Remy

21. Olivia

OLIVIA

I scramble,running for the door only to skitter to a halt and dash back to my room.

I open my bedside drawer in the dark and feel around for the old chain I dropped inside years ago. I have no gun. No weapons. The only protection I have is the ring in my pocket that I hastily thread onto the thin silver necklace then clasp behind my neck.

Then I’m running for the door. Sprinting across my yard. Practically action-movie jumping into my car.

I make it to the funeral home in record time, my head fuzzy from sleep but my hectic pulse working to quickly rectify the lethargy.

I cut around to the rear of the two-story building to find Remy leaned against the back wall, his Bentley nosed up to the ten-foot high hedge, the overhead delivery room door open with his doppelg?nger van parked inside.

My heart rate becomes erratic.

He’s definitely killed someone.

He’s taken those consoling hands, ended a life, and now stands unfazed against my childhood home in his black button-down and dress pants.

I park in the closest space, cut the engine, and climb out, his inscrutable gaze on me as I stride toward him, clutching the lapels of his jacket tight against my chest to fight the cold.

He takes in my attire with that indecipherable stare, lazily eying me up and down as grunts and groans carry from inside the building.

“Don’t tell me you were still awake.” He pushes from the brick wall, dragging the coat I’d left at the club out from behind his back.

I meet his gaze, struggling to understand him, fighting to make sense of my thoughts as I reach for my garment. “You killed someone?”

His eyes harden. “We tend not to verbalize things that could put us in prison.”

I fill with dread, my mouth working over words I can’t find. Shit. I’m so incredibly bad at this. Such a goddamn fucking liability. All I can do is nod in apology and hope he doesn’t kill me. “Sorry.”

“It’s okay. You’re still learning the ropes.”

His words contradict the tightness of his features. The misstep was definitely not okay. Yet again, he’s protecting me.

I shuck his suit jacket and hand it back, my gratitude—for his clothing, his patience, his everything—sucking me up in a convoluted vortex. I reclaim my coat, pull it on, and pretend I don’t notice when his attention catches on the newest addition to my jewelry collection, his focus pinned at the top of my cleavage where his ring gently dangles.

I pretend and pretend. But those short seconds of his scrutiny on my chest make my cheeks flush with a rush of warmth. When his eyes finally raise to mine, I struggle against a wave of goose bumps taking over my body.

I swallow the discomfort and make to walk around him to enter the building.

“Hold up.” He outstretches an arm, blocking my path. “Bearing witness wasn’t in the agreement.”

I pause, my lips stupidly moving without sound again. His proximity addles my thoughts. His entire existence does. “Wouldn’t keeping me outside be more hazardous?” I lower my voice, trying to be cautious with the situation. “If I wait in my car I’m not part of the crime. I’m an outsider. Yet if I’m in the building, I’m an accomplice.”

He stares down at me. Intense. Contemplative.

“I can handle it, Remy.” I straighten my shoulders. “This is what I do.”

“It’ll change you,” he warns.

I fight not to roll my eyes. Has he forgotten what I do for a living? What I’ve done for years?

“I assure you it won’t.” I continue forward, striding into his arm. Pushing past it.

I wait for him to stop me, almost aching for the possessive contact. But he makes no move to grab me so I keep moving, turning sideways to squeeze between the van and the brickwork.

He follows like a silent shadow into the brightly lit room, his presence a balm and a trigger all at once, until I reach the front of the vehicle and my feet root themselves to the floor.

The two threatening men from last weekend stand a few yards away, hunched over a male body on the floor, patting pockets and riffling through the victim’s clothes.

“Is that…?” I heave a breath, all the blood in my face rushing to my feet. The decedent’s face is mangled. Bruised. Bloodied. Misshapen. But I recognize the hair. The faux-hawk. “Did you…?”

Remy steps in front of me, blocking my view. “Yes.”

I stare up at him in panic. “But you said…” I shake my head. “I thought…”

“I gave you the choice—to take his life or walk away. But he was never going to live after what he did.”

