13. Liberty Leading the People
Chapter thirteen
Liberty Leading the People
Kira
I don’t know why I felt the need to watch the 25th Anniversary of Les Miserables . Maybe it was my recent fascination with Delacroix’s Liberty Leading the People . The red, waving flag of the barricade scene as the students raised their rifles and fists to their doomed cause filled my small apartment.
In the silence that followed after the applause, I realized that my phone was vibrating on the end table.
I picked it up without looking, placing it to my ear. “Hello?”
“Hello, Miss Kekoa.” Eoghan’s accent seemed slower.
Had he been asleep?
I looked at the clock - it was almost 1 AM.
“Mr. Green?” I asked, even though I knew it was him. There was no mistaking it.
The formality between us was so strange that it felt… intimate. Like we were sharing an inside joke that no one else understood.
I liked it. It made me feel like I was in some kind of Regency movie, where the man flirted by helping a woman in and out of a carriage. Back when people flirted over the flitter of silk fans across a ball room, and wrote hand-written notes delivered by butlers on silver trays.
“Say my name. My first name.” Eoghan’s demand surprised me.
Normally, when he told me to do something, I chose to do the opposite. It was instinct to defy him, but not this time. There was something in his tone - a desperation that made my heart ache.
I had never heard before. Not when he told me that there were consequences for touching a Green, or any of the other times he had asked me to marry him, or to sell myself to him… so what was going on?
“Eoghan,” I said, unsure if that was enough.
But he let out a sigh, then a contented “Hmm.”
The silence lingered for a moment, as I stared at my television screen. The revolutionary students were in a row, a red flag waving over their heads, right before they would break for intermission.
“May I call you Kira?” he asked.
I couldn’t stop him if he didn’t want me to. But there was definitely more to his question than just the use of first names.
“Are you okay?” I asked.
I felt the crackle over the phone as seconds ticked by. Seconds, then minutes, as he just breathed on the other end. Was he fidgeting? Was he anxious? If he was, why?
“No,” he finally said. It was so quiet, I barely heard it.
Well, that was unexpected. I never really thought he’d admit to not being okay. He was always so self-assured that it was daunting to think that something in life wasn’t going his way.
“Where are you?”
“Home.” He sounded so clipped, like he was agitated, but not at me.
“Where is home? Give me an address.”
“If I do, will you come to me?” He sounded like he was scared that I wouldn’t. Maybe I shouldn’t.
This whole thing was such a bad idea. Just when I had resolved to think less of Eoghan, and to remove myself from his orbit so that I could keep doing my job… this happens. Was the universe fucking with me?
“Give it a shot, and see,” I whispered, barely understanding why I was saying it. I was going to go to him, even as my mind screamed that this was a terrible, terrible idea.
“I’ll send my driver to you.”
“I can Uber.”
“Or you can wait for my man to get to you. He’s not far off.”
“Do you have someone watching me?”
“No, love. But I don’t live far from you. Will you come?”
I paused, thinking about it. I had met his driver before, and despite everything I knew about Eoghan Cillian Green, I still felt safe with him. Maybe I didn’t have the same instincts Blink did. I couldn’t tell a person’s deep dark secrets from a single twitch of their eye, or the flare of their nostrils.
But I knew Eoghan. He might not be a good man. He might not be a law-abiding citizen. But I knew, down to my core, that I was safe with him.
“Do you want me to?” I don’t know why I even said that. He wouldn’t have told me to come, if he hadn’t wanted me to, right? So why did I need more reassurance?
“Yes. Unequivocally, yes.”
That was how I found myself getting into a car with a guy called Kieran O’Malley to a penthouse just a few blocks from me, in Manhattan’s Hudson Yards. In the great city of New York, walking one neighborhood over would be the difference between seeing a dump, or a penthouse. Never was that more obvious than the short, though time consuming, drive from my apartment to Eoghan's penthouse.
Kieran O’Malley, a young man who looked a little too rosy-cheeked for my taste, led me up to an elevator, swiped a keycard before pressing the button to the top floor. He stepped out of the carriage.
I lifted a brow as the double doors began sliding closed, with him on the other side.
“It’ll take you right to his living room,” he said, before he disappeared behind the metal doors, and the carriage started moving up.
I was lifted 104 floors into the sky, and deposited right into a living room that took my breath away.
The doors opened to a large, open space. It was more space, than furniture, with white barren walls, and a polished concrete floor. The visible silver ducts overhead were more of an art piece, than an appliance. Everything was black onyx, or white marble, modern and monochromatic, except for the artwork.
