CHAPTER 10
I think I turned to stone, because even my lungs have stopped working. I’m not even sure my heart is beating anymore.
“Answer the fucking question.”
A shiver explodes beneath my sternum, and it shakes me out of my stupor as I fully register just who stands behind me.
The dealer’s hand snaps back into his pocket and something past apprehension strains his features as he takes in Finnigan.
“Move along, man,” the dealer answers, yet it seems like the wrong thing for him to say.
A shadow looms over me, and that shiver that was running rabid through my nerves, now reaches my feet. I start to move when his stern voice stops me dead in my tracks.
“I’m not talking to you, asshole,” Finnigan warns as he steps to my right. “You’re not doing what I think you are. Right, Evelyn? You’re not buying drugs, because that would be fucking ridiculous. Even stupid.”
“Did you follow me here? That’s seriously screwed up, Finnigan. Am I under surveillance?”
Or is he stalking me? How long has this been going?
“Answer me.” His tone lowers just as his head does, the blue of his eyes turning to ice, “Are you buying drugs?”
“It’s none of your business,” I answer, but my voice comes out much shakier than it sounded in my head.
“Everything to do with you is my goddamn business!” he roars, and I flinch.
It’s not the tone drawing the reaction, but the underlying implication of his words. In the slight widening of his eyes that lasted less than a blink I can see that his words surprise him too.
From my periphery I notice the dealer attempts a step away from us.
“I didn’t say you could leave, motherfucker.” In one swift move, Finnigan’s arm is extended and at the end of it, right in my eyesight, a gun with a silencer attached is aimed at the man.
I take a step back, but don’t dare another when those icy eyes pin me in place. This is a different Finnigan Hennessey than the one who brought me flowers. Different from the one who pinned me against the wall after I slapped him. This Finnigan is made of malice and rage. Even with the soft curls of his hair brushing over his ears, his preppy, pretty boy look has dissipated into an abyss brimming with dangerous power.
Yet, this display is not what shocks me the most—the tingles blooming out of nowhere deep into my lower belly do. They’re running wild, chasing a thrill straight to parts of my body that should not react to this aggression. But they do… and I’m forced even stiller, because there is no way I will cross my arms over my breasts or move my legs closer together. I fear I’ll give myself away. Though I fear rubbing against those sensitive parts more.
“What did she buy from you?” Finnigan asks the dealer.
“Like the lady said, it’s none of your business,” he answers.
My breath hitches a moment after the snapping cock of the gun, and the guy’s hands shoot up in surrender.
“Heroin.”
“Are you fucking kidding me, Evelyn?! Heroin?! Is this it? You’re a junkie?” He’s truly appalled. And most of all, furious.
Though, it’s the look in his eyes that affects me more than his words or tone. It squeezes at my heart because the disappointment is painfully vivid.
“Stop it. No, I am not.” There must be another explanation for why my body bellows for it. “You don’t understand. You will never understand what it all feels like.”
“Make me.” He utters those two words like he asked me for a glass of water, not to share my entire story and how I ended up here.
“Excuse me? Yesterday you tried to pay me off to leave. Hours later you shipped me off back to your friend’s home because you wanted nothing to do with me. Now all of a sudden you want to pretend that you wish to understand me?” I scoff as I shake my head. “Seriously, go away, and leave the man alone.”
The itch beneath my skin grows, and on instinct, I go to scratch my forearms but wince when at the first run on it, Finnigan notices. I drop my hands in the calmest way possible, hoping he doesn’t want to investigate the reaction.
“Last night has nothing to do with this. You expect me to stand by, watch you destroy yourself for a cheap thrill? Damn it, Evelyn. I thought you were way smarter than this. This is…” But he only shakes his head, emphasizing his disappointment. Then he focuses on the man whose arms are still in the air. “You’re seriously protecting the guy who was contributing to your self-destruction?”
