29. Micah
Hospitals fucking suck.
The sounds, the smells, the constant intrusions from the nurses and doctors doing their rounds and disturbing a patient who needs rest most of all.
The stench of antiseptic is like acid in my nostrils, and the hushed whispers of orderlies in the halls gossiping about the FBI agent who was shot on the job and the mobster who brought her in, grates at my nerves.
We were private before this. Me and Tiia and, evidently, a dozen other agents who had observed our interactions as she did her job. But now it’s all up for public fodder, footage from outside the club, somehow already loaded to the news stations, played and replayed on the hour, every hour, so Wilkes is rewarded with a high definition rerun of the crimes that will soon be the reason he dies.
Soon.
Once I can extricate myself from this room and bear to leave Tiia, even if only for a minute.
“You broke her heart, you know that?” Roscoe sits on the other side of the bed, slumped forward with his elbows on his knees and his chin on his joined hands. While I sit on Tiia’s left, clasping her fingers in mine. “She tossed her job in the trash for you. Told her boss to fuck himself. Took confidential information and delivered it to you at her own personal risk. She walked into the lion’s den, knowing you may be the hand holding the gun that killed her. And she did all that, even after you broke her heart.”
I drag my eyes from her pale skin, my focus from the beep-beep-beep of her machines promising she’s alive and okay, and bringing it all up, I meet the familiar stare of a man I don’t know.
Not really.
“She told me you found out she was undercover. She doesn’t know how you knew, but she knew you wouldn’t hurt her, even when you really wanted to.”
“I did hurt her.” I bring our joined hands to my lips. “I hurt her really bad.”
“You destroyed her heart,” he concludes. “Shattered it beyond repair. In twenty-nine years, I’ve never seen my sister so fucking broken.”
“Your sister…” Nodding, I exhale warm breath over Tiia’s knuckles and acknowledge, finally, what was so clearly laid out in front of me. “Her twin,” I sigh, closing my eyes and allowing my head to droop. My only defense against a world that wants so desperately to destroy me. “She told me she was a twin. But I couldn’t move past assuming you were her lover.”
He scoffs, the sound soft and barely audible. “Not my lover. But my love, yes. She knew what she was doing when she fell for you, Malone. She knew the risks, not only to her life, but to her job. To her relationships. She knew being with you was…” He shakes his head, the rustle of his shirt enough to draw my eyes open again. “Stupid. So fucking stupid. But she did it anyway.”
“Because the heart wants what the heart wants,” I grudgingly admit. “She deserves better than this.”
“Yeah.” He chews on his tongue for a moment, staring deep into my eyes. “She does.”
“And if I keep her, I’d be willingly putting her in danger.”
He nods. One sharp movement of his head. “Uh huh.”
“But I don’t want to give her up,” I groan, dropping my head and resting my lips on her scuffed knuckles. “I’m not ready to live my life without her in it. Not now that I know what it’s like to have her.”
“You tossed her away.” His jaw clicks with rage. With homicide. With threat, directly cast down to shadow my existence. Yet, I’ve killed for my brothers. More than a few times. I destroyed a good woman’s soul, all because I thought I was protecting Felix.
Roscoe has a right to be pissed. And if I was man enough, I would place her hand back on her bed and walk away… preferably in front of a moving train. She deserves a clean start where me and my world no longer exist.
“You broke her heart and threw her away,” he repeats. “But that shit I saw in the club. The stuff you were saying?—”
“To go away and never come back?”
He drops his chin in acknowledgment. “Maybe my sister is hard of hearing, but I heard every word you said. Plus, all those you didn’t. The parts where you were trying to warn her away. The bits where you were sacrificing yourself for her happiness.”
“Fuck load of good that did. She came to warn me about Wilkes. And because I dismissed her, she walked straight into his gun.”
