Chapter 35
thirty-five
When I wake, Matthias is gone.
I sit up, stretching my muscles, groaning at how good it feels to move with minimal pain.
My husband was insatiable last night, keeping me up until the early hours of the morning, making good use of his tongue, his fingers, and his cock.
How I’ve missed that. The vibrator I purchased just isn’t the same.
Climbing out of bed, I walk to the bathroom, opening the faucets to start the shower while I brush my teeth. I still need to talk to him about what went on while he was away. Not to mention what he and my dad had been arguing about before I woke up.
Things are still far from being okay between my husband and me, but last night helped ease some of the tension.
I can’t trust him not to change his mind again and decide I am too much of a liability to him and his empire.
He’s changed his mind so many times before, and I would be a fool to trust him again so easily.
If he wants me, then he needs to earn me.
That is that.
After rinsing my mouth out, I step into the shower and let the warm water soak into my muscles, washing away the nightmares and pain of the past. Matthias is in for a surprise if he thinks we are just going to pick up where we left off.
It isn’t that easy.
Slowly, I begin to wash my body, careful of the still healing wounds. A smile forms on my lips as I take in the love bites he left all over my skin. One for each cut I suffered. Once I am done, I slip out of the shower and dry myself, making sure to apply the ointment Dr. Radick left for me.
I don’t see any clothes for me in the room, so I snag a pair of Matthias’s gray joggers and one of his T-shirts. The joggers are so large that I have to roll the legs up several times, as well as the waistband, to make them fit, but it is worth it.
These things are hella comfy.
Tying my hair up in a messy bun on the top of my head, I go in search of my family.
And coffee.
Lots of coffee.
It is pretty early in the morning, barely seven, so I know they won’t be down at the bar yet. I take the elevator down a floor to what I like to call the family floor, which just means that it houses the kitchen and living areas outside of the bedroom suites, which are on separate floors.
When I walk into the kitchen, Seamus and Kiernan are there to greet me with matching smiles.
“Milis Deirfiúr,” they murmur, hugging me tight between them. Sweet sister. I nearly bawl at those two words.
“Thank you for coming for me,” I whisper, my voice brimming with emotion. I’ve always had Libby and Kenzi, but this bond is different. Just as special but unique, and I wouldn’t trade it for anything.
“Always,” they murmur at the same time, making me laugh. The two of them release me as my father strides forward with a cup of coffee in his hands.
Oh, thank the gods.
“Thank you,” I mumble before taking a sip. The simple notes of caramel and spice wash over my tongue. A week and a half without coffee was the worst torture of all. My father kisses the top of my head and smiles down at me.
I look around for my husband, but I don’t see him.
“He had an errand to run with Vas and Andrei,” he tells me. “Leon is having trouble with his father, and he went to give him some backup.”
I nod and take another sip of my coffee.
Yep, heaven.
My gaze catches on someone sitting at the table, brown locks tied back in a braid, shoulders taut as she scrapes her fork along the plate in front of her. I’d know her anywhere, even with our time spent apart.
“What is she doing here?” I hiss, keeping my voice low so she won’t hear.
“Ava,” my father scolds gently. “She is here because she is your sister.”
I give an unladylike snort. “My sister is dead.”
“You can’t harbor anger about something that never happened,” he tells me.
Except, to me, it did happen. I watched her shoot the man I love right in front of me and then taunt me about it.
Saying that it should have been me. That she would make me pay.
I had nightmares about that night for weeks. Still do.
“Did you invite her?” I ask.
My father shakes his head. “No,” he sighs. “She wanted to be here for you. Kenzi is one of the reasons the raid on the McDonough mansion went so well. Without her, it would have been a lot harder.”
“Because she’s a killer,” I sneer.
“So are you.”
My eyes fall shut, and I bite my bottom lip anxiously. Whose side is he on anyway? Even if he is right, he is my father, and he should take my side.
And I’m five.
Or I’m right.
Nope, definitely acting like a child.
Fine.
“Ugh,” I groan, stomping to the coffeepot to refill my cup. If I am going to confront Kenzi, I am definitely going to need more magic mojo. I take a deep, measured breath before making my way to the dining room table where my sister waits.
