Chapter 9
Chapter Nine
“I hate hospitals.” Marley stared up at the ceiling as she made this declaration.
“Then why did you stay with me last night?” Declan asked as curiosity stirred within him. When it came to Marley, he was discovering that he was far more curious than he’d ever realized. He had a deep need to learn everything about her. Every single secret she possessed.
How many scars do you have, Marley? And would you like for me to kill the bastard who put them on you? Because he would. He could. Easily.
She didn’t look his way. Just kept gazing at the ceiling as if it held all of the secrets in the world. It didn’t. It was a shitty ceiling with white and gray speckled panels and two overly bright, round lights that beamed down on her.
After a long moment, she admitted, “I stayed because I was protecting you.”
And that’s the same reason you got shot tonight. Your need to protect me. I need to break you of this bad habit, Marley. He wasn’t worth protecting. “Sebastian Glass,” he prompted. He should have gotten the background check on her sooner. There was too much he didn’t know about Marley.
James usually worked much faster when it came to gathering intel. But Declan had put the man on tailing Keith as priority one. For all the good that surveillance had done.
Declan pulled out his phone. Fired off a text to James. I want every bit of data you have on Marley. I want it now. Marley…and some piece of shit named Sebastian Glass.
“I don’t need you to kill him. Sebastian Glass is sitting on death row. The state will take care of the job soon enough.” A soft sigh. “Are you really going to make me stay here all night?”
“Yes.”
“Don’t let the nurses come in every three hours.” Disgruntled. “You know they do that crap. Checking your blood pressure, temperature—all the things. I don’t need it.” Adamant. “I just have some stitches. I should be home.”
The home that had been trashed? Not likely.
“You needed it,” she muttered. “You actually needed to stay overnight for care. You were the one who’d been drugged. I just got zinged by a stray bullet.”
Zinged, his ass. “Why didn’t you tell me that you’d been shot?”
Her gaze finally pulled from the ceiling. Her head turned his way, and those deep, dark, utterly unforgettable eyes of hers locked on him. “I didn’t want to be a bother.”
“What?” He almost jumped from the damn chair.
She winced. “That was probably louder than you intended it to be. You’re usually creepily quiet.”
Usual didn’t apply to any of his interactions with her. And she wasn’t going to distract him. He knew her words had been a deliberate distraction. “The fuck you didn’t want to be a bother.”
“Right.” A nod. “The fuck I didn’t want to be. And, at first, I wasn’t even sure I’d been hit by a bullet. A lot was happening in that alley. My priority as your PI was to keep you safe.”
Screw that. “You need new priorities.”
A faint line appeared between her brows. “Are you firing me?” Real alarm flared in the darkness of her eyes. “Because of this little zing?”
Did she have to keep calling it a zing? When she’d been bleeding all over the place, it had hardly seemed like a freaking zing.
“Marley—” Declan began.
“Don’t fire me. I’m the one who spotted the shooter, remember? I can do this job.”
He rubbed his chest. “I know you can.” Only there wasn’t really a job. “There’s something I need to tell you…” How to be delicate? Tactful? He had zero clue. Mostly because he’d never been delicate or tactful a day in his life. Marley, I was bullshitting when I said I wanted you to help me find the SOB behind my abduction. Really, you’re in danger. I want you close so that I can protect you.
Except he’d done a piss-poor job of protecting her so far. She was in a hospital bed. Looking heartbreakingly fragile. “I want to scoop you up,” he confessed, voice rough. “Run the hell out of here with you and get you far away from any threat.” He could put her on his private plane within the hour. By dawn, he could have her out of the country. Maybe he could take her to some tropical island where she’d have twenty-four, seven protection and then he’d be able to actually breathe without feeling this tight knot in his aching chest.
But Marley just tilted her head to the side as she studied him. Then she said, “If you understand the killer and his methods for selecting victims, you can protect people.”
Declan blinked.