“Ya know…” He breathes out a laugh, soft and barely there. And yet, I hear the humor in the sound. The exhaustion. The grief. “She and I argued before we came to the club. I told her no. To stay away. I know who you are, Malone. I know what you do. So as her big brother, it’s my duty to keep her away and make sure she’s safe.”
“You failed.” I press a kiss to her knuckles. “Tying her to a chair might’ve been more effective.”
He grinds his jaw, his humor… not quite as stretched as mine.
“I told her you would kill her. It’s in your blood,” he clarifies through gritted teeth. “We don’t have to sit here and confess our shit for me to know what you are. Anyone who has lived in New York for more than twenty seconds knows who the Malones are, and we know who…” he clears his throat. “We know who enforces the rules in your family. So when her cover was blown and still, she wanted to come to the club and warn you, I told her you would kill her. You wanna know what she said?”
I remain silent as he lowers his hands, linking his fingers so they rest, together, on the edge of Tiia’s bed.
“She said she feels safer with you, even with your blade pressed to her throat, than she feels with anyone else. Something about how you might kill her, but you sure as shit won’t let anyone else do it.”
“She needs therapy.” I tighten my hands around hers and spy my missing digit. The pain I hadn’t even noticed I no longer feel. Not tonight, anyway. Not for days. “Saying that shit isn’t a comfort to me, Agent Hale. She needs intervention. And maybe a sedative.”
“She needs you to have her back,” he concludes gruffly, his eyes burning against the top of my head as I bow over Tiia’s hand. “I need to know you’re gonna keep her alive in the moments I’m not there to do it. Because she’s too brave for her own good. Too ballsy for me to be able to relax.”
“She’s not?—”
“I don’t know what the future looks like. And I don’t know if you and her will…” He hesitates, then shrugs. “I don’t know, man. I sure as fuck don’t approve. But Tiia surfed with sharks when we were ten.”
Slowly, horrified, I bring my eyes up and study his. “What?”
“She does whatever she wants. Rarely waits for permission. And she hardly seems to mind if the rest of us worry. I learned when we were ten I had no control. My only obligation, kind of like yours to Felix, was to chase her into the water and ensure the sharks don’t take too much of a chunk out of her.”
“Am I the shark?” Carefully, brutally aware of the wires that snake away from her arm, I lift Tiia’s hand up and open her fingers. So I can study them. So I can elongate them and ignore the blood under her nails. “Or am I the waves coming down to drown her? Is my world the ocean, readying to swallow her up?”
“You’re…” He draws a deep breath, filling his chest and releasing it again as footsteps approach our room. Shoes scuff against the floor, and company, I know, is coming to force me to share her again. “You’re the man she gave her heart to,” he decides. “Against her better judgement. Against good advice. She did it, not caring if she might lose her life in the process. Which means she’s probably gonna spend more time in your ocean. And as a federal agent, it would be ill advised for me to join her in her adventures as often as I’d like.”
He sits back as a shadow falls across our doorway and Archer’s gaze stops on mine. My little brother has come to check in on the family he ran away from so long ago. His emerald eyes search my face first, then flitter across to the woman in a hospital bed.
He notices Roscoe, too and spares him just a second of disinterest.
Then he steps into the room, his arm extended back until the cute, compact, and fierce Doctor Minka Mayet follows.
“Is it okay we come in?” Arch enters anyway, drawing his wife closer until he can wrap his arm over her shoulder, then he stops by my side, his body warmth seeping into my skin and his broad hand coming down to rest on the crown of my head.
It’s a hug, sort of. A moment between brothers as he pulls me closer and I rest, for just a beat, against his powerful form. “How’s she doing?”
“Alright.” I straighten in my chair and watch Tiia’s unmoving face, even as Minka breaks away from her husband and helps herself to the chart at the end of the bed. “Surgery went well. She caught only one slug, and it missed most of everything important. Clipped the very top of her hipbone.”
“That’ll bother her when she’s old,” Minka murmurs, leafing through the pages. “BP is consistent. Vitals are good.” She frowns and reads. “Needed a couple of bags of O negative to get through.”
