Chapter 34 Zahra
ZAHRA
Declan’s grunts and groans of frustration and the thump of his fist slamming into the punching bag fill the room.
Again. And again. And again. The last words he uttered came out as a growl as he instructed Aidan— ‘Find Lorkan and bring him to me.’ His brother had left, Azula and Connor in tow, before Declan had even finished the sentence.
Instead of waiting in the office until we got word that the traitor was captured, Declan had barged straight to the basement of our home.
He’d thrown the gym door open and slammed it against the wall with such ferocity I’m surprised the door didn’t fall from its hinges.
Declan didn’t bother changing into his workout gear as he ripped open his dress shirt, tossing it on the floor, and started his barrage against the punching bag.
The first punch he threw sent the bag flying, which I knew was no small feat.
Ten minutes into his barrage, his entire body is dripping in sweat, and the temperature in the room has increased at least ten degrees from the heat radiating from Declan’s body.
Once he started his punches, he never let up.
Hit after hit, every time I thought he would pause to take a breath or shake his hands out, he did the opposite, adding more heat to every punch he threw, as if it wasn’t just a punching bag in front of him.
Initially, I figured he was imagining it was Lorkan in front of him.
Lorkan, his uncle. The man who tried to kill me.
The man who killed my father. And Declan’s.
The longer this goes on, the more I’m convinced there are bigger demons Declan is fighting.
Declan lets out a loud hiss as his knuckles finally burst open, blood dripping down his hand and onto the cushioned floor of the gym.
He haphazardly wipes the blood off on his dress pants, wipes the sweat off his forehead with the back of his arm, and spits on the ground.
My throat dries at how utterly obscene he looks right now.
Are you serious, Zahra? Stop ogling the man when he’s clearly on the brink of a mental breakdown.
The rational part of me is right. Now is not the time to focus on how Declan is standing right in front of me, looking straight out of one of my fantasies. He needs a friend. Needs to know that just because the world is cruel doesn’t mean he’s alone.
His fist connects with the punching bag again, except this time, before he can pull back, I wrap my hand around his wrist and hold him in place. “That’s enough.”
Declan freezes, but his eyes are feral. As if he lost himself so much in the violence that he doesn’t even realize where he is now.
I imagine it’s a lot like how I looked when I killed the man at the warehouse.
He had been able to calm me down then. Had been able to stop me from fully snapping. And I would do the same for him.
Keeping one of my hands on his wrist, I move the other to his face, brushing away the sweaty strands of hair that have fallen into his eyes. “Declan. I need you to take a few steps back and sit down.”
He blinks, standing in place before speaking. “I’m getting my blood on you.”
My heart squeezes at the sound of his voice—gruff and defeated. “That’s okay. I don’t mind it. What I do mind is you hurting yourself for no reason.”
Declan’s eyes fall to the ground.
“Let’s get you cleaned up.”
He begrudgingly lets me bring him into the small trainer’s room attached to the gym. I shove him onto the bench, leaving a water bottle next to him, while I rummage through the different medical supply cabinets.
Declan chugs the water in a matter of seconds, but protests as I open some alcohol wipes. “This really isn’t necessary.”
“It is,” I insist, and begin cleaning his wound.
He tries, and fails, to pull his hand back. “I don’t think I need to remind you that I’ve had much worse injuries. I just survived a bullet to the shoulder; a few cracked knuckles is nothing.”
“Just because you’ve survived worse doesn’t mean I can’t take care of you now,” I insist, grabbing another alcohol wipe.
“Zahra—”
“Declan, whatever excuse you’re going to say, I’m not going to listen. You were incredibly stubborn when it came to taking care of me after I sprained my ankle. I’d also been hurt much worse in the past but that didn’t stop you from dotting over me like a mother hen.”
His eyebrows narrow, tension forming on his face. “So I took care of you, and now you’re returning the favor?”
My heart feels like it's been punctured. It’s more than that, more than me just wanting to call it even. I want to be the one who helped heal him. I shake my head vehemently. “No. This isn’t transactional. Our relationship isn’t transactional.”
