Thrity-Six
THRITY-SIX
KEIRA
Hurts Like Hell - Tommy Profitt, Fleurie
T he priest finishes his prayer and motions for the casket to be lowered into the grave. I feel nothing. My body’s numb after the last two weeks of losing my damn mind. My puffy eyes sting, and my cheeks burn from the chafed skin caused by the gallons of tears I’ve cried. At least they’re hidden from the crowd behind oversized-tinted sunglasses.
“At this time, I’d like to call forth anyone who would like to say a final goodbye at the gravesite,” the priest offers.
Stace squeezes my hand, and the warmth of her skin against mine offers the slightest comfort. I’m sure she’s trying to get my attention to see if I want to go up, but I’m not ready. We watch the crowd parade by single file as they stop by his grave and exit to the cars parked along the grassy hills of the cemetery.
A deafening silence falls over me and my remaining support system. The birds don’t chirp, and the city sounds seem blocked by an invisible barrier. It’s as if the world knows I can’t handle more than what I’m already trying to process.
“I think we should go. Are you ready?” Nikita asks from my other side.
Brushing out the non-existent wrinkles from my black dress, I stand and wobble on my heels. Nikita and Stacey move in to wrap themselves around me. This is another reminder of why I never wanted to open my heart to someone new, because this is always how things end. I should have known better, yet I let myself do it anyway. I can feel that same wall Harkin demolished, brick by brick, rebuilding into place.
We head for the car, James steps up to pull Stacey into his side protectively. We shouldn’t be in any danger anymore, but I can’t blame him for wanting to hold them close. Nikita drapes her arm around my shoulder. She’s been a rock for me after magically reappearing after the firefight. We had it out. I screamed at her for letting me believe she’d been killed. She explained that the plan was set in motion the moment she opened her front door, and I stood there with a problem, looking for help. She told me Harkin found her out and knew he shouldn’t have interfered with their attempt to capture Domenico. That had caused a whole new fight.
They climb into the limo ahead of me, and as I’m about to fold my body into the back seat, a whisper of my name comes through the rustling of the leaves overhead. Looking over my shoulder, I wonder if I’ll see his ghost. If I’ll get one last glimpse of him before I leave him here to rot away, six feet under, with the worms. But, of course, that’s not what I see when my eyes finally focus on the scene ahead of me. The one person I could have gone without seeing today steps nearer.
“Keira, I?—”
But she doesn’t continue, as if the words between us are too hard to piece together after everything that’s happened. Instead, my eyes scan to the little girl at her side. The one who looks like she’s been plucked from my childhood memories. She takes after her mom, and I idly wonder who her father is and if his DNA offered any traits to my niece.
Alina clears her throat, and my gaze swings back to hers. She doesn’t hide her pain behind sunglasses as I do. She displays it proudly, another play in her book for the attention she always craves.
“Sofia wanted to meet her aunt. The woman who’s helping her get better.” Alina looks down at her with more love than I thought she was capable of and scoots the little girl forward in my direction.
I drop into a crouch, my knee falling to the soft, wet grass. “Hi, Sofia,” I offer awkwardly.
Her eyes light up, and she rockets into my arms. It takes me aback. The unfiltered kindness of this child punches me in the gut and brings the tears I thought I was fresh out of back to life. I sniffle into her soft hair and hug her a little tighter. When she pulls away and steps back to her mom, I give them both a tight smile and rise from the ground. The air around us crackles with awkward tension.
“I should go.” I nod and turn back to the car to climb in, but before I can pull the door closed, something stops me. “Hey, Alina, get out. Now that he’s dealt with, you don’t have to stay. It’s what our mom did. It might not have saved her in the end, but it did me. Well, kind of.” I shrug. “She deserves better.” I nod to my niece, clinging to her mother’s skirt.
Her eyes follow my gaze down, but when they move back to me, devastation is written all over her face.
“I wish it was that easy.” Her hand falls to her stomach, and it’s enough to tell me how trapped she is in the life she semi-chose.
“That’s an even better reason. Call Patrick, Alina. It’s what’s best for all of you.”
She sniffles and nods, leaning down to pick Sofia up into her arms. I watch them disappear over the hill before closing the door to the limo to find three sets of eyes boring into me.
“Don’t.”
I know what they’re all thinking. I’ve spent months wanting to scratch her eyes out, but after everything, I can’t be bothered to hold on to the hatred for her that once boiled through my veins. She’ll never be a sister, but my heart bleeds for my niece and the next one to come. They’re innocent in this world, untouched by its wickedness that contorts mere mortals into the monsters that roam freely among us.
“Do you want to head back to the apartment? Take a shower and change?” Stacey asks.
“No, take me to him.”
“Keira, I don’t—I don’t know if that’s a good idea. You need to rest and eat something. That’s what Harkin would want,” James insists.