I shake my head, scoffing. “A thrill? I may have kept you all at arm’s length, but you don’t need to get too close to know thrills are not what I want in life. You’re perched too high on your gilded throne, and you’re failing to see what the world looks like for the rest of us. I may be wrong, but if I’m not, then you’re a hypocrite. Here’s a hard lesson for you: when the horrors of this world put their hands on you, they sear through your flesh until they reach your very soul and brandish you. But that mark never scars, it sizzles. Constantly. An ember that catches fire once in a while and brings you down to your knees all over again. I’m not chasing a thrill, Finnigan. I’m chasing anything else but… this.”
I’m heaving when the words finally die on my tongue, and though he only glances at me as he keeps an eye on the drug dealer who looks more horrified by the second. I can still see the shift in his expression. I can’t make sense of the feelings breaking through his icy gaze. There’s hatred, pain, too, and I wonder if he also bears a sizzling scar that never heals.
“Evelyn,” he begins through gritted teeth, “you need to get in the fucking car.”
“No. What I do is none of your business, you yourself set that boundary. If anyone’s going to leave, it’s you.”
“So you can continue the transaction?” He doesn’t disguise the disgust in his tone.
“If I want to do drugs, Finnigan, it’s nothing to do with you. Go home and leave us to it,” I yell and it actually startles him. At this point, I don’t want to continue the transaction anyway, and I’m pretty sure I can pay this dealer all the money in the world, and he won’t sell to me, but I’m standing up for the bloody principle of it.
“Oh, is that how it is?! Okay.”
Finnigan whips his head back at the dealer and the gun jerks before me with a muffled pop. The noises that follow are ones I’m not sure I understand—a short gasp, a strange thump, a soft crack, a gargle. I follow the direction the gun is pointed at, but there’s nothing there. The man is no longer in its aim.
I gasp when I look at the ground, covering my mouth with my hands as my vision remains stuck to the small hole in his forehead and the blood that starts to pool underneath his head.
“There. No drugs for you tonight.” he says calmly as he turns his attention back to me.
“Yo—you…” But the words get stuck somewhere in my throat.
“I solved a problem, yes.”
There’s a dead man here… at our feet. There’s panic skirting at the edge of my senses, but outrage is what comes forth instead.
“You’re insane. A murderer.”
He cocks an eyebrow, looking increasingly bored at my words, slightly confused as to why I’m pointing out the obvious.
“This means nothing to you…” I add.
“It does, but not in the way you think. I refuse to have any remorse for taking his miserable life. Men like him shouldn’t be tainting our city.”
“Men like him? You just put a bullet in his skull, what makes you so much better than him? Is your perception of the world so twisted?” I lose my cool because for the life of me I can’t understand why he thinks what he’s doing is better.
“Did I say I’m better? What I do, what we do, is fucking different! There are rules, limits that we draw, and they aren’t made of chalk or smoke. They are clear as fucking day. Like… human trafficking, in case you forgot, Evie darling.”
Oh, he’s using that?! No, he’s not winning this. But it looks like tonight I’m not winning anything either. Though, the itch I came here to scratch seems to have eased with our heated interaction, and that is downright terrible. He cannot be the one this craving depends on.
“There must be many others in this city. I will find someone else,” I blurt out, like that’s what matters right now. Christ, I’m an idiot.
“Go ahead, sugar, I dare you. Find ten. Find a hundred. Do me a fucking favor so I can get to them all and clean these streets of filth.”
“You wouldn’t,” I say in disbelief.
“Try me. Fucking try me. I will kill each and every one of them until there are none left for you to seek.” There’s a feral look in his icy eyes as he speaks those words, two menacing veins pulsing in his temples, and I swear he got taller… wider, all of a sudden. Not that he doesn’t tower over me already.
“Christ, Finnigan! You don’t want anything to do with me, you made that abundantly clear. Why can’t you apply that to this too?”
“I didn’t save you out of that container so you can disgrace yourself like this. You fought for your sister! For what?! So you can stick a motherfucking needle in your arm and abandon her? Just so you can feel something other than pain?”
“You don’t know anything,” I shake my head, holding back a sob as the pain strips me bare. “You don’t know what your world did to mine. Even if you did, I doubt you would understand.”
He frowns, but I rip my gaze away from his because I can’t stand the scrutiny anymore. He looks at me like I’m a circus animal. With disappointment and anger, intrigue and pity, and I can’t take it anymore. But when my eyes land on the dead man on the ground once more, I whip around and walk away before I’ll take the blame for his death upon me too.