“Lost a lot of blood at the scene,” Roscoe inserts. His voice is hard, hard enough to draw Archer’s stony gaze. But he’s smart, and he’s as possessive as the rest of us. “I’m not leaving, Detective Malone.”
“Who is he?” Archer’s hard eyes stop on mine. “Who is that?”
“Her brother. Agent Roscoe Hale.” I swallow the disgust nestled in my throat. “FBI.”
Archer’s nose twists, though of course, he has a badge, too. I think he walks a tightrope through life, balancing between being a Malone, but also a cop. And most often, I think when he identifies with one, he forgets he’s the other.
In Copeland City, where he and Mayet live and work, he’s a homicide detective. That’s his life, and it’s a calling he dedicates himself to. But here in New York, he’s a Malone, and fuck, that’s a hard persona to shed.
“Well…” he spares a short glance for Roscoe before bringing his eyes back to Tiia. “That’s fuckin’ gross.”
“She’s a Fed, too.” I chuckle. “I fell into a fuckin’ cesspit I wasn’t ready for.”
“It’s alright.” Minka snaps the folder closed and sets it back in place. “Felix fell in love with a professional snitch. Tim loves a dorky hippie. Cato hit on his own aunt. And Archer loves me.” She stops and grins. “No one around here made good choices. You were never taught how to love responsibly.”
“Where is Felix?” I skip over her words, her jabs, and Archer’s scowl because he wants so desperately to defend who they are, and I focus instead on the brother whose life is currently, constantly, under threat. He has Stovic with him. And others. He’s as safe as he can be under the circumstances. But that doesn’t make it easier for me to ignore the fact I’ve abandoned him for Tiia.
For today, at least, until she wakes, I’ve deserted him.
“He’s here,” she answers. “Downstairs. Cato and Tim, too.”
Surprised, I look up. “Tim is here?”
“Yeah. The family has assembled.” Subtly, but oh so sweetly, her lips curl into a small smile. “It’s our new shtick, I think. Tiia was hurt, so here we are.”
“You’re a doctor, right?” Roscoe’s voice is hard and not particularly kind. Which draws not only Minka’s attention, but Archer’s, too. He holds her close and places himself between his wife and the man who speaks without the adoration he demands of us all.
Then he grinds out, “I’m not sure we’re gonna associate with you, Hale. Your literal job is to fuck my family up. She gets a free pass,” he nods toward Tiia, “because Micah says so. But no one here vouches for you.”
“My job, first and foremost, is to protect my family.” His eyes swing across and meet mine. “Something we can all agree on. A point of commonality, even.” Then he peers back at Archer. “That means I’m gonna keep watching your family. In fact, I’m gonna watch harder now than I ever have in the past. But it no longer has anything to do with my shield or orders, and everything to do with my little sister. I don’t much care if you like me, Detective. But I will ensure her safety, and if she wakes up and decides she wants to stay with him,” he nods my way, “then I’ll be nearby for the rest of your criminal fucking lives, hūpō.”
Finally, he drags his attention to Minka. “You’re married to the mob, and I’ve spent my entire career watching them. That means I know your name, and I know you went to medical school.”
“I’m a doctor.” She smirks. “Typically, I specialize in the dead. But my expensive education assures us all that,” she pauses, until the beep-beep-beeps of Tiia’s machines drown everything else out, “she’s alive and kicking.”
Roscoe rolls his eyes, though it’s a small gesture. Almost discreet enough not to be noticed by Archer. “What can you tell me that the other doctors haven’t? What’s hidden in the medical speak?”
“GSW to the abdomen. Lucky miss. Received medical care quickly enough, further damage was avoided and Ms. Hale is not likely to die from sepsis. Surgery to remove the foreign materials and to repair the damage to her body. She required blood transfusions while she was under. But…” She folds her arms and just… shrugs. “She’s okay. She’s gonna be fine.”