Declan looks at me like I’m a puzzle he can’t quite solve. “It’s not?” he asks.
I can’t blame him for asking. Up until this point, the only explicit conversations we’ve had about our relationship included laying out the very specific details about how our relationship is only transactional.
But the more we got to know each other, the more the lines started to blur.
Maybe those lines were never even there to begin with.
I just kept fooling myself with the idea that we could keep things strictly business. Strictly professional.
“I’m your…friend,” I state, wincing at how simple that sounded.
‘Friend’ doesn’t seem to quite scratch the surface of what we are to each other.
But at the same time, saying I’m his wife feels like rubbing salt into the wound, a reminder of our business arrangement, as opposed to what it should be—a declaration of love.
Declan stays quiet. Contemplative. He continues to study me in a way that makes me want to squirm, so I try to distract myself instead. “Do you want to tell me what you were thinking about when you were hitting that punching bag like it owed you millions of dollars?”
He shuts his eyes, and for a few minutes, I’m convinced he won’t open them until I leave.
Eventually, he whispers, “Every time I think I’m finally treading water, a tidal wave slams me back down and I’m drowning.
I thought I was ready for this. Ready to be a boss.
And yet all I’ve done so far is allow traitors to enter our ranks right under my nose.
My whole life, I’ve underestimated my uncle. And it got my father killed.”
“Declan, you can’t blame yourself for that—”
“Except I can. My uncle was always reckless, with an uncontrollable temper. I don’t think he has a rational bone in his body, which is why I know my grandfather counted his blessings that my father was born first. My entire life, I watched as people disregarded my Uncle Lorkan.
Sure, he inherited some wealth and say in the business, but at the end of the day, my father held all the power.
Lorkan was at his beck and call. People would harass him all the time about it.
On a good day, he would curse those people out, and on a bad day, he would pick fights.
Using their disrespect as an invitation to get his anger out.
“Despite his outbursts, my father would always tell me Lorkan was harmless— ‘A hot head with no real desire to be boss.’ When I was a kid, I was skeptical. I saw the jealous look in Lorkan’s eye when he was in the same room as my father.
The harsh glares he would send mine and Aidan’s way.
But the older I grew, the more I chose to believe my father.
Lorkan was hostile and violent, but he was also a recluse.
He hated schmoozing at charity events or having to attend meetings with allies, which is why I never would have imagined he’d want to overthrow my father.
Until now. Maybe all the years of being told he was second best finally got to him and he snapped.
He killed his own brother. Killed Naser.
He almost killed you. And I’ve done nothing to stop him,” Declan spits out, his hands curling into fists.
I have a feeling that if he could aim fists at himself right now, he would.
“We still don’t know for certain your uncle killed our fathers.” It pains me to say it but it’s true. Aleksander’s evidence is compelling, but we need more than a few photos, especially since this would tear a hole into a family already hanging by a thread.
“We’ll find out soon. Once Aidan brings him to me.” Declan opens his eyes, a faint sheen covering them.
I grab the liquid band-aid next to him and dab it onto his knuckles, blowing on them slightly to help the glue dry faster.
“You’re good at that,” Declan notes.
“At using a bandaid?” I ask, confused.
A hint of a smile forms on his lips as he shakes his head. “At taking care of people. And their wounds.”
“Using alcohol wipes and some bandages isn’t exactly rocket science.” I shrug.
“That’s not what I meant,” he presses. His gaze pours into mine as if he’ll be able to find the solution to all his problems.
Suddenly, all the oxygen feels like it’s being sucked out of the room. My lips move, but no words come out. I stand frozen and unable to put together a coherent sentence while my mind races in a hundred different directions.
“There you go again.” Declan sighs, shoulders slouching, as he lifts one of his injured hands and strokes my cheek, sending a thousand goosebumps down my body.
My eyebrows scrunch together. “What do you mean?”