Stacey’s gasp hits the sentiment right on the head. Nikita slides closer to my side, offering her support.
“Well, he’s not fucking here, is he, James!” I say, the hurt from his statement lacing through every word.
“Keira, I—I didn’t. Fuck, I’m sorry.”
“It’s fine. Just tell the driver where to take me.”
“Are there any updates?” I ask as she sweeps into the room.
“No, everything should be out of his system. Now, it’s just up to him,” she tells me with a soft smile.
“Okay, thank you.” I squeeze his tattooed hand harder.
The steady beep of the heart monitor tethers me to his bedside. I didn’t want to leave to attend Domenico’s funeral, but I needed the closure of seeing his body lowered into the ground. Memories from that day dig deeper into my psyche whenever I replay the madness. One minute, Domenico was forcing me into the small office, his men rushing to cover their boss from the ambush, and the next, he was using his body to shield mine from the gunfire raining down on us when the hidden hatch wouldn’t pry open. It didn’t make up for all the terrible things he’d done in his life, but it did leave me with an ounce of something akin to respect for the man I’d never known as a father.
James recovered Harkin’s father from one of Domenico’s hideouts. He’d been whisked away on his private jet to a medical facility in another country without an extradition treaty. I didn’t have the mental capacity to care about his escape from any legal consequences for his involvement with my father and his crimes. From what James told me, he was barely hanging on to life as it was. Scott Greyson wasn’t likely to ever recover from the torture he suffered at the hands of Domenico’s men, and that would have to be punishment enough. For now.
She finishes checking his vitals and pupils for a response before turning back to me and letting me know the doctor should be by within the next hour.
“Hey, you mulish, infuriating man. I need you to wake up now.” I bring his fingers up to my lips and hold them there. “You promised me we could run away. That it would be just you and me.” My voice cracks. “I can’t do life alone anymore, Harkin. You’ve shown me what it’s like to have someone in my corner, and I’ve come to rely on it.” I collapse forward, laying my head on his stomach, avoiding the bandages covering the surgical wounds from saving his life from the gunshot wound. “I miss fighting with you. I miss your firm hand when I sass back and the way you use it to calm me from the depths of my panic attacks.” I let my eyes fall closed, my body exhausted from sleeping beside him for weeks on end. “I love you. Come back to me,” I whisper, letting sleep pull me away from this bleak reality.
A firm shake of my shoulder drags me from an uncomfortable, fitful sleep. The fluorescent lights burn my corneas, and I shut my eyes to ward off the unwanted brightness. My back pops as I lift off the bed from my hunched position and finally look around to see who’s waking me.
“Baby girl. You can’t keep doing this.”
I throw her an annoyed look. Since returning from the dead, she’s been hovering worse than a helicopter parent at Central Park.
“You know he can hear you.”
Her lips draw up in a smirk, and she looks over at Harkin, who is tucked into the hospital bed. “Good. Maybe it’ll wake him so he can yell at me for flirting with you again.”
Her joke manages to pull a half-hearted chuckle from me, but I shut it down the second the sounds break free. I shouldn’t be laughing while he’s still fighting to wake up. It’s been days, and the doctor said everything looks great, but he needs to push through and fight to wake up.
“Listen, I’m asking this in the most loving way possible, but when was the last time you showered? You smell like week-old takeout that’s been forgotten behind the dumpster outside my apartment.”
“If you’re just here to insult me, you can leave,” I say with a glare.
“Baby, you can take ten minutes to step away and care for yourself. I’ll stay. If anything happens, I’ll yell for you.”
I take in a deep breath. I know she’s right. I’m not taking care of myself. Harkin would kick my ass if he could. Shit, he may still when he finally wakes up. If he wakes up, I remind myself of the possibility.
“Fine.”
“Good! I brought you clean clothes and toiletries. They’re in that bag.” She nods toward the tote sitting on the dresser.
I grab the bag and head for the en suite bathroom, turning back before I close the door. “Thanks, Nik.”
The shower really was needed. I feel refreshed and slightly more human. Nik brought me some coffee and a hot meal from the cafeteria, the first real food I’d eaten in days. It’s amazing how long you can survive off junk from the vending machine when everything tastes like cardboard anyway.
It’s late now, the halls are dimmed, and the nurses’ station is quiet for the night. I’m too wound up from sitting all afternoon. I think the lack of fresh air and unblocked sunlight affects my natural circadian rhythm. I flip through the TV channels, nothing but infomercials and reruns of 90s sitcoms play on the cable.
“Forget it. This is why no one has cable anymore.” I throw the remote down and slump in the hospital chair that’s permanently deformed from my ass.
“That’s a bit… dramatic.” His rough voice stumbles over the last word.
“Harkin!”