My eyes search his, those calm, dark depths hiding such incredible violence as my breathing turns ragged.

“You deserved retribution. And he earned his punishment.” He stares down at me, unapologetic in his callousness. “When I told you I’d protect you, I didn’t just mean from my brother and Lorenzo. You’re family now. Nobody touches you and gets away with it.”

Oh, God.

I break eye contact and weave my arms around my middle, holding myself tight. “I don’t want you killing people because of me.”

“Then don’t place yourself in situations that require my intervention.”

I wince, the expression pulling at the tender skin of my temple while he continues to watch me. Scrutinize me. His gaze softens under mine, the slightest glimpse of empathy slipping through all his layers of malice.

I shouldn’t see that in him. Shouldn’t recognize his humanity.

But I do.

Oh, God, how I do.

He shoves his hands in his pockets, and I itch to do the same. To take the hands that cling so tightly around me and scrunch them out of view.

Shuffling and scuffed boots fill the silence, his men continuing to work behind him.

I picture them moving the body, lifting it without care as they grunt and mutter curses. The nauseating thud of what I assume to be the bouncer’s skull against a hard surface makes my stomach roil.

I heave a breath and suck another back in.

This isn’t right. None of it.

Not the murder and mayhem. Or the illegal arrangement.

And most of all, my attraction to an unrepentant murderer.

It’s wrong. So mindlessly, reprehensibly wrong, and I don’t know how to fix it.

“Come on.” Remy’s touch brushes my elbow. “It’s time to go.”

“No.” I shake my head. “Give me a minute. I need to…” I keep trying to loosen the cement in my brain so I can strategize. “I want to…”

“What, Ollie?” He steps closer. “Tell me.”

That nickname. His tone. It punctures me, stabbing me through the chest to slice me down the middle. “I need to figure out how I feel about this.”

He stiffens, surprised somehow, but I don’t care. I inch to the side to peer around his shoulder my nose scrunching at the heartless way his men carry the bouncer by his wrists and ankles.

“I…” I place a hand to the base of my throat, Remy’s ring an unwanted reminder of his protection against the heel of my palm. “He…”

“Lacked remorse,” Remy finishes for me. “He hurt you. Blamed you. And would’ve carried on doing the same thing to other innocent women. He doesn’t deserve to hold space in your thoughts.”

The internal doors squeak as the men carry the dead body into the hall, leaving me alone with the man who killed my attacker. Leaving me to drown in the heavy silence that’s filled with emotions I don’t want to feel.

“What did you do to him?” I ask, returning my gaze to Remy.

He considers me for long seconds. “I don’t think knowing the details is?—”

“What did you do?” I repeat with adamance.

His jaw ticks. “I hit him a couple times.”

As far as under-exaggerations go, that one’s a biggie.

He mutilated the man. Butchered.

“Is that how he died?” I swallow over the desert taking over my throat. “From being beaten?”

“I’m no coroner, but yeah, I’d conclude it was the rigorous blunt-force trauma.”

Still there’s no remorse. No hardship to the brutality. No anguished hindsight.

“But what if he had a family?” I whisper. “What if he had a wife? A child? A?—”

“You think it would’ve been better for him to go home to a kid after what he attempted to do to you?” he grates. “Understand your value, Pyro.”

He steps closer, consuming my personal space. “Nobody has the right to touch you.” He reaches out, belying his own words by trailing his hands up my arms, my coat doing nothing to dull the heightened contact. “Your life is the most valuable thing you have. Nothing trumps it.”

I peer up at him, falling victim to his intense gaze, becoming ensnared by the darkness.

“Do you think I’m wrong?” he asks. “Do you want to believe his time would’ve been better served in prison? Would you have preferred if your tax dollars funded a nonexistent rehabilitation? Because we both know he wouldn’t have changed.”

I know. I know. I know.

I cringe, hating his logic.

“I just…” A shiver runs down my back and I twitch, trying to get rid of the horrid sensation. “It’s…” I glance away, still seeing Remy even though my attention is narrowed across the room. “It’s like I said…” My voice becomes a pathetic plea. “I don’t know how to feel.”

