Chapter 34
Poison
The dead always keeps you awake.
––––––––
I f that fucker was going to die in the most unorthodox way, then I would have rather it were me who blew his head from his shoulders. Disgusting twit.
The door to my apartment opened, and I stepped to the side, allowing Anita to enter first. We don't speak the same as on the way back, not even a question to ask what we just witnessed. Maybe it's because he ended up dead either way, and Anita wanted him alive. I had everything wiped from cameras, prints, or anything that could detect we were there before sending an anonymous tip to Detective Gear. I could've had my clean-up crew do the work, but I’ll leave that mess for the ones in his jurisdiction, who were under his command. They’ll deal with the catastrophe when Hollow City finds out what their ‘devoted’ mayor was up to.
I've seen things in my line of work, but never have I ever experienced a man's head exploding right before my eyes. It left me with questions roaming my mind, along with confusion and a sick twist all in one.
However, it's not the only thing that's bothering me.
I was deeply sorry about her death.
I bite down on my jaw as that same painful ache grows in my chest, the one that always appears when I think of her.
“I’m going to go and clean this mess off me,” Anita says, turning to walk toward her room. I don’t say anything in response, my arm quickly jolting out to clasp her elbow and calmly drawing her to my room. Our room.
If she's putting up resistance, I don't hear her. Richard's words swirl in my head, and the images of my mother can't seem to shut out. Not this time.
I continue to lead Anita to the bathroom, and once I’m there, I undress her blood coated clothes until she's naked before me, only with Richard's dried crimson painting her face. I turn the water on for both shower heads, then undress myself.
“Ronan.”
I hop in the shower. “Get in.”
After a few seconds, a cool air brushes over me, and I hear her soft clap of her feet on the shower floor. I wet a clean rag and close the small gap between us, then wrapped my fingers around her chin, steadying her head. I clean off the blood from her face, wiping away any remnants from his body parts that exploded on her.
“Ronan.”
His polluted crimson is almost gone, and soon, her enchanting features will show again. I don't want him on her because the only flesh that should be on her is mine . Mine, not that fucker who I should've stabbed in the throat for stirring up something so sensitive, so goddamn personal.
“Ronan.” Her hand lays flat on my chest, snapping me from my blackened space.
Our eyes meet under the rush of water and steam. Her dim brown eyes search my face as if she's desperate to unravel my darkness, to discover what corrodes my heart, what grows the pain that has built for years.
“Do you want to talk about it?”
“No.” I drop the rag and grab some facial wash—one that's specifically made for cleaning off blood. I squirt some in my hand and lather her face. I'm not interested in bringing up my mother. I want to shrug it off and not let it affect me because it’s been years since she’s been gone. But it doesn't. It’s an enormous wound that's never healed, a deadly disease that has no cure. The numbness never actually comes, no matter how hard I forcefully try to forget.
“Sometimes speaking about it can—”
“I don't.”
She sighs. “I can see something is bothering you, Ronan. When he mentioned your mother—”
My chest tightens. “Leave it alone.”
Anita says nothing else; she stays quiet despite her sunken shoulders and her eyes diverted to the floor. She allows me to wash away the suds and usually, she would probably tell me to fuck off, but she doesn't. She stays.
Until she breaks the silence again. “I haven't spoken to my mother since I was eighteen.”
My gaze flicks back to her, and she is watching me again. “Because of that, we aren’t close, but once upon a time, we were. There was a time when things were simple.” Her fingers find the wet, wavy strands of her hair as a somber grin curls the edges of her mouth. I say nothing, but my ears are open because it's a rare case when she speaks of anything when it comes to her parents. For some reason with us, the mention of our family is just too traumatic.
“I remember her attempt to teach me the names of different flowers, including the scientific names. It was the worst thirty minutes of my life, but like you...those are the memories that I cherish now. I may have lost contact with her, but not the knowledge she gave me.” Her eyes drift away. “Any mission that I would go on, if I saw a flower like a daisy, I would say Bellis perennis.” She peers back at me again. “She's the reason I know of which toxic plant to use for my dagger.”
“The Datura flower,” I say, and she whispers the name in unison.
She places her hand back on my chest and glides her soft palm across the old wounds. The mere touch causes a surge of electricity to beat my heart again. “I love roses more than anything, but there's something about daisies that keeps me intrigued. I think the meaning of it, perhaps. Bellis means pretty and perennis is everlasting. Nothing truly lasts, but the memories that we hold are stuck with us forever until the day we die. Whether good or bad.”