“But she’s still unconscious.” I brush the tip of my finger along the bridge of her nose. “It’s been a while.”
“Medically speaking…” Minka sniggers. “That’s called sleep. I assure you, getting shot and having a major operation isn’t something you want to wake up from too quickly. It’ll hurt like a bitch once she’s conscious.” Turning deadly serious, she swings her gaze to Roscoe. “You asked me medical questions because of my job. So now I get to ask you things about Wilkes because of yours.”
He drags his focus away from my stroking hand. “Wilkes?”
“I heard he’s transporting girls across the border. Minors.”
“Trying.” He rests his elbows on the bed, exhaustion forcing him to slump. “His trucks have been intercepted.”
“But for the ones intercepted, there’ll be more no one ever saw, right?”
He considers for a beat, then gives a small shrug. “Yep.”
“How many?”
“How many trucks?”
“How many girls?”
He pulls his bottom lip between his teeth and chews, just like Tiia does when she’s not keen on answering a question. A tell, I now know, gives them away. “Twenty-five-ish per load. We’ve intercepted three trucks in the past month, but we suspect he’s putting at least one across the border every two days.”
Minka’s eyes fire with a rage she keeps quietly tamped down. Lava that moves in silence. But it burns hot, all the same. “For how long?”
“Few months, at least. Took him a while to get settled in New York. Longer still to build his infrastructure, buy trucks and men to drive them. Then to set up his network that would lure women into his world.”
“How long?”
“Four months.”
“That’s sixty loads,” Minka sneers. “Sixty trucks, with twenty-five girls and women on board. And only three have been intercepted?”
“Doing our best. My job was to watch Tiia, and Tiia’s job was to keep Malone out of Wilkes’ scope.” He forces his eyes open and stares at me over his sister’s body. “We don’t have to like you to want to keep you alive. Letting Wilkes destroy a founding family would end only with blood on the streets and a free-for-all as the city scrambles to reestablish a new hierarchy. Your family is trash,” he decides, dropping his gaze again, “but it’s not the trash my team has to take out.”
“Stop being mean to them.” Tiia’s sleepy, rumbling voice startles my hand away from her flesh. Then her twitching eyelids send me shooting up straight, my spine crackling into place as my heart thunders. Shoving to my feet, I press my hands to the mattress and stand over her, searching her slack face.
“Tiia?”
She clears her throat. Barely. The tiniest movement that still ends with a furrowed brow and pain, I know, shooting into her abdomen.
“Mo chroí? Hey?”
“Mo chroí,” Roscoe growls. “The fuck is that?”
“Shhh…” She whispers. “No arguing. It hurts my brain.”
“Ipo?” He grabs her hand and squeezes it between his palms, bringing it to his lips without a single care for the fact he jerks her swollen and aching body. “You’re awake.”
“I got shot?” Her voice is raspy and dry. Her words, painful and scratching. But she fights to push her eyes open, the amber coloring so typically setting me on fire, now surrounded in red.
So tired. Broken.
But then she finds me, silent, observing. Near. And her lips curl into a small smile. “I knew you would be here.”
“You kn—” I reach to the bedside cabinet and pick up a plastic cup of water. Then I glance at the only doctor I know and wait for her approval.
Smirking, Minka lifts her shoulder in a shrug. “I want to reiterate, for the record, I specialize in the dead, so…”
So I yank the water out of reach. But Tiia brings her hand up anyway, weakly searching for my arm as my eyes swing back around and down.
“I’m thirsty.” She drags her bottom lip between her teeth and sleepily sighs, her eyes flickering closed as exhaustion threatens to take her. “I’m part fish. I’m allowed to have water.”
I look at Roscoe, my co-parent in a wildly unconventional situation. He’s a fucking Fed, and yet, I defer to him for permission. My dead, buried, and decomposed piece of shit father would roll in his shallow grave if he knew. But when he nods, small and defeated, I bring my gaze back to Tiia. “How do you feel?”