“At least, that was the premise I followed when I was studying for my Ph.D. My thesis was on using victimology to help prevent people from being chosen by predators. Because that’s what some of the most dangerous killers do…they choose their prey. Specific prey. It’s not some random event. Specific people are chosen for specific reasons. Sebastian Glass murdered three women. Three that were confirmed kills. We always suspected there were more, just like Parker said.”
Declan found that he could not move. His body seemed to have turned into stone.
“Sebastian sliced the women with his knives over and over.” She wet her lips. “Their bodies looked like broken glass. Cracks everywhere. Some deep. Some shallow, like spiderwebs on their skin.”
Even breathing felt hard to Declan.
“I was interviewing him. His IQ was off the charts. He’s what’s called an organized killer. There were never any fits of rage with him. Everything was carefully planned out. Perfectly orchestrated. He was probably a psychopath…no regard for the feelings of others. No understanding of the emotions that others possess. Though I suspect he was very good at mimicry.” A soft exhale. “Just because you’re a psychopath, it doesn’t mean you’re a killer. Lots of people with psychopathic tendencies are incredible doctors. Their lack of empathy actually helps them.” She blinked. Then frowned at him.
Declan wondered just what his expression looked like to make her study him that way.
“What?” Marley rubbed her lips together. Exhaled. “You think it doesn’t help a surgeon to be able to hold back emotions when you are cutting into the chest of a dying man? You have a job to do. Emotions can’t impact you. All psychopaths aren’t killers. All killers aren’t psychopaths. And, in fact—” Marley broke off.
He waited.
Nothing else came. She fiddled with the white covers on the bed.
“Marley?” Declan prompted when the silence stretched.
Looking down at her fingers as they fiddled, she said, “Very successful business professionals can have psychopathic traits. When you have to make decisions about firing or hiring hundreds of employees all at once, a bit of cold-bloodedness aids you.”
He leaned toward her. A lock of hair had fallen on her cheek. He reached out and tucked that lock behind her ear. Her head tilted up, and her gaze immediately shot back to catch his. Declan’s knuckles lingered against the silk of her skin. “Are you calling me a psychopath, sweetheart?” A tender question.
She didn’t blink. “Are you a psychopath?”
Declan considered the matter. “Pretty sure my bastard of a father was. He was as ice cold as they come. Ice cold, but sadistic to his core.” Declan shook his head, but didn’t stop touching her. He couldn’t stop touching her. And why was he telling her about his father? He never told anyone about the bastard. “But even though nothing else—no one else—seemed to matter, he was obsessed with my mother. So in love with her that he couldn’t see reason. Psychopaths can’t love, right? Isn’t that one of the rules?” I didn’t think it was real love. I always thought it was evil and controlling and I…I didn’t want to be the same way.
So he’d shut off his emotions. Refused to feel. Did I turn myself into a psychopath? Am I that far gone?
Except, he didn’t feel far gone. Not when Marley was right beside him. He felt far too much when she was near.
“Some research suggests that psychopaths can form an attachment to one other person.” Her soft voice. Not soft so much as…gentle. Caring. Why the hell did she care so much about him?
“I believe it can happen,” Marley continued in the tender voice that seemed to wrap around him. Sink into him. “Is it love the way that a so-called normal person experiences it? I don’t know. But who is to say that everyone feels love the same way?” Her head turned. Her lips brushed over his knuckles.
Heat spiked through him, chasing out the cold that wanted to consume him. “Marley.”
“I’m sorry that your father hurt you.”
Be careful. I’m not normal, and I don’t care how normal people feel love. I care that I feel alive when you’re near me.
“I wanted to make the world a better place. I wanted to understand the monsters in order to save the future victims. Instead, I became a victim.” Her lashes fluttered. “I could tell Sebastian was fixating on me. He watched me too carefully. Refused to speak to anyone else on the research team if I wasn’t present. And then one day, Sebastian said he’d only talk if I was the one doing the interview with him. I was working under the guidance of my college mentor. Three of us would normally go in each time we interviewed Sebastian. But he wanted to change the rules.” Her breath came a little faster. “I knew something was wrong, and I said I didn’t want to do the interview.”