In silver and gold frames, up and down the large high walls was some of the most breathtaking art I had ever seen. They weren’t classical, or expensive. I didn't know the painters. I had never seen these works before, which was a shame. They were… breathtaking.
“Care for a drink Miss Kekoa?” His voice floated over me, disembodied and deep.
I looked around, searching for him. It took a minute before I found him on the floor, in front of the couch, one knee propped up, green bottle in his hand.
We were over 1,000 feet from the ground, floor-to-ceiling windows looking out to a darkened Central Park. There was just enough moonlight streaming in to see that his eyes were unfocused and glassy. He was in terrible shape. How much had he drunk?
“Have you had enough for the both of us?”
“I’ve had enough to kill an army of invading Gauls,” he chuckled, bringing the bottle to his lips and upending it with a loud gulp. His Adam’s apple bobbed, before he took it from his mouth, then swiped the droplets from his lips with his sleeve.
“What’s in that?” I asked, nodding down to his drink.
“Absinthe.”
“Are you out of your mind?” I reached down to grab it from him, remembering the stories of hallucinations, and drugs, and other insane stories from “chasing the dragon”.
He pulled the bottle away, as I knelt on the floor to grab it from him. He smiled at me with a chuckle.
“Oh, the hallucinogens have been taken out decades ago,” he said with a sigh, as if that was a terrible tragedy.
“Where did you even get Absinthe?” Now, we were both on the rug, in the space between the couch and a glass and chrome coffee table.
His hand shot out, cupping my cheek in his palm, as thumb caressed the place beneath my eye.
“Amsterdam.”
“Amsterdam… New York?” I asked, referring to the town north of Albany.
He laughed, as if it was the funniest joke he’d ever heard.
Guess we were talking about the other Amsterdam then - the one that was closer to old York.
“Come sit with me,” he said, patting the place beside him.
I didn’t hesitate, even though I knew that I was alone in an apartment with a drunk man who had tried to buy sex from me on multiple occasions. I was playing with fire, and that fucking thrilled me.
“You make me feel calm,” he whispered, as I settled on the floor with him.
He didn’t speak for a moment, as we stared at the spectacular view. Too bad the city lights were so harsh that they drowned out the stars. When humanity finally crumbled, I bet the blackened buildings would make an amazing landscape, when the stars were above.
“Are you okay, Eoghan?” I turned so that my body faced him entirely.
The view was nice. But it wasn’t what I was here to see.
“No.”
“Will you tell me what’s wrong?”
“My father is mad.” He looked at me then, his black eyes shooting a heat inside me that took me by surprise.
“What’s he angry about?”
“No, sweetheart,” he gave a small snort of laughter. “I mean he’s losing his mind. He’s lost it for a while, honestly. I just never faced it.”
I scooted towards him. “Do you mean… dementia? Or something else? You’re not giving me a lot to go off of, here.”
He let out a long sigh, before he took another drink of Absinthe.
He offered me the bottle, and… hell, you only live once, right? I took it and took a sip.
It was sweet, and a bit like licorice. I only took a small drink, since I still wasn’t sure about the hallucinogens and whatnot.
“My mother died,” he said, his low rumbling voice doing things to me that it shouldn’t, considering the context of his words.
“I’m so sorry.”
I had never considered that Eoghan had parents. In my head, he emerged fully formed, in a posh suit with a paintbrush in his hand.
“Thank you,” he said, with a slight chuckle. “But that’s not… that doesn’t upset me anymore.”
There was a twitch under his eye. It was small, and almost imperceptible. Holy shit, he was lying. I don’t think he’s ever lied to me before.
“ My father just… he never got over it.” That must make two of them. “It eats at his brain like a worm. And I don’t know how to stop it.”
“Why don’t you get him help? Get him some outpatient, or even inpatient, treatment?”
“Oh, Alastair Green would never allow himself to be diagnosed. There’s no treating Alastair Green for anything.” His chuckle was sad. Heartbreaking, really. “Definitely not for something as insignificant as mental health.”
My heart sank for him. Whatever relationship he had with his father was surely complicated. It pained him.
“He’ll ruin the company if I don’t watch him,” he said, staring into the distance. “Some days, I wish he had died with my mother.”
Those words speared right through me. Mental health. Even before the feelings could be felt, the tears were welling in my eyes.
He hadn’t turned to me. He hadn’t looked at me. But it was as if he could feel me.
His brows came together, and his hand reached out to take mine. He placed them on his lap, palm up, and he intertwined our fingers.
I averted my eyes down to the green bottle of Absinthe, then caught the sight of red droplets on the outside. It was exactly where his palm had been. What the fuck?