She steps closer, although we are close enough, the tips of her toes touching mine. “I’m not sure what happened with your mother, but I can see how much it hurts you, and I need you to know that you are not alone, I may not be an expert, nor share the same memories, but I am here for you, Ronan.” Her slick hands glide up my chest and she cups my jaw. “I’m here for you because someone needs to be, just like you are for everyone else.” She leans in and places a kiss where the drum of my heart pulses faster. Then she exits the shower, leaving me there, alone with my thoughts.
***
I stroll out of the bathroom with my towel wrapped to my waist, and by then, Anita is at the side of my four-poster bed, attempting to apply the cream Dr. Rio provided to her ribs. I go into alert and fill the space between us, immediately grabbing the tube from the bed. I feel like hell. I've been so wrapped up in my shit that I didn't think to help her dry or get her dress. She doesn't need my help, but it brings me pride when I do.
The cold cream settles in my hand as I lift her shirt to rub the cream over her satin-like skin. The rest of the time in the shower, all I could do was stand there and think about her final words.
I’m here for you because someone needs to be. I have Mal, I have Boone, I have my team...I have my academy, and yet no one knows the suffering I endure alone. It hurts even when I try to forget.
“My mother.” My throat tightens, and I use me moisturizing her back as an excuse to not look her in the eye, so she doesn't see the strain in my face, the visible pain whenever minha mae comes into the picture. The good memories of her I can handle. The bad...It's too much. “When I was nine, she died suddenly, and a part of the story is true.” I swallow, and my eyes flicker away. “But the truth is she committed suicide, and I’m the one who found her after she fell over the banister in our home...and bled out to death from slitting her wrist.”
A scattered breath releases from me, and I have to pause to collect myself. This is the first time I’ve ever spoken about this. I’ve been trapped in my own black box containing the one thing that no one knows besides my father and me. Not even Cruz, at least that's what I thought.
Anita turns around to face me and I nearly grab her, so she doesn't see me this way, in grief, unable to breathe with ease because of the memory of my mother resurfacing. She doesn't pull away from me, and she only looks up at me with a sweetness in her brown eyes making my shoulders slump. My lips part as another breath spills from me and that heavyweight falls from my body.
“I’m here,” she whispers.
I swallow the rock lodged in my throat. “Richard was right about one thing; it was selfish of her because she left me. She—she left us.” I breathe harder, and it takes her being here to not grab onto the strands of my hair and pull until the roots pop.
“Come.” Anita takes my hand and guides us to the bed. She slowly lays down on her back, and she brings me along with her. I don't question what she's doing, my body silently moves with her in a sunken trance, feigning for her safety, and for her to understand me in the best way that I could produce. Next thing, my towel unravels from my waist and drops to my feet before I climb in and lay beside her.
My head finds a place in the crook of her neck and my arm lay on top of her waist bone, so I don't put any pressure on her ribs. My dick presses against her thigh as she wraps her long leg around my calf to keep us bonded like a chain.
“What else,” she whispers as she threads her fingers through my damp hair.
I close my eyes from her tender touch. “My mother was always laughing or smiling. She never showed signs of distress or mental illness. Maybe I was so blinded by the sunshine from her rays that I didn't see the dark cloud looming behind.”
For years, I pretended I didn't have a bittersweet feeling when it came to my mother, but I do. It's not because she killed herself, but because she left us in the hands of a man who was a monster beneath his disguise and it tamed only when I was old enough to stand up for myself. Cruz was lucky, since I was always the one who got the shit end of my father. I wouldn't have wanted that any other way. If I had to burden the blows, then so be it. “I blamed myself for a long time. Maybe if I'd made it before she picked up the razor, she'd still be here.”
“It's easy to blame yourself, but don't. Whether you would have stopped her then, she likely would have found a way regardless.”
“Then I would have made it my mission to stop her every fucking time until she saw how much it was worth living for us.” A thick lump builds in my chest like an explosive charge, and my words catch. I squeeze her thigh as my hot, scattered breath fans against her neck. Were my brother and me not worth living for? The younger version of me makes himself known, the part of my past that I threw in a wooden box and strapped it with bolts and heavy chains.