“Every time I think you’re finally going to admit what’s happening between us, finally give in to the inevitable, you put your walls up and pull back,” he tsks, biting his bottom lip as he leans his head closer, his forehead nearly touching mine.
His woodsy cologne mixed with the smell of his sweat fills my nose, and the combination of the two are so intoxicating, I want to bury my nose into his neck.
I don’t trust myself to speak, so instead I place the palms of my hands on his chest and push gently, hoping to put some space between us.
Declan wraps his large hands around my wrists, keeping me in place.
He adjusts one of my hands—the one with my wedding ring on it—so it sits directly on top of his heart. The gesture breaks me.
“D-Declan,” I whisper, feeling the steady pulse of his heart.
“Say the words Zahra, and I’m yours. Say you want me.
Say you need me. And I promise you, I’ll spend every second of every day worshiping you.
” His voice has dropped as a heated look fills his eyes.
My core clenches immediately as our wedding night replays in my mind.
Back when we pretended the world outside us didn’t exist. Pretended that everything was normal.
God, I would give anything to relive that night again.
You can, the devilish voice inside my head whispers. You can have it again.
I can’t. It’s too risky. Too painful. As much as I want to deny it, Declan has already sneaked his way into my very being.
The thought of losing him makes my stomach turn now.
I know with absolute certainty that fully giving into him, giving into my desire to claim him as mine, will end in nothing but shattered hearts and broken dreams.
I jut my chin out in stubbornness. “You don’t get to be a mob boss and have a happy ending. It’s one or the other. And I refuse to give up everything I’ve ever worked for.”
I wait for Declan’s irritation, or rage. Wait for him to finally give up on me. “You don’t have to give up either. You also can’t deprive yourself of joy because you’re scared of feeling pain. That’s no way to live your life.”
“I can handle pain just fine,” I scoff.
“Physical pain, absolutely. But you refuse to let yourself feel any emotional pain. You try to shove it down and pretend it doesn’t exist. You have to feel it.
The pain, the sorrow, the grief. I tried to ignore it in the beginning, tried to ignore how much losing my father broke me. But it only made it worse.”
His words repeat in my head. Over and over again.
I know he’s right, know that denying myself the time and space to truly grieve my father has only hardened me over time.
But I’m scared… “I’m scared that if I let myself feel it, feel the grief, it will consume me.
That I’ll lose myself forever,” I admit.
“I had the same fear. And I can’t deny that in the beginning, it does feel all-consuming.
But over time, the constant searing pain of losing someone turns more into an occasional throb.
It doesn’t go away, but it does feel less debilitating.
” Declan places a hand gently, but firmly, on the small of my back. Grounding me.
“How did you get it to hurt less?” I ask breathlessly, desperate for an answer.
Declan’s eyes start to shine. “By allowing myself to feel it all, and remembering all the happy moments that I spent with my father. Remembering how much I loved him.”
My throat constricts and the room feels like it's spinning as my vision blurs. I lose track of where I am in space and time, and I try my best to ground myself in the different sensations around me. My lips taste salty, and my wet cheeks are pressed against something warm and firm. Declan’s scent fills my nose, and I feel him squeeze my waist with his arms. There’s an incredibly irritating panting noise coming from the room, like someone is hyperventilating, and I flush when I realize I’m the one making those noises.
I want nothing more than to crawl into my room and hide forever, but Declan keeps me firmly in place.
With nowhere to go, I let myself think back to all my favorite moments with my father.
How we could code together for hours on the couch while my mom watched her soap operas.
The way he always cried when I performed, rather poorly, at one of my elementary school musicals.
The way he always told me he loved me before I went to bed—even when I was an angsty teenager and responded to these goodnight texts with a thumbs up.
How much we used to laugh together. The way he adored my mother like she hung the moon herself.
Is it possible for your heart to feel like it’s being ripped into a hundred different pieces and stitched back together at the same time?
That’s how mine feels right now. And as much as it hurt…
it’s also the best I’ve felt in a long, long time.