Then how the fuck had she wound up attacked and sporting scars?
“But Sebastian said there were more victims. If I would talk with him, one-on-one, he would tell me about them. Who they were. Where they were buried. He said he could be cuffed—and the cuffs chained to the floor. A guard could be in the room. No one else. Sebastian, me, and a guard. I had to sit across from him. Another condition. If I did, he promised that he’d give closure to other families who’d lost their daughters.”
“He fucking manipulated you.” He’s dead. Screw waiting for the needle to jab in his arm. He is dead.
“The DA asked me to conduct the interview. Promised everything would be safe. That I’d be watched at all times. But it wasn’t safe. I…” Her head turned. Her lips skimmed over his knuckles again. “Sorry,” she murmured. The faintest hint of red came and went in her cheeks. “For some reason, you make me feel better.”
Her words sank into his heart.
Way to seal your fate, Marley.
“Sebastian got out of the cuffs. Like Houdini. Did it in a blink. And then he was on me. Had the shiv to my throat before I could even scream. Sebastian told the guard that if he didn’t get out of the room, he’d slice my throat open right then and there. So the guard backed out.”
“He should never have left.” He’d be finding out the name of the guard. Anyone who’d ever hurt her, Declan would find out about them. And they would pay. Simple fact of life. No one in this world could hurt Marley and walk away.
“His breath came so hard. I could hear Sebastian panting behind me because he was so excited. He spun me around and I stared into his eyes, and I’d never seen evil until that moment. I’m talking about true evil. It was real. Dark. Consuming. He wanted to hurt me, and he was going to enjoy it. I’d wanted to know how he picked his victims, and in that moment, I did. He picked the ones that called to him. The ones he wanted to break. That’s what he told me. He took the ones who seemed strong so he could show them the meaning of weakness.”
She pulled back. Her hand went to her collarbone. “This was the first drive of the shiv. Then he went to my right shoulder. My stomach.” Her hand dropped protectively to her stomach.
Helpless, he reached out. His fingers covered hers.
She glanced down at their joined hands. “He wanted to make me weak. He thought that the terror would break me. He was wrong. When he pulled back to slice me again, I kicked him in the dick as hard as I could.”
“Fuck, yes, you did.”
Her head rose. Their eyes met. “He was bringing that shiv down again. My blood was dripping from it. His eyes had been so cold and soulless during the previous interview sessions. But this time…this time, as he got ready to kill me, his eyes were blazing. He looked…happy.”
His fingers remained careful as he held hers. “You escaped.”
“I fell. Slipped in my blood that had dripped on the floor. When I dropped, a guard tased him. Another fired tear gas. My eyes were burning, and I was bleeding, and Sebastian was just screaming that he wasn’t finished with me.” A long exhale. “But that was the day I was finished with him. They wheeled me out of that prison on a gurney. Rushed me to an ER. And I never went back. I dropped out of the Ph.D. program. I hid with my brothers for the first three months after the attack. I would jump at every creak or rustle of sound because in my head, I kept hearing Sebastian say he wasn’t finished with me. If he wasn’t finished, then that meant he’d come after me again.”
“No, love, he won’t.” Absolute certainty. “He will never, ever get close to you again.” He’d be buried six feet under the ground. Being dead would make it exceedingly hard for Sebastian Glass to get close to Marley ever again.
“I ran away from the education that had always meant so much to me. I ran from the life I’d had planned. It took me time, but I got focused again. I stopped jumping at shadows.” A ghost of a smile teased her lips. “The kids helped me get out in public again. I got this job—don’t laugh but?—”
“I would never laugh at you.” Never. But kill for you? Sure . Without hesitation or compunction. But he would never laugh at Marley.