“Like I got shot.” She wraps her hand around my wrist—part guiding for me, I suppose, and part support for her limp hand. “Like I pulled off the greatest heist of all time.”
“What heist?” I place my free hand behind her head and gently help her lift an inch or two off her pillow. “What do you mean?”
“I mean, I was a federal agent who danced with the devil himself.” Swallowing, she closes her eyes and lies back, exhausted and breathing heavier than she was even a moment ago. “I screwed a lot of things up, and I broke a good man’s heart.”
“No, you?—”
“You hated me. Or at least,” she breathes, pained and broken. “You pretended to hate me. All to send me away.”
“Tiia, s?—”
“But all I had to do to get you back was take a bullet in the belly. I knew that would bring you running.” She lazily smacks her lips and grins. “Did I ever tell you about that time I swam with sharks?”
“This is what I’m sayin’,” Roscoe snarls. “She’s going surfing whether we like it or not, hūpō. Now you’re in the water too, and it’s your job to make sure she stays in one piece.”
“Stop talking about me. And stop calling him names.” She drags her beautiful eyes open and searches mine, though she smirks. It’s lazy and silly. But so fucking beautiful, it makes me sick. “He’s calling you stupid, by the way. But you called me a creature,” she releases a contented smile, sleepy and satisfied. “We know you meant love.”
“Tiia—”
“He means love, too. He’s just stressed.”
“We’re gonna get out of here.” Archer sets his hands on the end of the bed, drawing Tiia’s startled gaze, then her scared expression when she realizes she has an audience. And not just any audience, but my cop brother. “It’s good to see you awake, Hale.”
“Uh—”
“We’ll be back, and we’ll do the formal introductions another time.”
“Yeah, like when you don’t have a little tube transporting your pee into a bag hung on the side of the bed.” Minka takes Archer’s hand. “Welcome to the family, Ms. Hale. I’m confident everything will work out in the end.”
“Let’s go, V.” Archer slings his arm over her shoulder, tugging her in and pressing a kiss to her temple. “We have a little adventure to go on.”
“My favorite kind.” She meets my eyes before they turn away, grinning like she thinks she’s the world’s sneakiest sleuth. She has no clue I know everything there is to know about her.
The moment Joseph Wilkes transported women and children toward a life of debasement, she was locked in on her target.
For now, at least, I’ll let her think I don’t know who she is when the world isn’t watching. For a while, until I’m ready and she’s ready, we’ll leave it a topic unspoken.
I have other things, more important things, to focus on now, anyway.
“Where’s Jazzy?” Tiia dazedly glances around, from one stark white wall to another. “Roscoe? Where’s Jaz?”
“She was hit, too.” He fastens his hands around hers and holds her still when she tries to lift her head. “She got stitches and some decent sleepy-time drugs once the adrenaline wore off. Got a nomination for the shield of bravery, too.” He presses a kiss to the peak of her knuckles. “She’s okay.”
“Why isn’t she here?” Tiia’s pulse sprints, visible in her throat, and audible via the machines that track every beat. “She’s Jazzy. She’s gonna be by my side unless she’s dead.”
“Not dead,” he promises. “Just stoned. The bullet nicked an artery in her neck. Barely,” he reiterates when she tries again to push up, “flirted with it, basically. But they wanted to operate and reinforce it. To make sure she doesn’t burst open some other time. She’s just down the hall, sleeping this shit off.”
Tears form in Tiia’s eyes. Sparkling and annoying to the woman who loathes such weakness. “I don’t want her to be alone.” Tragically, a single droplet slips from the corner of her eye and dribbles along her temple. “You know how she gets. Leaving her alone is cruel.”