“Yeah, you do. You just don’t like that you feel relieved.”

“I feel responsible,” I bite back. “Because if I hadn’t followed him into that elevator none of this would’ve happened.”

“To you. It wouldn’t have happened to you, Ollie. His victim would’ve been someone else.”

My gaze snaps back to his, the truth in his words destroying me.

How can he be so callous and yet so logical? So vicious and then equally considerate?

I hate it. I still want to hate him.

But I don’t.

There’s no animosity at all.

Not even a smidge.

What consumes my insides is something different entirely. A longing. A hunger for understanding.

I scrunch my nose at the absurdity and whisper, “I should go.”

I really should, yet my legs don’t move. My brain won’t send the signal to get my pins oscillating. There are too many questions. A wealth of knowledge I need to know. And he’s right there, potentially an open book into an unknown world.

I remain in front of him, my hand falling to my side, my breaths heavy.

I allow myself one question. Just one. “Do you feel any guilt?”

“No.” He doesn’t pause for contemplation. “And you shouldn’t either.” He takes another step closer, the proximity tightening my lungs.

“That’s easy to say, but?—”

“There’s no but.” He leans in, getting in my face, forcing me to receive a front-row view of his sincerity. “The thing I need you to understand is that your world and mine aren’t the same. His actions had consequences. And I enjoyed inflicting them.” He raises a hand to my neck, and I hold my breath. “Nobody touches you. Do you understand?”

He does it again. Makes a demand, then breaks his own rules by guiding his calloused fingers delicately down my throat.

Everything inside me comes alive. Blood vessels. Nerves.

I’m a statue of conflicting warfare. All fractured heartbeats and heated veins.

“Breathe, Ollie. I’m not going to hurt you.”

I acquiesce, the held air in my lungs shuddering from my lips.

He finds my necklace, lifting the delicate chain, dragging the threaded ring to sit atop the outside of my coat.

“Never take this off,” he murmurs—at least I think that’s what he says.

I’m too far gone, my sanity having fled the building. My self-preservation, poof—gone.

“Tell me you understand.”

“I do,” I lie, my voice smoky. Rasped.

His touch continues to linger.

It’s ridiculous to want more. To fight hard not to lower my gaze to his mouth. It’s the adrenaline. The tumultuous waves of shock.

“Never, Ollie.”

“I promise I won’t.” My tongue swipes out to quickly lick my dried lips. “I don’t want to be in this situation again.”

He stiffens, and I struggle to understand what I said to flip his energy. But that’s exactly what I’ve done.

“Good.” He guides his hand to his side and steps back. “From now on you stay in your car while me and my men are here, okay?”

“But what about?—”

“You know we’re here. You know what we’re doing. That’s where this agreement of ours ends. So go home. Sleep. If you’re worried about the skills of my cleaning crew, come back once we’re gone. But otherwise, move on with your life. What’s done is done.”

I glance aimlessly over his shoulder as I struggle with whiplash. “How long until I hear from you again?”

“I don’t know. But the timeline will be shortened if you go searching for trouble.”

“I didn’t go searching.”

“Then I guess trouble just seems to find you, doesn’t it, Pyro?”

I wince. I may not be able to hate him, yet somehow I find it incredibly easy to loathe him calling me that. “Only since you entered my life.”

“Since you followed your father using a tracker app.”

I grimace.

I don’t need another reminder of that night. Or my father. Or Remy’s heated hands.

“Are you still holding up okay?” He shoves his fists back into his pockets. “Do you need me to take you home?”

My heart squeezes. My nonexistent love life is to blame.

If only I’d dated a little more his attention wouldn’t feel addictive. I’d have a better threshold for his concern. A stronger understanding of what this is.

“I...” I sigh, feeling so incredibly lost. “I can drive myself.”

And that’s what I do.

I don’t say goodbye. Don’t linger in this cloud of insanity. I turn tail and escape the building, hoping I never come face-to-face with him again... and lying to myself at the same time.