The graze of her hand on my jaw and her dulcet coos does something deep to my soul. It shifts everything. Everything . So, I hold her tighter while I listen.
“I’m so sorry you had to experience something so traumatic as a child. You were so young and even then, that must've been so hard for you to witness. I’m sorry.”
I squeezed my eyes shut because it was hard. It was the worst thing I have seen in my life. The silence between us stretches until she sighs. “But you can’t help someone who has already made their choice. Maybe it can help you to understand that whatever she was experiencing, she no longer suffers from it. It wasn’t you, Ronan, but something much deeper than you can fathom. Mental disorders are an illness, not a mood, and when untreated, things can spiral drastically.”
Maybe she's right. My mother's sweet smiles come to mind. The smile that made me trust that everything was going to be okay. Yet, it's the ones who pretend everything is okay are the ones who suffer the most.
My teeth grind, and I open my eyes, looking at nothing in particular. “Do you think she was weak?”
She shakes her head. “No. I think she was as strong as she could be. That doesn't make her weak, it just makes her human.” She runs her fingers through my beard in delicate strokes. “From what you have told me of your mother, I do believe she cherished you and your brother. And that's all that matters.”
That's all that matters.
The good memories, her light, the way she would bring a room to smiles and comfort or the time she would show me a new recipe. Or jump up in cheer like a stadium would do to a winner when I showed her my inventions. A somber smile curls on my lips, a burn resides at the back of my throat and eyes. Out of nowhere, a sudden and deep sense of calmness washes over me, and the comfort of our bodies connection makes the tension in my back relaxes.
I would never be able to forget seeing my mother that way, but it does give me the closure that I never knew I needed. Who would've thought talking about it would have eased a heavy sadness from my heart.
I sit up on my elbow, my knuckles under her shirt, teasing her ribs. I can't help but stare at her, become consumed by her. The proximity of our lips only centimeters apart, her breath blows gently across my face with a narrow gaze.
Damn. She's really become my star in the darkest of night.
“I guess you aren't just crazy, then,” I murmur, glancing at her lips then back at her.
Her lips fold in as a smile forms. “I believe I said if you call me crazy, then I’ll slice off your lips and tear your tongue from your throat.”
That makes my heart knock viciously against my ribs. I grin at her. “Well, you know, crazy loves crazy, little snake.”
Her sleepy eyes gleam with a shine I hadn’t seen before. “I guess you're right.”
When her lips part, I take the moment to lean up, my heated body sliding against her skin, and I capture her mouth, desperate as hell to have more of her. A buzz shoots through my heart and down to my dick, which is now pressing firmly against her thigh. I growl in some strange relief, and she moans faintly against my lips as her fingers grip my hair to pull me closer. No matter how close we are, it doesn't feel like enough. I want her to be a part of my bones, my heart, every particle and piece of my life.
My nose brushes against her as I tilt my head to kiss her fully, my tongue swipes over lips in generous wet licks. Her body trembles beneath me, and she does the same, licking my tongue sensually and making sure she flicks over the gash on my lip before planting another intimate kiss.
Fuck, kissing her makes me forget all my problems, like an antidote for eternal peace in my darkness. I break the connection with a sharp inhale through my nose and shut my eyes to combat the urge to fuck her. She’s not fully healed. Give it a few more days, Ronan. “Do I need to remind you how tempting you are?”
“You kissed me,” she says incredulously.
“You should've stopped me then.”
“Stop you? I’d rather burn, darling.”
Then we’ll burn together. I don't say it, but another unexpected jolt hits my chest and my gaze softens, and I trace the features of her face. When I don't respond, she lets out a yawn. “Then how about you tell me more about your mom. I want to know all the horrible boy things you and your brother put her through.”
That takes away all the desire that had built. I hum and stuff my face back into the dip of her neck. We adjust ourselves to lay comfortably. “Are you sure you want to hear about my bad boy days? You may look at me differently.”
“Yes. Everything.” I can actually hear her smile.
“You’ve been warned,” I say, before taking a deep inhale of her sensuous scent. I could smell her for all eternity and still never grow old of her aroma.
For the rest of the night, I spill everything possible to her, whatever memory I can think of. Until I felt her chest slowly rising and falling, and my eyes became heavy with fatigue. The last thing I remember were the last words I spoke in my restless state...
Eu te amo, mae.
Eu te amo, mae—I love you, mom.