakes.
He stared at me, those ice blue eyes unflinching despite how I tried to run. His body crowded mine, pushing closer as if he could physically break down my barriers.
“What happened to the Ciel that used to be too afraid to come out of his room?” I asked softly. It wasn’t the first time I thought about how much he’d changed.
“She happened,” he said. I flinched as his fingers curled around mine. “And you brought her to us. You fought for her from day one, forcing us all to pay attention to what she could do for us.”
I swallowed, unable to meet his gaze.
“I have you to thank for that, Wynn. You catalyzed this change in us. In me.”
I looked up, wanting to argue, to deny that I had anything to do with the magnificence that was Leona Vero, but the look in his eyes stopped my breath.
He stared at my lips, eyes low. “I can’t let you keep hurting yourself. It hurts me too.”
“I don’t know how.”
“Let me in,” he pleaded. “Let her in.”
He made it sound so easy . But I knew the reality. Letting them in wouldn’t change anything. The only path forward was clear.
I rocked toward him just a hairsbreadth, as if someone was tightening the invisible tether between us .
He moved forward slowly enough that I had more than enough time to stop him or turn my head or do anything to show that I didn’t want this. But I did . I wanted it so badly. I wanted the comfort he offered. I wanted the freedom to just let it all go.
When his lips touched mine, it was soft and seeking. Tentative yet firm. It was years of friendship shifting into languid heat that rolled through my body from head to toe. It was the experience of being seen for the first time.
I gasped into his mouth, pressing back into the kiss. He met my lips with tenderness, like he was trying to show me the truth of his words. That he cared about me and was trying to help me. That I didn’t have to be consumed by my failures.
When he pressed forward, stepping into my body, I reacted the same, pushing him backward until his back met the wall next to my bed. My hands trailed up his arms, then cradled the back of his neck as I deepened the kiss even further. He tasted so damn good .
I’d always thought of Leona as my light. The bonfire guiding me through the darkness my mind constantly existed in, no matter how deeply I attempted to bury my past.
Ciel flickered in my heart as a twin flame. For a singular breath, I wondered if the two of them together could burn away the shadows that plagued me.
But it wasn’t possible. I didn’t deserve it to be possible.
I pulled away, breaking the kiss to stare at the way his cheeks flushed pink against his brown skin. His eyes filled with warmth as his hands gripped my waist, pulling me close. I wanted so badly to give in to the softness and hardness of his body.
“You’re so beautiful,” he whispered, a small smile blooming on his swollen lips. “I’ve wanted to do that for so long.”
He kissed me again, soft and luxurious and slow. My cock stiffened in my pants, and for the briefest of moments, I considered pushing him down on my bed.
It didn’t matter how much I wanted it .
I broke the kiss. “I can’t do this, Ciel.”
His smile faltered. My heart fractured within my chest as he closed himself off from me. Even as his fingers reached up to brush against my jaw, and I took in a deep shuddering breath, I couldn’t stop myself from stepping back from him. The absence of him was cold.
“Wynn—”
“Please, Ciel,” I begged, not even knowing what I was begging for. Maybe it was just that I didn’t want him to look at me like I was breaking his heart. “I want to go to bed. Not a lie this time.”
His throat bobbed, and his mouth opened, but no sound came out. He just nodded while he rubbed the back of his neck and left my room without another word.