Silly girl, you are already to blame. It is your fault… whether you run away from the thought or not. You may not have pulled the trigger, but it was your finger on it.
I make it a few steps before my wrist is caught in a strong grip and I’m halted.
“Where do you think you’re going?”
“Home. Let go of me.” I try to wrench my hand out of his just as his other hand grips my waist and pulls me toward him.
“Get in the car, Evelyn.” He points toward the black, boxy SUV a few feet away.
“I’m not going anywhere with you.”
“Why? Do you still think it’s a good idea to walk alone, in the dark, in an unfamiliar neighborhood? You really have no self-preservation instincts?”
“Why do you care?” I whip around stepping right in his face.
His chest rises and falls with deep, controlled breaths that look too slow to be calm. No words come, but his gaze on me is so intense, focused to the point that it seems to burrow into me. It digs further and further until I’m afraid it’s going to find a home inside of me. My eyes widen and my chest bursts in uncomfortable prickles.
“Fine.” I roll my eyes and turn toward his car when no answer comes.
Ever the gentleman, he opens the door for me, and before we leave, he pulls his phone out, typing furiously as his gaze snaps between me and his screen.
“Feels like an inappropriate time to text your girlfriends,” I snap, crossing my arms against my chest, hating the tinge of jealousy that slipped through.
Finnigan cocks an eyebrow and I expect a pinch of amusement at the corner of his lips, but it never comes. I can’t tell if I was right or just very wrong.
“Clean-up crew,” he mutters under his breath.
I’m confused for a brief moment until my gaze drifts to the dark alley where the dealers body lays in the shadows.
“Oh.” I leave it at that since I have no idea what else to add. I don’t feel bad for assuming it was one of his women.
My phone vibrates in my pocket, and I jerk at the sensation, pulling it out in confusion. Maddox Severin lights up the screen, and I stare at it until Finnigan huffs next to me. I shoot him an angry look as I swipe over the screen and answer.
“Are you safe?!”
Maddox sounds anxious. Almost breathless.
“Umm yes.”
“Then what the hell are you doing on Lloyd’s Street?”
“Wait, you know where I am too? Are you guys tracking me?” I turn to Finnigan, but he just cocks an eyebrow like I just asked a ridiculous question.
“Yes. Katya called to tell us she was worried and found out you didn’t take security with you, just left alone. You could still be in danger, Evelyn.” His tone is right on the cusp of guttural, his protective instinct bleeding through. “Why are you there?”
“It’s my own business,” I answer with a clear edge to my voice.
“To buy fucking heroin!” Finnigan raises his voice over me, and I shoot him a piercing look, seething. “What? Embarrassed?” he taunts.
“I did not just fucking hear that,”Maddox seethes.
“I’m done with this conversation. Thanks for the worry. Finnigan is taking me home.” I end the call before the man who’s making me feel two inches tall can show anymore disappointment in what I was about to do. I can’t stand it.
This car feels too small, even if it’s one of the biggest SUVs I’ve seen, I’m too close to him and the air is too heavy. I pull at the collar of my T-shirt, I fiddle with the sleeves, I do anything and everything to calm me down, but it doesn’t work.
I’m heaving. “Can we go already?”
“Once the crew arrives. A few more minutes.”
I run my fingers through the length of my hair, urging time to pass by faster.
“What the fuck is that?” Finnigan exclaims, and I quickly swipe my gaze out the windows, looking for whatever triggered him.
But tightness bounds my wrist, and he extends my arm toward him. My blood turns cold and before I turn to look, I know exactly where I’ll find his gaze. He lifts the sleeve of my cardigan, looking at the gauze wrapped around my forearm and no matter how hard I try to wrench it out of his grip, it’s futile.
“It’s just one more thing that’s none of your business,” I snap at him.
“Did someone hurt you, Evelyn?” His eyes shine and darken all at once, malice seeping through. He looks too affected by the thought that someone might have.
“No one hurt me.”
“Please tell me you’re not—”
“No.” I cut off his train of thought, knowing where it was going.