“What’s upset you, love?” He stared forward, not even glancing at me. “Talk to me.”
“I… I don’t know. Is your hand bleeding?” I reached over him, my breasts lightly grazing his chest.
He took in a sharp breath through his teeth, as I reached for the hand with the bottle. I plucked it from his hand, and opened his palm. Sure enough, there was a red gash there. An open fucking wound. It looked deep!
“What the hell happened?” I asked, looking into his black, expressionless eyes. “You should get this looked at! You might need stitches!”
He didn’t pull his hand away. Instead, he just grazed the back of his fingers along my palm, as if seeing if I had a similar wound there too. I didn’t.
“It won’t need stitches,” he said, flatly. He took the broken hand out of mine, and brought his fingers to my loose hair. “You had a look in your eye, as if you remembered something sad. Tell me what it was.”
His fingers curled around a wavy lock, and he stared at it with fascination - as if he had never seen hair before in his life.
“Why?” I asked, defensively. “You like hearing about other people’s misery?”
“No, but if you have something that makes you miserable, I want to handle it.”
I almost laughed. How long had I wanted someone to swoop in and make my problems go away? Wasn’t that every overworked woman’s dream? That a man comes in with a black Amex, then whisks her away on his private jet, and handles all her problems?
Here was a man richer than Mansa Musa, offering me the world.
God, where was he five fucking years ago?
“It’s.. poor people problems.” I tried to keep the bitterness from my voice. He didn’t deserve it. “You wouldn’t understand.”
“Try me.”
“No.”
“Why?” His voice was angry, as if not telling him my deepest darkest secrets was some kind of insult to him. “What will it take, Kira?”
“For what, Eoghan?” I don’t know why, but his name felt spiteful on my lips.
Why couldn’t he have found me when I needed him - really needed him? When I was still full of hope, and capable of love and trust?
“For you to consider me, love. For you to believe me when I say I just want to make things better for you.” His voice was so soothing, that it wracked me with guilt. “What will it take? Truly?”
“Why do you care?”
“It would make me happy to help you.” He was so earnest, it was unnerving. Men simply didn’t do this. Not outside of a great Hallmark movie. “There is nothing in the world I’d rather do, than to make you smile, even for a moment.”
“Why?” I could feel my pulse in my ears.
Why would he care? Why would he want that? What was he going for? Was he doing all of this for a lay? Was the prospect of a woman not immediately getting on her back and spreading her legs for him so foreign that he was becoming obsessed?
He was a mark. I was an agent. There was no future for us. So why did I want one so badly? Why did his proposal of marriage seem more and more appealing with every passing moment in his magnetic presence?
“Because I feel for you, Kira Kekoa. There’s something real in the air between us.” He leaned into me, so close that I could almost smell the minty alcohol on his intoxicating breath. “I was destined for you. Destined in a way that transcends whatever doubts prevent you from crawling onto my lap, and placing yourself in my arms.”
I bristled.
How could he possibly have thought that I would do something as intimate as that?
His fingers pinched my chin, as he turned my face towards him.
“I mentioned my father, and you looked devastated.” He scooted along the leather couch, closer to me until I was plastered against him from hip to knee. “Tell me about yours.”
“My father is dead.” I let the words linger in the air between us, as if it wasn’t a huge bomb that devastated my life.
“How’d he die?” No remorse. No sympathy. No sorry for your loss. He just plowed right in there. Strangely enough, I found that refreshing.
“Cancer.” I opened my mouth, ready for the explanation that was always required - what kind, how long did it take for him to expire, what did we try to do to fix it.
But then he turned his face, so that his left eye was bathed in silver moonlight. To my utter horror, a blue and black bruise formed on his eye socket. His eye was partially shut, red and swollen.
“Oh my God, your eye!” I whispered, as I reached out to touch his face. “What happened?”
“It was more than just cancer, Kira.” He ignored my question, even as he tilted his head to lean into my hand. “What happened to your father?”
“What happened to your face, Eoghan?”
“Your father.” He was firm, telling me that he had no intention of answering my questions.
“Do you need to go to a hospital?”
He placed his warm hand on top of mine, sandwiching my palm between his cheek and his firm, rough hand. “What happened to your father?”
His intense eyes looked at me, as his free hand reached to grab a strand of my curls, twirling them around his index finger.
“I… I co-signed for all his bills, because he couldn’t afford them, and he was in so much pain he couldn’t work. But he found out how much it was costing, and how much debt I was incurring and he…” I felt the sadness in the pit of my chest, staring like a small ache, and threatening to blossom into a pain that would be unimaginable. A pain I ignored before it broke me.