“I can send someone to be with her.” I slide my thumb along her skin and collect the fallen tear. “This place is swollen with people on my payroll, Mo chroí. Anyone you want. Michaels is on the door, and?—”
“I’ll go.” Roscoe opens his hands, untangles his fingers, and slowly pushes to his feet. He’s not pleased, leaving his sister alone with a mobster.
But it seems he doesn’t want a different mobster sitting by Jazzy’s side.
Better the devil you know and all that shit.
Standing over Tiia, he leans in and kisses the center of her forehead. “Don’t die while I’m gone, okay? It would piss me off.”
She snickers, soft, and for only a single second before the movement stings and her breath comes to a hissing stop. “Shittttt.” She places her free hand on her stomach and groans. “What the hell kind of bullets were they using? Morningstar?”
“The kind that pierces a woman’s belly and scares the shit out of every person who loves her.” He hovers for a moment, searching her face. Her body. Her pale skin and shaking hands. He doesn’t want to go, and yet, knows he has to. It’s a contradiction that pounds at the back of my skull and leaves me curious. “Don’t die, Ipo. We came into this world together. We gotta hang till we’re both ready to leave again.”
“Won’t die.” With wires and tubes dangling from her wrist, she grits her teeth in defense of the pain and presses her palm to his stubbled cheek. “Try not to worry so much. It creates wrinkles.”
He chuckles, soft and watery and so fucking desperate, the man I thought I knew, the six and a half foot, broad chested, protective guy I thought Tiia was banging on the side, all changes.
There’s love, and there’s protectiveness. But it’s so fucking pure, it reminds me of Felix.
And shit, if I’m already placing him in a category beside Felix, then my chances of hating the prick trickle from my hands like water in the ocean.
“I’ll be back soon.” He cups his sister’s hand for one last beat, turning his face and peppering a kiss to her wrist. Then placing her arm down, he shoots an angry glare my way. “You stay with her till I’m back. Wilkes or anyone else comes here to fuck shit up, you shoot first. I’ll deal with the paperwork later.”
“Pretty sure that’s unethical,” I snort, winking for Tiia when she glances my way. “Here I was, thinking he’s a Fed, and so he’s straighter than an iron column. Turns out every fucking badge has their own agenda.”
“Family first,” he rumbles. “Then the job.”
Something I can relate to.
Silence hangs as Roscoe fixes his shirt and turns from his chair. Tiia’s heart rate monitor, a slow, steady beat, the only sound I hear besides the shuffling feet of nurses bustling by in the hall. Then, as Roscoe steps through the doorway, slowing for a moment and glancing back at his sister, he says, “Love you, Ipo. Make good choices.”
Her pulse comes a little faster. A little faster. Until he turns on his heels and disappears. At which point, her pulse sprints.
“Ignore that sound,” she murmurs, lying back in her bed and looking anywhere but at me. “It’s been on the fritz all day.”
“Funny. I’ve been here all day, and it was working just fine.” I draw her hand up to cup my cheek. Grief swamping my veins. Shame, following right after like a thick, muddy wave that represents how completely fucking vile I was to her. “Listen, Tiia. I’m sorry?—”
“You love me too, right?” She turns and searches my eyes, her stare a physical burn on my skin. “I mean… Toss all the drama and hurt feelings and lies told and all that stuff aside. When everything is stripped back and it’s just me and you in a room and nothing else matters…” Her eyes shimmer with unshed tears. Her thumb, stroking my cheek. “Toss all that stuff aside: you love me, don’t you? This isn’t one-sided.”
“Yes.” Fuck me. Fuck this life. Fuck it all. “Yes, Grá. I love you. But I?—”
“But you’re mad, because I lied and snuck.” She pauses to swallow. “I know.”
“No, I’m mad because I assaulted you.” I glance at the door, to ensure we’re alone. Then I bring my focus back and lower my voice. “I assaulted you, mo chroí. I tied you to a fucking chair, destroyed your clothes, and touched you without your permission.”
“You—”
“I became the one and only man I swore I would never be. I became my father. And that’s not something worth forgiving.”