I managed to rip my wrist out of his grip, but in the process, he reached over and grabbed the other one, exposing yet another gauze. His gaze shoots to mine and pierces right through my very soul, demanding and ruthless.
“For fuck’s sake, Evelyn. Explain what’s happening.”
“Stop it. Let go of me. I told you it’s none of your business.” I pull the sleeves down, fisting them in my palm, and wrap my arms around my middle, turning to the side window.
I watch as a van drives down the street toward us, but stops in front of the alley, blocking the access and our view. Finnigan starts our car at the same moment, flashes his headlights twice and drives off.
Freaking finally!
“I need to know you’re okay. Safe… even from yourself.” He drops his tone, pulling a sense of calmness in it.
My chest rises with a deep, strained breath, and I drop my head against the headrest on a long exhale.
“Sometimes the nightmares seep into reality and it’s hard to tell the difference.” I let the answer flow out of me without turning, without offering further explanation.
He can do with this what he wishes, because I’m never going to say more of it. But Finnigan doesn’t ask anything else. Silence falls inside the car, and he takes me on one of the most uncomfortable rides of my entire life. Our tension is a palpable, living thing mixing together.
But underneath it all, not as deep as I would like it, there’s something else. A sizzling sensation made of heat and unquenchable thirst.
Even as the car slides to a stop in front of Katya’s building, my breaths aren’t lighter. The tension still there.
“Remember, Evelyn”—Finnigan says as I open the door, and step out—“find another and I’ll fucking kill them too.”
His words crash straight in my gut. He knows what he’s doing, that I’ll be reluctant to try again in case he speaks the truth, and I’ll end up with more blood on my hands. Even if I’m not the one pulling the trigger.
“I’ll kill them all before you ever get your chance to poison your soul,” he adds as I whip around, slamming the door behind me.
Jokes on him… the poison is already in. Though, I’m not sure why the state of my soul is on his mind.
* * *
This time around I actually woke up in the morning. Not that I slept much after the events of last night.
As much as I hate to admit it, my interaction with Finnigan did something to me I didn’t expect. It calmed the itch, and I think I hate him more for it.
What bothers me more, though, is the fact that I am not more affected by the murder I witnessed. Until I drifted off to sleep, I replayed it in my head. I woke up expecting to be completely torn up, traumatized. None of that happened.
You know why, Evelyn, but admitting it means swallowing your pride and accepting more than you’re ready to.
That incessant voice speaks in my head yet again. The dark side of my consciousness.
You don’t care…
I care. I do!
You didn’t care back then either…
I’m losing my damn mind!
I pull a cardigan over the tank top and jeans, and walk out of the bedroom, straight to where Maya is sitting at the dining room table, eating her breakfast.
I need coffee. I need to get out.
“Maya, want to go for a walk?” I ask her as she pushes the empty bowl away from her.
“Umm… yeah, sure. Can we go to the park?”
“We can. Are you okay? You don’t seem that keen,” I ask.
She nods. “It’s just that… not sleeping in the same bed has been strange,” she says in her sweet little voice, and it pulls at my heartstrings.
My lovely, sweet girl. I thought she would enjoy having a bed all to herself, finally. Although that’s not the reason why I did it. I’m terrified that I’ll become even more vocal during my nightmares, and she’ll hear something she shouldn’t. I don’t want to traumatize her, especially if I say something about what happened to me after we were separated in that warehouse. So, I make it up like I’m going to bed later, wait until she falls asleep, and then settle for the night on the sofa. It’s safer.
“Don’t worry, you’ll get used to it. But I can keep you company until you fall asleep, how about that?”
“Yes, please!” Her eyes light up and that little bit of happiness I gave her warms me.
I did that. I put that smile on her face. There may be some hope for me after all.
“Katya came last night when you were gone. I like her. She came and kissed my forehead, Evie. Can you believe that?!”
I almost can’t, no. Yet, from the way she looked at me when I came back last night, I can understand it. She stood in the middle of the open space living area, arms crossed tight against her chest, and no word at all fell out of her mouth. Her stern eyes and tightly pursed lips were making me feel horrible enough, even a bit afraid, but the disappointment was the one tearing through my soul. Yet another person I disappointed, all in one night.