I had signed his bills with my left hand - my true self. But the loan shark I had needed to continue his treatments, when I was denied a bank loan again and again? Those I had signed with my right. My lying hand. I forged fake papers of an artist who didn’t exist. The signature that was at the bottom corner of half a dozen canvases in rich homes of the Upper West Side, under made up names.
But even as I traded my integrity for my father’s life, it wasn’t enough. I couldn’t keep up with the high interest and payments. Not to the Mafia.
I never stood a chance. We never stood a chance.
My father never stood a chance.
“He chose to stop treatment, and go into palliative care, because he didn’t want it to cost me so much.”
I tried to keep my voice even, as my left hand touched Eoghan’s face. My true hand. But I was failing. I was losing the fight so fast, that it was breaking me.
“The worst part is that even palliative care costs a lot.” I pulled my hand from his grasp, and covered my mouth as a sad, painful laugh bubbled from my chest. “Even dying costs money, doesn’t it?”
I couldn’t look at him. I couldn’t look at anyone after I told them my story. The look people gave me was always a combination of sympathy, shock, and shame. Everyone thinks they could have chosen better. Everyone believes that they would have found a way to pay the medical bills and keep their loved ones alive.
I was one of those people, once. I was determined to do whatever I needed to for my Dad.
“I spent hours on the phone with HMO, medicare, charity organizations, everything I could. I almost lost my job because I was always on the phone desperately trying to find any relief but… but…”
A fat, disgusting tear streamed down my face, falling down to my thigh, staining my skirt a slightly darker black.
“Maybe I was a failure,” I finally said, as if Eoghan wasn’t even here. It was words I had said to myself over and over again. Words I had cursed myself with.
I was crumbling. I was falling apart, until warm arms pulled me into an equally warm chest. He brought me into his embrace, and I tried to squirm out of it, but he didn’t let me. The best he would let me do was turn away so that my back was to his chest, and his arms encircled my waist.
“Are you still in debt?” I felt his whisper on the shell of my ear, and it sent a shiver down my spine.
“No,” I said, on instinct, pulling my left hand away.
There was a flash of a memory. A letter opener in my hand. Blood on my fingers, on the floor. On the loan shark’s body with his trousers below his hips, his ass hanging out, his dick swinging. A dick he’d ordered me to suck, before I plunged a knife into his ribs.
Blink, opening the door and looking at the room with impassive eyes as he told me to help roll him up in the rug. Blood. Blood in the water as we dumped him in the Hudson. The price I had to pay.
Was it a price, or a blessing? Jury was still out.
Another pained laugh escaped my lips. “No, we settled that just fine. If I hadn’t, would you pay it for me?”
“Why not?”
“At what cost? I’d have to be your live-in whore?”
“I haven’t asked for any of that, Kira. I’d give you the money, free and clear.”
“Why? How could you possibly be okay with that? Its not fucking human.”
“I’m not human,” he said with a low, seductive chuckle that I felt rumble through his chest, into my back, sending a tingle to my ribs. “I’m a monster. But I’ll be your monster, if you like, love.”
“God, you’re so… so…”
“Devilishly handsome? Charming? Irresistible?” His lips hovered in the space between where my neck met my shoulder. I could feel his warm breath, and the heat of his skin. It was such a small, simple thing to feel his breath over my bare skin. But the effects were enormous. “Monstrously well endowed?”
I scoffed, trying to pull away, but he tightened his arms until his massive biceps crushed me against his hard pecs.
“Sure, promises, promises…” I rolled my eyes.
“I promise you everything that I am, and everything that I have, if you just let me bind your hand in marriage.” His hand traced my arm, down my bare skin, to my hand, where he lay his palm on the back of mine and intertwined our fingers.
“No.” I shook my head. “I will never rely on anyone for anything ever again. I will never be poor again. I will stand on my own two feet from now on. Not like when I lost my father. I will never beg for the kindness of strangers, or be at someone else’s mercy, Mr. Green.”
“So much pride.” He leaned down and touched his lips to my bare skin, placing a sweet, closed-lip kiss on my neck. “What is it that they say about pride and the fall?”
I tried to pull away again, but he tightened his embrace. It wasn’t imposing. It was almost like he was trying to comfort me. His embrace did calm me, like the comfort of being safely tucked in a familiar blanket.
Or a straight jacket.
“I will never let you fall, Kira Kekoa. Never.” There was a new ferocity in his voice. One that hadn’t been there before.
“You will if I keep rejecting you.” I turned my head just a fraction. Just for a moment.
“Not even then, love.”