Chapter 4 Eian
EIAN
“How?” I demand, itching to get out of this room and be done with this conversation.
It’s bad enough that I had to leave for a drive after I caught him before.
I don’t disagree with the things Duffy was telling him, but the protectiveness I felt when I saw him sway was enough to let me know I needed to walk away before I came back to talk to him.
The way Colby squares his jaw and tries to sit up straight in his bed would make me want to mock any other person, but not him. Nothing happens the way it should with him.
I felt it from the moment I cut him loose from that damned metal chair, and despite staying away for days, despite filling those days with important work that needed to be done, I haven’t been able to get him out of my head for longer than a few minutes at a time.
I’m not here talking to him because I want to.
I need to.
For inexplicable reasons and for other, very rational ones.
“Don’t go silent on me now, Colby.” I take a threatening step forward.
I don’t need to like it, I just need to make it very fucking clear to him that there’s nowhere he can run from me.
“You like to talk, don’t you? That’s what you did.
Talked about everything wrong in the world for a decade until you got yourself kidnapped.
” I have to pause and chuckle at the way his eyes open comically wide.
“Oh yeah, I know all about that. I also know the SEALs rescued you. That experience must’ve been very educational considering you look more than fine today.
I know you came home and took the job your old network offered you as a news broadcaster.
But you couldn’t stop, could you? You just had to keep digging and digging. ”
It pays to have powerful friends, and I can see in his eyes he understands what I’m trying to tell him. I can’t stop there, though.
“Now you’re gonna have to live in hiding because even after you left your life behind, sold everything you had to your name, even that cushy three-bedroom apartment in the city, you still couldn’t . . . fucking . . . stop . . . digging.”
This time when I stop talking, there’s fear on top of the understanding from before.
Yeah, I know everything about you, Colby.
I’m still not sure why Duffy was so worried about me leaving money for Colby when he clearly has more than enough, but that’s not something I need to know, it’s just interesting.
That annoying respect for him comes back to life inside me when he straightens as much as he can on the bed and looks me right in the eyes. He’s fucking brave, I’ll give him that.
“No one in your . . . family has a better set of skills for this than I do.” The way he hesitates to say that word tells me how hard he’s trying to appear like this is his world.
It’s not. His father was also a news broadcaster, and he grew up in Manhattan with enough privilege to have never encountered the mob before.
But now he wants to insert himself right in the middle of a very volatile situation.
Why?
I doubt I’m going to figure that out without asking him point blank, so I better pay attention to everything he says. He might slip up.
“You obviously know who I am. You know this is what I do. And by the way, I didn’t take my wallet with me when Tony One and Two got one over on me, so I doubt they know who I am.”
The fucking balls on this guy . . .
Instead of asking him who Tony One and Two are—I’m pretty sure I know anyway—I ignore the humor bubbling in my chest, and focus on the important part of what he just said.
“They know what you look like,” I growl at him, taking a step forward once more.
“In any case . . .” He waves a hand carelessly, as if that’s just an insignificant detail.
It’s really, really not. “You’re gonna make sure they don’t kidnap me again, because like I just said, this is what I do.
I investigate, I do the research, I get to the bottom of things, and I find out the truth. ”
“That’s right, and now I’m in the tough position of feeling like the Di Leos have one over me, and I don’t fucking like that, not one bit.”
But I still need to protect him and Maggie. I always protect the innocent. He’s clearly too fucking nosy for his own good, just like Duffy said last week, but he is an innocent—as is his daughter—so that’s why I’m acting so . . . weird.
Yeah, weird works.
I’m not gonna tell him I was already planning on offering them protection from the Di Leos, because now . . .
“Are you really trying to make a deal with me? Do you think you have a choice?”
“Yes.” The steely defiance in his stark gray eyes tries to pull me in once more like it did before, but I fight it and I win.
“And why’s that?” I demand, making sure it sounds patronizing, because when I make a decision, no one else gets a choice.
“I could just run away.”
This time I have to snort with derision.
“You can barely stand longer than a minute. How exactly are you planning on outrunning every man and woman in this clinic?”
