Chapter 33
The second she looked up at me between her tears, I knew she’d had enough. I knew something had changed from enjoyment to the opposite. I brought her back to the house and placed her in the bath.
The rustic room is filled with wood, everything from the basin to the ceiling. The bath barely fits us both, but I’m not going to leave her by herself. Even if she hadn’t endured trauma and was coming off a weekend bender, I’d still fucking be here by her side.
“Isla…” My voice is low, the light sounds of her breath the only thing between us as she rests the back of her head on my chest.
“Hmm?”
“I haven’t been completely honest with you.”
I feel her stiffen in my arms.
Fuck. Don’t fucking tell her. She will leave you so fucking quick. You will never see her again.
I swallow down the thoughts as she waits for me to continue, but I can’t bring myself to tell her all the things I want to. All the things I need to.
“I may have removed some of Adrian’s fingers.”
The water sloshes as she turns to face me. “What!?”
“He touched you.” My voice deepens as I think of what he’s done to her. The very scar on her palm beneath my thumb is a reminder that he, too, needs to be amongst those who die.
“He’s my ex-fiance. I met him before you.”
“No, he hurt you,” I rephrase, but still, part of me did do it because he touched her before I could. He hugged her before I could, fell asleep with her in his arms before me.
“Where is he now?”
“Still in the basement at Veridis, surviving off mice.”
A smile tugs at the corner of her lips. “I’m sure he has something to do with this whole mess, too.” She relaxes into me again and sighs. “I don’t think I can wait for Ezra. I want to speak to my father now.”
“It’s not safe for either of us to be in London,” I say, hoping I can keep her here longer, to keep the truth hidden for as long as I can.
The sun blares through the large window by the bath, warming the room.
A part of me itches to take the lives of everyone who laid a hand on Isla, and another part of me wants to stay here with her because I don’t want to lose her again.
But I know one thing is certain.
I don’t want her near any of this shit.
“You know you won’t be coming, right?”
She sits up, turning to face me again. “Now I know you have a fucking brain malfunction.”
I blink, waiting for her to slap me across the face again. “You are staying here. As soon as Ezra tells me it’s safe to go back, I’m going to handle everything.”
“Handle everything? No.” She stands, the water cascading over her sensual curves and the dark tattoos on her beautiful skin. “If you think after everything that I will stay here, you don’t know me at all.”
“But I do.” I get to my feet and tower over her. “Because I will fucking cuff you to this tub if I have to.”
“I dare you to fucking try,” she says, with fire blazing in her eyes.
I clench my teeth as my mind wars with my heart. “You were gone for weeks.” My hand meets the delicate skin on her neck. “Do you have any idea what that did to me?”
“I thought you didn’t have a beating heart, Mr Faris,” she pushes, aiming to hurt me.
“Be careful,” I warn, squeezing. “Don’t start something you can’t finish.”
“I don’t want it to end, though,” she says, running the edge of her nails over my chest, the sharp sting an intoxicating sensation I’d left in my past with her. “Why would I want it to end when it’s barely even begun?”
Only if you knew, Little Nycto.
I groan when she cups my balls, her nails digging into my skin.
“I still haven’t seen you beg yet,” she whispers as she looks up at me.
“There’s plenty of time for that, Isla.” I pull her into my arms, and she wraps her arms around my neck, clenching her thighs around my waist. “But tonight, you need to rest.”
I step out of the bath with her in my arms and reach for the towel on the rack, then place it around her.
There’s not much in the bedroom—a bed, a side table, and a lone dresser in the corner.
The mattress looks to be new, and the germaphobe in me thanks Emmett for thinking ahead.
I know Ezra wouldn’t worry about the finer details, but my best friend sure as fuck knows me.
Placing her onto her feet, I pat her dry and open the suitcase to find a T-shirt.
“I can dress myself, Malik,” she says with her hands on her hips as I place the shirt over her head.
“Arms,” I say, ignoring her little protest.
She lifts them with a frown. Once she’s dressed in my shirt, I find some boxer briefs and slip them on.
“We need to find something to eat.”
“But I’m not hungry,” she protests again.
