Chapter 16 Open Up #2
Because hearing it come from your mouth feels like watching you choose him all over again even if I know now that it wasn’t your choice?
Because I killed him?
Because the man you call ‘husband’ is a fraud and a murder and nowhere near good enough for you?
I can’t say any of that so, instead, I say nothing.
Her expression tightens. “See? That’s what I mean.”
“What?”
“When I ask questions about you, not me, you constantly shut down.”
“I don’t—”
“You do.” She gestures around the room. “You’d rather come in here and beat your hands to a bloody pulp than just tell me what you’re thinking.
I promise you, Dallas, I’m not as fragile as you think I am.
I’m a big girl. This… this is an adjustment for both of us.
If you’d rather I find somewhere else to go—”
What? “No.” I clear my throat before I scare her again.
“I mean, no. This is your home. Our home. I messed up, baby. That’s all.
I had a bad day at work and then you were making the day so much better, but I…
it’s a ‘me’ problem, okay? Not a ‘you’ problem.
And I’ll be better. You want me to open my trap?
To be honest with you? I will. I… I will. ”
Does she believe me?
“Luce?”
She holds up one finger, then disappears into the hall. A minute later, she reappears holding a washcloth she had dampened.
Once she’s standing in front of me again, she wiggles her fingers at me. “Hands, Dal. Now.”
Reluctantly, I take my bloody hands out of my pocket. They look even worse than I imagine, but after only a tiny flinch, Lucy bows her head and gets to work, dabbing the cuts until they stop bleeding
During her trip to the bathroom, she also palmed a tiny tube of antibiotic ointment she had found in the medicine cabinet. Once the blood stops, she uncaps it, using her thumb to gently cover each of the cuts and scrapes with the ointment before blowing on it, helping it dry.
“Thanks, baby. I appreciate it.”
“Mm.” She finishes looking over her handiwork, ghosting her fingers over my newly shiny knuckles. “Shouldn’t even scar.” Then, before I can realize what she’s doing, she turns one of my hands over, tapping the Order brand covering my palm. “Not like that did.”
I just nod.
She peers up at me. “I still want to know. What happened here? What is this?”
I go still as she waits for an answer.
This isn’t the first time she drew my attention to the sigil burned into my palm.
The Order’s symbol, each Owed gets it branded in the center of their palm during the August ceremony after they turn eighteen.
The Offerings can be Claimed during that same ceremony, and the Used get their brands on the side of their necks, while the male members are marked on their inner palms.
It hurts like a fucking bitch. The healing process sucks, too, and after that, getting a tattoo is a cakewalk.
But every time Lucy looked up at me with questions in her eyes after running her thumb over the scarred skin, I brushed her off.
I told her it was something I did when I was a dumb kid.
That we had this stupid club for all my boys and each of us burned each other with an old branding iron on a dare.
It’s mostly true. The mark is done with a branding iron, the Order is a boys club, and I was only eighteen when I got my brand.
Did I tell her it was because the Order was really a secret society and that we’ve ruled over Harmony Heights and beyond for more than two centuries, brokering deals in backrooms, guiding from the shadows, and ending anyone who gets in our way?
No, but from the look on her face, she has some idea that that might be her case—and she’s asking me about it right after I promised that I would be more honest and open with her.
You know what? Props to Lucy because I fell right into that one, didn’t I?
Now, I don’t want to say that she had an ulterior motive when she offered to wash my knuckles, but if she did? She played me, and, God, that was so fucking sexy, I can’t help but grip her chin and give her a kiss.
When I end it, there are red spots coloring the heights of her cheek. She licks her bottom lip, then says, “That was nice, but I still want to know what happened to you.”
I’m right. I know I’m right. Somehow, she figured out that it’s more than what I said it was. So, on a hunch, I say, “What do you think happened?”
Lucy looks surprised that I asked. For a moment, she doesn’t say anything, until she finally hazards her own guess. “The Order of the Owed.”
Goddamn it. “Who told you about the Order?”
She tilts her chin, the hint of defiance going right to my cock. “Haven did.”
On the one hand, I’m so fucking glad that Haven and Lucy got along.
According to Connor—who still obsessively watches his wife and makes sure she doesn’t have a setback more than two years after her ordeal—Haven even spoke to Lucy.
I just… I just wish she hadn’t decided to talk to my Dandelion about the fucking Order.
“Okay. What did she say?”
“That it wasn’t just a club. That it was some kind of secret society.”
I jerk my head. A nod.
“That it runs Harmony Heights.”
Another nod.
“That most of the guys in town are part of it. You. Your cousin. Haven’s husband.” She pauses for a moment. “My dad.”
I sigh. “Yes, yes, and yes.”
Lucy takes that in for a moment. I’m not sure how she’ll react.
I don’t know how far Haven went in her explanation of what it means to ‘rule Harmony Heights’, and considering she hates the Order more than almost anyone I ever met for the part Jack had to play in her captivity, I can’t imagine she had anything good to say about it.
But all Lucy says is a soft, “And you didn’t think that was important to mention? If it’s a big part of your life… if this is the side hustle you keep bringing up… don’t you think I’d want to know about that?”
The Order ruined her life before she left me, and one of the Owed nearly killed her.
If I could’ve kept that part of me away from Lucy forever, I would’ve.
The fact that I’m mere days away from the wedding that the old guard are still expecting to go on doesn’t matter.
Lucy isn’t ready to know everything. I’ll marry her for real when she is, but not because they think I have to.
I’ll do it because I love her, I need her, and I can’t live without her.
But I’m beginning to see that this is a line in the sand for her. She doesn’t want me keeping secrets—and I’m in fucking trouble because she doesn’t even know about the biggest one I have yet.
That’s a later problem. For now, I have to deal with one at a time.
“You woke up without memories,” I remind her. “You were already overwhelmed. I wasn’t about to throw that at you, too.”
“That’s not your choice.”
“I know. And I’m sorry.”
“I don’t want you hiding things because you think you’re protecting me.”
I wish my reasons were as altruistic as that. “I’ll be better, Dandelion. I mean it.”
She nods, slightly mollified. “It’s you and me, Dallas. We’re in this together. Unless you’d rather—”
There is no rather.
Careful not to rub the antibiotic ointment on her sweater, I reach around Lucy, pulling her into a tight hug, holding her so tight, she knows down to her bones that I’ll never let her go.
And, as she sinks against me, wrapping her arms around my sweaty sides, fingers played across the small of my back, I can finally breathe again to know that she doesn’t want me to.