Chapter 18
CIAN
Water catches in the back of my throat just as those words leave Faina’s mouth and it takes all my strength not to choke while the tickle assaults my throat. I glimpse her eyebrows shooting upward and then I give in and cough quickly.
“Oh, fuck, are you okay?” Faina rises in her seat slightly and I wave her down with my hand.
“Fine,” I reply hoarsely. “Just some water—”
“With a reaction like that, I think I retract my question,” Faina says while leaning back in her chair.
“No, it wasn’t you,” I gasp around a cough. “I swear.” It was partly her, but I’m not going to tell her that. Faina’s way of being so direct without any warning is rather charming, but I didn’t expect our light back and forth to turn into her grabbing me by the balls, demanding an answer.
An answer I’m not sure I can give.
She tucks her hair behind that same ear she always does and toys with the stem of her wine glass, but she doesn’t drink. She gazes out the window and watches people wandering past, lost in their own deep conversations.
Do I still love her?
It’s hardly a question. I never stopped loving her.
Our relationship ended because my life imploded and the crumbling Irish-Italian treaty became more important.
Then, after being kidnapped by Domenico and the following torture and everything that came afterward, a relationship was far from my mind.
But I never stopped loving her. My feelings were not why our secret fling ended. Life was.
Faina rolls her jaw slightly and pulls her lower lip into her mouth while still not looking at me. A faint blush of pink sits high up on her cheeks as if she’s embarrassed she even asked, and I immediately want to soothe her.
“I do still love you.”
Her head snaps back to me with wide, doe-like eyes which make her look adorable. “What?”
“Faina, I never stopped loving you. What I felt for you was never the reason we stopped being together. All the other shit just got in the way, but I never stopped. But…”
Her expression falters when I say but and it’s like a punch in the gut.
“But I’m not the same person I was when we were last together properly. Last year I was… I was happy. Life was exciting and I thought all the pain and destruction were over. I thought I had a future ahead of me.”
“And now?” she asks softly.
“Now… I’m not the same person.”
“I’m not the same person I was either.” Faina continues to chew on her lower lip. “So we’re both different. It doesn’t matter.”
“It’s not just that… I’m broken, Faina. And I don’t mean that in a way to make you think you can fix me. I mean I’m really broken.”
“So?” She shrugs one shoulder. “So am I.”
“No, this is different. When my family died I—” A sudden warmth sparks behind my eyes. Is this really where I chose to pour my heart out to her? In the middle of a Greek restaurant over wine while romantic music plays in the air. “I feel like I died with them.”
Faina’s head tilts ever so slightly.
“There’s this… cavern inside me. Like some kind of fucking black hole, and everything goes in there.
When I was fighting Hawk? I didn’t really feel the pain.
I don’t feel anything anymore. If I even stop to think about how many people I lost then it feels like my own throat is strangling me from the inside.
My brother, my twin, their families, my mother—” The words catch in my throat and the world blurs faintly when I blink. “Everyone I ever loved is gone.”
“I’m still here,” Faina remarks quietly. “Unless you’ve decided dating an older woman is no longer your thing, in which case, what the fuck is wrong with you?”
The lightness in her voice pulls an unexpected small smile across my lips. “You’re not listening to me.”
“I am.”
“No. You don’t understand. Part of me started this because I was hoping to die at the end. Either by trying to avenge my family or by killing myself at the end.”
“And now?”
“Now?”
She nods. “You said you started this with those feelings, and I do not blame you. But do you still feel that way?”
Of course rises up like a surge but for some reason, those words don’t make it past my lips. I stare at her silently while my desire to end this terrible life clashes with all the warm feelings that surge each time I look in her eyes.
“You don’t, do you?” Faina leans forward and rests her forearms on the table.
“I can tell. When I found you in Italy, you were like a dark shadow cloaked in all this pain. I know what you went through can’t be soothed in a month or even a year, but I’m here for you, Cian.
I want to help you because I care about you.
I never fell out of love with you, but I’m not a random sex kind of girl.
So that’s why I asked if you still loved me because if you didn’t, then I would make that boundary so fucking clear. ”
“The pain isn’t gone,” I reply softly, struggling to find the right words. “But I… you’re right. I don’t think I want to anymore. At least not right now.”
Faina’s face warms with an easy smile. “I know. Some days will be better than others. I just wanted to know where we stood on this.”
“So… what does this mean?”
Faina laughs loudly then. “You need me to spell it out for you?”
No. I don’t. Faina’s reignited something inside me, a small fire that’s slowly warming the dark, grief-stricken corners of my soul with hope that there might be a life that exists at the end of all of this. That instead of dying for the family I failed, I could live for them instead.
“So you still like me.”