“I forgive you.” She rolls her thick bottom lip between her teeth and smiles. “I did something bad, and in response, you did something bad. My thing went on for weeks. Yours, an hour, and you couldn’t even commit to it.” She tries to smile as I search her eyes. “You had a million reasons to do the very thing you were raised to do. But your love was greater than your hatred.”
“What are you?” I drop my gaze again as shame washes through my veins. “A fucking poet? This isn’t something that can be brushed aside, Hale.”
“No. But it’s something to be studied. A lesson to learn from.”
“Tiia—”
She cups the back of my head and waits as I lean closer. Closer. Though a foot still sits between us. “Imagine you were a dog bred to fight. You know only one thing. Your instincts say only one thing. You’ve been taught that singular thing all your life. Then a cute little baby chicken wanders into your cage. It would be completely and totally normal for the dog to tear that chick apart and make a mess.”
“You’re being silly. Stop?—”
“But he didn’t tear her apart, Malone. He wanted to. And he knew how. It should have been easy. But when instincts told him to go one way, compassion and love allowed him to protect and preserve the chick instead.”
I glance up and meet her eyes, firming my lips as intolerance rolls through my blood. “You’re reaching.”
But of course, she laughs in the face of danger. Only to follow it up with a groan of pain as her injuries become apparent. “I forgive you,” she moans. “And you love me.” She gently rubs her belly, bolts of panic lancing through my gut as I think of her hurting her stitches. “There’s something here that matters, Micah. And neither of us can afford to toss it in the trash.”
“You’re a badge.” Yet, I bring her hand around and kiss her knuckles. “I’m the subject of every investigation you’ll run for the rest of your life.”
“Actually,” she smirks, playful and soul destroying. “I’m unemployed and will probably need a loan soon. Would you know anyone flush with cash who could help me out?”
“Tiia—”
“Though I’m forced to ask: would I be borrowing from the mob, where my kneecaps become payment? Or am I borrowing from Micah Malone…” Her eyes dance. “My man?”
Fuckkkkkk. Her.
“Why the hell are you unemployed, Grá? You just took a bullet for the job. You should be set with a pension for the rest of your life.”
“No.” She shakes her head, the movement making her too-hard pillows crinkle. “I took a bullet for you. The job can eat rotten eggs.” She allows her eyes to flicker closed. Though her smile is still for me. “Consider this my apology for being a big fat liar.”
“So fucking toxic.” I twine my fingers with hers. “This isn’t the foundation for a good relationship.”
“Love so enveloping that a mongrel dog will protect his prey, and the prey will trade her life for his? That isn’t worthy?” She forces her eyes open. So tired. So heavy. “I think what we have is beautiful.” She exhales, soft and sweet and so fucking sleepy, she tempts me to climb into bed beside her and pull her into my arms. “You just have to give yourself permission,” she sighs. “Forgive yourself for the things that were done to you, not by you.”
“Why do you want to be with me, anyway?” She already has me. Already owns me. “Why, Tiia?”
“Because you make my heart skip a beat every time you speak.” She silences, grinning when her monitors become all we hear. And like she commands it, her pulse jumps. “But also because I bought this new plant recently. It was on the sale rack and all droopy and stuff. It needed a new home.” She grits her teeth. “I need help, or it’s gonna die.”
“For fuck’s sake.” I push up to my feet and stand over her fragile body, major abdominal surgery and the good drugs no doubt impeding her common sense. But I hold her face and lower until our lips hover just a hair’s breadth away. “I’ll raise your plant.”
“And I’ll always be your chicken that needs protection.”
“Can you come up with a new analogy? Yours is weird.”
“I quite like weird. I love you, Micah Malone. We might grow to regret it someday, when you’re tired of my strangeness and I’m sick of living in a jungle. But today isn’t that day.”
“If you choose to love me, mo chroí, then I want you to choose forever.”
“Easy,” she breathes. “Done.”