I sit on the chair to her right. She doesn’t say anything or acknowledge me as I do. There is a brief beat of awkward silence before she pushes a plate of pancakes toward me and a clean fork. All right, then.
Picking up the fork, I dig into the fluffy pancakes.
The sound of chewing and scraping forks fills the awkwardness.
The only other sound comes from the hushed voices of my family in the kitchen.
We sit like that until the food on both of our plates is cleared and there is nothing else to distract from what is to come.
“I was so excited to go to London,” Kenzi murmurs brokenly, her eyes cast down at her plate, refusing to look at me. “I remember getting off the plane and heading out toward the car Father arranged to take me to the college.”
She takes a shuddered breath, her bottom lip trembling. “There was a man waiting,” she continues. “It didn’t seem right. When I tried to turn away, he grabbed me. In broad daylight. And no one did a thing to stop him.”
I keep quiet, letting her work through her story at her own pace.
I have never been known for my patience, but for Kenzi, I make the effort.
She is different from what I remember. Not that I expect her to be the same.
Even in the barn, I noticed just how little of the Kenzi I know remains.
There is a cold, calculated look in her eyes she didn’t have before.
There isn’t any innocence left, because the world went and stole it. Like it stole from Libby from me.
Elias Ward ruined us. Took everything special. I let Dante take care of Kendra, but Christian is still out there somewhere, and he is mine. For taking Libby from me, the one who kept me believing in fairy tales. The most innocent of us all.
“They drugged me,” she whispers after a few minutes, her gaze flitting to me.
“I don’t remember a lot, but it wasn’t…” She pauses.
“They took me to a place—” She shakes her head, trying to sort through the foggy memories.
“A place where they train you to seduce and kill. Cold-hearted assassins are what they tried to make us all into.”
“Tried?” I cock my head to the side and stare at her for a moment, taking in her pale face and blue eyes. “You look pretty assassin-y to me back in that barn with all your kung-fu.” Her lips twitch slightly.
“Not too bad yourself.” She praises me sadly before letting out a long sigh etched with pain. “We’re so screwed up.”
Picking up my coffee cup, I lean back in my chair and cuddle the warmth of the cup with my hands. “Yeah,” I chuckle lightly. “But I think you’re more screwed up.”
She shoots me a what the fuck look.
I shrug. “Just saying.” Taking a sip of my coffee, I smile behind the mug.
“The fact that you can make a joke about it means you are so much more fucked up than me.”
She has a point.
“What can you tell me about Madam Therese?” I ask her. Kenzi visibly shudders, goose bumps erupting on her skin. She rubs at her arms self-consciously and scowls at the plate in front of her.
“She is in charge of etiquette and recruitment,” she sneers. “Real piece of work, that one. She is the one who made a deal with our—my,” she corrects herself, “father.”
“They take people who won’t be missed,” Kenzi continues.
“They don’t discriminate. Men, women, children.
They are all just bodies to be used by them.
Those who are brought in are put through a test to see where they belong.
Endurance, seduction, you name it and there is likely a test for them to measure it.
Once you are done with the tests, they decide where to put you, and then your training begins. ”
“I don’t understand,” I whisper, guilt gnawing at me. “You weren’t someone who wouldn’t be missed.”
Kenzi scoffs. “The only person who would have known I was missing would have been Libby.” She gives me a pointed stare.
“You ran away, and even if you hadn’t, no one would have let you call me anyway.
Christian and my” —she chokes back a sob— “my mother were both in on it. The only person who would miss me was Libby, and she never bothered to call at all.”
“Libby says she spoke to you every week,” I insist. “You talked for hours on the phone about classes and friends you made. She never believed anything was wrong.”
“Did I ever send her a picture?” Kenzi raises a questioning brow at me. “Were there ever any texts with pictures of my dorm room? Or video chats? Did I ever text her out of the blue or answer any of her text messages?”
She didn’t. Now that I look back at what Libby told me, she didn’t once mention simply texting Kenzi or having any kind of video chats like they normally would when one of them was away. I can’t believe we were both so blind.
“What happened to her?” Kenzi bites the inside of her cheek nervously. “What really happened to Libby?”