Faina affectionately rolls her eyes. “And you’re supposed to be the brains between the two of us. Of course I do. Although like is doing a disservice to how I feel about you.”
“How so?”
“Do you like me?”
“I mean… yeah.”
“But it’s more than that, isn’t it?”
I nod.
“See? The brains…” She shakes her head, chuckling. “Fuck, we really have changed. Do you remember when you cornered me in that coffee shop and wouldn’t let me leave until I agreed to get dinner?”
“I honestly thought you were going to kill me.”
“I would have if I didn’t want to say yes, but I enjoyed your persistence because I already knew I was going to say yes. I just wanted to make sure you really meant what you were asking.”
“Of course I meant it.” I chuckle. “I’ve never lied to you, Faina. Despite our different allegiances.”
“Well, well. An honest man.” Her eyes flash with a teasing warmth. “Who knew they still existed?”
“Ouch.” I grin back. “You realize you’re giving me hope.”
“Hope isn’t a bad thing.”
“It is when we’re facing something down like Hexagon.”
“So what? An international Mafia is no different from some other family we’d deal with in New York. They’re bigger and flashier, but look at us.” She motions between us. “We’re still on their tail and oh, my God.” She lifts one hand to her mouth. “We’re relearning emotional stability after trauma.”
“Fuck you!” Our laughter mingles and draws a few curious glances from other people, but I only have eyes for Faina. “You’re talking like you think there’s going to be an after Hexagon.”
“There has to be,” Faina replies simply. “There’s no way I’m getting a love acknowledgment out of you only for us to end up with no time to explore it. Once Hawk is dead and New York is calm… you’re taking me out to dinner. A real dinner.”
“You want to be romanced?”
“I ache for it.”
“Then it’s a date.”
We pay for our meal and leave the restaurant, wandering through the dark streets under a strikingly white moon and a thousand stars.
Arm in arm, our wandering takes us past several other couples scurrying away to share their romantic moments with each other, and I eventually lead Faina down to the pier.
The water turns to a pool of liquid silver under the moonlight and the soft crashing roll of the waves is soothing music while we walk down the stone pier.
“You know, I love the water,” Faina murmurs as her head drops down to rest against my shoulder while we walk. “Ever since I was a kid. But I never get to spend much time near it.”
“Are you hinting toward a midnight dip?”
“If it wasn’t March, absolutely.” She chuckles. “But no, I was just thinking about the things I’d like to do when this is over. Swim more. Eat more. Maybe get a dog.”
“You’re a dog girl, huh?” We stop at the edge of the pier where the world feels infinite with the water stretching out beneath our feet.
“You’re not?” She turns to face me and gazes at me with slightly hooded eyes.
“I’m a cat guy myself.”
“Since when?”
“Since now because it makes you look at me like you want to take my kidney.”
Faina rolls her eyes and laughs, lightly nudging into me, but her laughter fades when I cup her face and softly stroke her cheek. Her eyes close briefly, her eyelashes tickling the top of my thumb, and her full lips part to help her breathe.
She’s so beautiful. The moonlight accentuates the sharp, angular lines of her face and the soft, round swell of her cheeks.
Her hair is inky black with no lights around and the thick waves almost melt into the silvery-black water behind her.
When she opens her eyes, the blue is so deep that I feel like I’m falling over the edge of a cliff and toppling down into an infinite dark blue abyss.
Nothing can stop me from kissing her.
Pulling her close, I close my lips over hers and kiss her slowly.
Deeply. My breath catches in my throat and stays there as I kiss her, leaning into her slightly while winding my arm around her waist to keep her supported.
Both her hands rest on my chest and the warmth seeps through my shirt to tease my skin underneath.
Her lips move subtly against my own, and I break the kiss just briefly to adjust my angle.
Then I kiss her again, deeper this time, with my mouth pressing over hers in soft waves.
I write my love and adoration against her lips and then slide my tongue very briefly against the seam of her lips.
As soon as they part, I tease my way inside and slide my tongue against the soft heat of her own. She leans into me, and her flat palms ball up into fists as she grips my shirt. She pulls me in while our tongues dance together and the world melts away into nothing.
This is all I want.
This is to be my end of days.
We kiss until the chill from the ocean air renders us too cold to remain and we reluctantly part, making our way back to the motel.
“We should pack,” Faina says quietly with her hand wrapped in mine. “We’ve stayed there too long. We need to change.”
“I’ll start as soon as we get in,” I assure her. “Maybe we can—Faina!”
Her name tears from me in a blind panic as three shadows suddenly lunge from a nearby closed cafe and consume her, dragging her kicking and yelling from my arms as something hard crashes against the back of my skull.
“No!!”