Her smile faded. “I played a princess at a kid’s party. The parents hired me for the role. The kids were all so happy. They were laughing and smiling, and I felt safe. So I kept at it for a bit. Kinda like dipping your toe in the water again. And then from the kid’s party planning role—because I started party planning—I got involved in pastry making. It soothed me, if that makes sense. Spending time alone in the kitchen.” A roll of one shoulder. “Then I did the real estate bit because a friend told me it was the best way to make fast cash, but it’s—it’s not just about cash, you know? I felt off in the job. Like I was still looking for what was right for me. And then I worked as a bartender, but…” Her words trailed off. “There were a lot of fights. I didn’t always feel safe in the bar.”
“And you feel safe as a PI?” No way. “Hate to remind you, sweetheart, but you were shot tonight. That’s pretty much the opposite of safety.”
“I want to help people. My cousin Ophelia helps people. She and the Ice Breakers make a difference. That was my dream, a long time ago. In a different life. To make the world better. Safer. I’m trying to get back to that dream. Even if I have to take slow, baby steps in order to do it.”
There were dark shadows under her eyes. She needed her sleep. Declan knew he should let her go. “Ease back,” he rasped. “You need to get comfortable.”
She wrinkled her nose at him. “You’re going to make me stay here all night.”
Yes. “I’m going to make you stay here all night,” he confirmed. But she slid down on the bed. He pulled the covers over her. Tucked them in lightly around her, being very, very careful with her injured arm.
“You’re tucking me in,” she noted with some definite surprise. “Declan Flynn is actually tucking me into a bed.”
“Indeed I am.” He tucked a bit more.
She shook her head against the pillow. “I don’t get you.”
Most people didn’t. And normally, that was the way he liked it. But, again, nothing with Marley was normal.
“You’re rumored to be some heartless mob boss…” A big yawn had her blinking, then her eyelids sagging a little bit. “But I knew that wasn’t true from our first meeting.”
He stood over her. Stared down at Marley’s closing eyes with complete focus. “Was it because I was tied up and you saw me as a victim?” That had certainly been Parker’s take on the situation.
Parker was a pain in his ass.
“No.” Her lashes fluttered. “It’s because you told me to get away. To leave you. You were…” A sigh. “In desperate straits, but you were trying to protect me. It was right then that I knew what you were.”
He reached behind her. His fingers brushed against the button to turn off the too bright lights. As they plunged into darkness, he asked, “And what am I?”
“You’re not a monster. You’re a hero.” Sleepiness slurred her words.
Declan gazed at her in silence for a while. Then he shook his head. “No, Marley. I am far from that. You see, I’m a killer. As twisted and hollowed on the inside as they come. When I was sixteen years old, I killed my own father. And I didn’t care when he begged me for mercy. He should have known I would have none. After all, he turned me into the devil I am today.”
No response. But then, he hadn’t expected one.
He’d waited to give that big confession until her eyes were fully closed. Sleep had taken her, so she didn’t know what he was.
She’d confessed to him, and some part of him had wanted to confess his darkest secret to her. A payback of sorts. Equal footing.
But she didn’t know because sleep had taken her. And he almost liked that she thought he was one of the good guys. He’d never been one of those before. Should make for an interesting situation.
After a moment—a long moment, granted—Declan grabbed the chair he’d been using earlier. He hauled it a wee bit closer to the bed. He sat down, spreading his legs out as best he could. His gaze remained on her face.
He pulled out his phone and sent another text to James.
Sebastian Glass is a problem.
Three dots appeared on his screen as James prepared his reply. Then…
What do you want me to do about this problem, sir?
Shouldn’t the answer be obvious?
He wanted the problem to fucking disappear.
In the bed, Marley slowly turned on her side, moving away from him. Not the side with her injured arm.
His gaze swept to her, then back to the phone. He fired off one more note. Life is always easier when your problems have been eliminated.
When she was on her side—and making sure that she wasn’t jarring her injured arm—Marley slowly opened her eyes.
Declan’s confession rang in her ears.
I’m a killer. As twisted and hollowed on the inside as they come. When I was sixteen years old, I killed my own father. And I didn’t care when he begged me for mercy. He should have known I would have none. After all, he turned me into the devil I am today .
A tear leaked down her cheek.