“That was very nice of her. Now, go on, get your shoes on and we’ll leave,” I urge my sister.
She climbs off the chair and rushes to the hallway as I follow, pulling my own shoes on. When Jay shows up in the corridor outside the apartment, he insists on coming with us. I assure him we’re only going to the park next door, but he’s having none of it. Only after I text Maddox and tell him I’m going out with Maya, alone, does he finally relent. I’m not a prisoner. I know they’re doing this for my safety, I’m sort of happy someone cares, but it’s annoying, nonetheless.
“Oh, wait.” Maya tugs her hand out of mine as we walk through the ground floor lobby of the apartment building toward the exit. “Need to retie my laces.”
I turn to her but pull my phone out to look on the maps for a coffee stand in the park. I’m engrossed in the search, when the elevator dings and only moments later a chill runs down my spine.
“Finnigan!” Maya calls out excitedly, and I swear, the blood freezes in my veins.
I turn, ready to berate the man for daring to follow me yet again, but what I find instead leaves me speechless, mouth slightly agape. The doors of the private elevator I’ve never been on close behind him, and attached to him is a gorgeous, tall, platinum-haired woman with enviable curves she sways as she walks in my direction. No, not my direction, the exit.
The woman is all over him. He doesn’t react to her touch, his gaze fixed on me, but he doesn’t push her away either. I’m nervously scratching the edge of the phone case, acknowledging silently that it’s ten in the morning. There’s only one reason why he would be leaving her place at this time in the morning—he’s sleeping with her.
Here… in the same damn building I live in.
The nerve! Did he pick her up in front of the building or something after he dropped me off? Did he already know her? Couldn’t he have picked a woman who doesn’t live here?!
And this is a completely different woman than the one he was with at the bar. Fleeting comments I caught from his friends cross my mind, like the one that Finnigan doesn’t settle, always a different woman. The man is a playboy. According to Maddox he’s making his way through all of Queenscove and its tourists.
But he could do that anywhere but here.
That pang of irrational jealousy pulls at me again, and I curse it back down. I have no claim on this man, he doesn’t owe me anything, and he certainly wants nothing to do with me. If we don’t count the following. And wanting to keep me safe. And the heated dance in the bar.
Something brushes against the edges of that wretched muscle pumping blood in my chest, but I refuse to acknowledge what blooms at the touch.
“Good morning, Evelyn,” he says calmly, yet his gaze flickers away from me.
Is that discomfort? No, it can’t be.
“Here, Finnigan? Really?” The words spill before I can stop them, but the man infuriates me. “You couldn’t go do this at your place?” I wanted to say her, not this.
Lifting an eyebrow, he cocks his head and amusement replaces the slight confusion. “This is my place. This entire building, actually, and I live in the penthouse.”
Excuse me, what?!I finally know how it feels for your soul to leave your body—this is it. Mortification isn’t quite a strong enough word to describe the horrifying embarrassment, shock, and emptiness plaguing me. He owns the building I currently live in. He lives here. This whole time.
I don’t understand how this has never come up before. All this security makes much more sense.
“Right.” That’s all I manage to say.
It doesn’t erase the amused expression pulling at all the painfully handsome lines of his face. The chances I will bump into him now that I go out of the house more, just like this, with another model-looking date on his arm, late at night or too early in the morning, will grow exponentially.
That’s the cherry on top, because his presence alone is enough to drive my anxiety off the wall. He lives here… in the same building as me, and I’m somehow supposed to find the strength and peace of mind to sleep soundly at night with the knowledge he’s just above me. Doing things.
The thought makes me mildly nauseous.
No. I can’t do it. I won’t.
“Maya, come on. We’re going.”
She looks between us, her little brows scrunching as she tries to understand what’s happening, but fails. She’s still staring as she moves to grab my open hand.
I don’t even say goodbye as I walk out in the mildly humid, warm air of Queenscove and breathe in the slight salty scent.
“The park is that way.” Maya pulls on me, trying to sway me in the opposite direction.
“Change of plans, honey. We’re going to go see Loreley.”
“What for?”
“I think it’s time we move out of Katya’s and into our own place.”