The weirdest thing is, I actually want to hear his answer.
I’m not just asking to be an asshole—that’s just a bonus.
Right along with the fear, I see that steely determination harden the corner of his eyes again, and it strikes me again how fucking strong he is.
At least mentally. He was held against his will and beaten for hours, and he’s still meeting my eyes, despite the fact that I’m being deliberately unfriendly.
It’s better if he realizes right from the start the kind of man I am, the kind of man he’s going to have to deal with for the rest of his life.
The rest of his life?
Yes, I want to have this brave man giving me attitude for the rest of his life. My life.
The memory of that last lesson Da taught me drowns Colby’s retort.
“You’ll know, lad. There’s no way to escape that feeling, those new dreams.”
The wistful tone was so unusual coming from him that I was speechless while he recalled how he knew Ma was the one.
“I was lucky that she was born into the life I’d chosen, and I was even luckier that she hated her father as much as I did, but even if that hadn’t been the case, I know I would’ve done anything to spend the rest of my life with her.”
“And she felt the same?” I’d asked, and I still don’t know why I needed to make sure. I’d been a witness to their love for fourteen years.
“I’m a lucky man, Eian,” is all Da had said on the subject. I didn’t know why he felt lucky when, at the time of that conversation, it had been eight years since she’d been murdered.
My eyes focus once more on the present, on Colby’s dark eyebrows and somehow even darker, expressive eyes.
Now I know.
That thought echoes in the sudden and almost complete emptiness of my mind.
All that’s in there is the determination in Colby’s jaw, the strength he showed when we got him out of that warehouse and he started fighting me to get to his daughter, the intelligence behind his eyes.
“Are you thinking about how you’re going to kill me?”
“What?” I stumble back. From shock? From the blow of what I just realized?
“No, I’m not going to kill you,” I rush to reassure him—another anomaly.
I don’t reassure people. Hell, even Rory’s better at that than me.
And I also shouldn’t be telling him he’s out of danger.
“What were you saying?” Fuck, I need to get my head straight.
He looks up at me with suspicion clear as day on his face. I like that I can read him like the back of my hand, that I don’t even have to wonder what he’s thinking, feeling.
“Just that I’m sneaky.” His voice comes out in a sad little whisper, then he slumps his shoulders and looks down at his lap. “It doesn’t matter.”
It does, every thought he has matters, but I’m not gonna tell him that. He can’t know about any of . . . this. Whatever it is.
Okay, I know exactly what it is.
I close my eyes, suck in a deep breath, and then let it out slowly.
I can’t deal with this right now.
I’m not even close to calm when I open my eyes again. Not when I register—like I did when I came here this morning—the multi-colored bruises on his face, his still-split lip.
He got hurt because he wanted fucking answers, and when he gets back on his feet, I’m the one who’s going to have to put pressure on him to get more answers.
What I want isn’t remotely important, though. I have to find evidence of what Lucian has been doing and bring it to the circle, then I can worry about the Di Leo bastard and the Venuti girl starting that war the second her father dies.
And that’s all the motivation I need to get the words out.
“You’re not going to be any good to me for a while yet anyway.
” It doesn’t feel great to tell him that, but his reaction isn’t offended or even discouraged.
No. Colby’s not that kind of man. He sits even straighter and sends me an I dare you look.
The sudden, urgent need to lean in and taste all that defiance is so fucking annoying.
I need to keep talking before I do anything I’ll regret.
The words just sort of tumble out of me.
“Make a list of everything you need. Mac is here every day since Duffy’s here, so he or Rory can help get you anything.
Once you’re out of here you’re going to do what you’re good at, and get me the information I need so I can do what I’m good at. ”
I’m turning away before I’m even done, but his voice stops me.
“When will we—”
“When you can outrun me,” I interrupt him, risking one more look at his all-too-expressive face, then I walk out briskly and shut the door behind me. I hear his muttered response before it closes, though.
“Fat chance of that ever happening.”
I suppose it’s normal that Mac and Rory are staring at me like the world is surely about to end. I probably look like I just went through a tornado.
“What’s wrong with you?” Rory demands.