“You will eat.”
She huffs as we head down the stairs and into the kitchen. I open the fridge to see it fully stocked.
“Emmett, you legend,” I murmur, reaching for the cheese and olives.
“What in the world are you going to make with that?” she asks, hiking herself up on the counter.
“Something I used to have at Ophidian every Friday night.”
“What?” She smiles, watching me work.
“I used to sneak out of our room with Emmett and Evren. Every Friday, we made ourselves a sandwich with the two things that were available in the fridge.” I hold up the bread, cheese, and olives. “Don’t knock it until you try it.”
I almost tell her that after we’d have our midnight snack, I’d sneak into her room to make sure she was asleep. It’s like an involuntary twitch now, my mouth wanting to say the words, but my mind is not ready for her to know.
Handing her a sandwich, I hold mine up to cheers with her. She takes a bite, and I wait for her reaction. If we were at my place, I would’ve prepared her a proper, nutritious meal. Steak, onions, tabouli salad with baked baby potatoes. I guess I’ll just have to save that for another time.
If there is another time.
If she even wants to speak to me after I tell her.
Fuck, I’ve already kept this from her for too long.
“It’s good,” she says with a mouthful of bread, and I smile as I watch her.
I didn’t know this was how it would feel to be in her presence, to know her, to be so irrevocably in love with her all my life, only to fall deeper in love with the person she is now.
It’ll continue to remain a mystery to me how my heart only beats for her, but I know that won’t ever stop being my truth. It always has been.
The only law I wanted to follow.
The only one that mattered because it brought me to her.
She sighs, her expression changing as she lowers the bread. “Malik,” she murmurs, looking into her lap. “That night in the graveyard…”
“You don’t owe me an explanation,” I say, knowing exactly what she’s going to say.
“I just want you to know why I was there.” When she looks up at me again, I want to wrap my arms around her and hold her tight against my chest.
“I know why you were there, Isla.”
“Beatrice took her own life,” she whispers, the tears welling in her eyes as I take in a breath, holding myself back from stopping her from opening her old wounds again. “I found her in her bedroom. She had cut from her wrist, up to her underarms.”
Jesus.
She sniffs, squeezing the bread in her hands.
“When Benedict had me, I remembered what he did to her. I kept dismissing her when she told me she started to remember things. I was horrible to her because I didn’t remember any of it.
She said she couldn’t remember who it was, but she felt them there…
between her legs each time she’d try to fall asleep. ” Her voice cracks.
Taking the bread from her, I place mine and hers on the counter and step in between her legs. Her cheeks are wet upon my touch as I raise her gaze to mine.
“None of this is your fault.”
“I didn’t listen to her, Malik,” she sobs. “I didn’t listen, then a week after her death, I started remembering pieces.”
A blaze of rage blows through my veins when she speaks next.
“I felt them there too.”
“I’ll fucking kill them all.” I place my lips on hers, tasting her salty tears as they meet our mouths.
Her body shakes in my arms, breathing through her pain.
“The pieces are still shattered, but I know they’re there in my head. I just can’t reach them. They’ve broken me so much that I can’t even make sense of my past.”
I feel another pang at her words, the cracks in my now beating heart multiplying.
You’re such an asshole. Fucking tell her!
“I wanted to die that night…Why didn’t you just let me die!?” she wails, the pure agony in her voice like a fucking knife in my chest.
“I’m sorry, Isla,” I whisper. “I’m so fucking sorry. I know what it’s like to lose someone.”
She wraps her arms around my neck tightly, pulling me into her. “I didn’t have anyone but her. She was my light. She was the good in me. She was everything I wasn’t.”
I hold the woman I’ve loved all my life in my arms and listen to the things she’s battled.
Everything she went through while I was in prison, and every day since.
The thirteen years I’d spent looking for her so I could protect her from the world, only for her to tell me she’d been suffering the whole time.
This time, killing them won’t be enough.
I need to watch them suffer.
I need to feel their organs in my hands, string them up in front of the courthouse so the world can see the poison in their blood.
“I promise I’ll make them wish they had never been born.”