“Matthias didn’t tell you?” I ask. I thought he would have told her what happened that day, but Kenzi shakes her head.
“He says it’s your story to tell.”
I tap my fingers against my coffee mug. Its warmth has faded out over the time of our conversation, but it still gives me comfort. I imagine it is Matthias’s warm hand wrapped in mine as I tell her how Libby was murdered by her own brother.
Because of me.
When I am done, she simply nods, sadness and pain sweeping through her eyes as she stands abruptly from the table. “I need to go.” That is all she says before she takes off from the dining room, her steps barely making a sound on the wooden floor.
I take another sip of my coffee that is now lukewarm and tastes like ash in my mouth.
That is a first.
“She’ll be back, lass,” my father assures me as he takes her empty seat. The maid is already busy cleaning up the dishes we finished with. “Just give her time to fully process everything.”
“I spent so long being angry and wanting revenge that I never bothered to think about what she went through.” A sob tears through me, my chest aching.
“I can’t imagine it, and she did it all alone, thinking no one cared about her.
She was—I failed her. I was supposed to look out for them, and I failed them.
They shouldn’t have…” I hiccup. “I could have…”
My father takes the trembling coffee cup from my hands and sets it on the table. He pulls me into him, my head resting on his shoulder as he rubs my back in soothing circles.
“You couldn’t have prevented what happened any more than I could have stopped what happened to your mother,” he murmurs in my ear, the voice of reason in unmitigated chaos. “We were manipulated and controlled by forces we never thought would be at work against us.”
“She never got to say goodbye,” I sob. “Kenzi never got to hear her voice again. Her laugh. We never even knew anything was wrong.”
He doesn’t say anything after that because he knows there are no words that can soothe my battered soul. I’ve taken hit after hit since being forced back from that little no-name town in Texas, and I just want it to end. For all of us.
Then it hits me.
Kendra is complicit in selling her daughter to the highest bidder. She knew all along what happens to her.
Pulling back from my father’s embrace, I wipe at my eyes and straighten my shoulders.
“Where is Kendra?”
His brow furrows at my question, but he doesn’t hesitate to tell me.
“She has been staying with Dante Romano, according to our sources.”
I curse under my breath.
“Why?”
“Christian may have been responsible for Libby’s death directly.” I stand up, pushing the chair back behind me, the legs scraping noisily on the floor. “But Kendra failed to protect her, just like she failed to protect Kenzi.”
“You think she’ll make a play for her?” he asks, following me out of the dining room.
I nod. “Christ. I’ll call Matthias. He is with Dante, meeting Augustu La Rosa.”
Nodding, I grab a pair of my old shoes by the elevator and press the button for the parking garage.
“What are you planning to do once we get there?” my father asks as we step into the elevator. It jolts before moving. “She has a considerable head start. Kendra might be dead already.”
“Who says I am going to stop her from killing Kendra?” I wink at him and walk off the elevator. “I am going to hold her down while she pulls her hair.”
“That sounds oddly specific.” He looks at me askance.
“Lara Mesgrove was a bitch.” I shrug nonchalantly. “She had it coming.”
My father shakes his head, holding the door to his Porsche for me and closing it when I settle in my seat.
During the girls’ freshman year of high school, Libby tried out for the cheerleading squad, which Lara was the captain of.
After tryouts, Lara and her friends cornered Libby and uttered every bad thing they could think of about her.
Shoving at her and trying to tear at her clothes and her hair.
When Kenzi got word of what was happening, she took off like a shot. I am pretty sure she got an offer from the football coach; that is how hard she tackled Lara to the ground by her hair. I held her down while Kenzi wrote down every insult she hurled at Libby on Lara’s face in permanent marker.
The girls were grounded, and I got a beating and two days in the shed, but it was worth it. We protected each other, but I wonder briefly if I protected them too much from the horrors of their own family.
Kenzi wasn’t as blind as Libby was growing up. She was always sharp, and I know she saw more than she let on. Just like after I left. She grew curious at Elias’s behavior.
Maybe if I had spoke up about how I was truly treated, she would have had better chance at surviving.
But that is a lot of what-ifs, and it is too late for that now.