Chapter 35 #2
Eve’s head tilts against my shoulder as I read, her body softening into mine by increments. I feel each shift in her posture, each small twitch and sigh. When her breathing deepens, slowing toward sleep, I close the book.
“Don’t stop,” she murmurs, eyes still closed. “I’m listening.”
“You’re sleeping,” I counter, setting the book aside.
Her lips quirk. “Maybe I like falling asleep to your voice.”
Something warm uncoils in my chest at her admission. I lean down, brushing my lips against her forehead. “Later,” I promise. “You need to eat first.”
I retrieve the tray Carolina left outside our door—soup, bread, sliced fruit. Eve’s appetite has been slow to return, each meal a negotiation between us. I sit on the edge of the bed, loading the spoon with broth.
Reaching for the spoon, she protests, “I can feed myself.”
I hold it just out of reach. “Humor me.”
“Then feed me something other than soup,” she whines. “I want cake and butter and chocolate and… fries. I miss fries.”
I chuckle. “Would this be a good time to point out that I know Carolina is sneaking you daily chocolate bars?”
My beautiful wife averts her gaze. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“How about this,” I suggest. “We’ll compromise. You’ll eat the soup, and I’ll let you have two chocolate bars today.”
Her sigh is theatrical, but she opens her mouth, accepting the soup with a pointed look that says this isn’t over. The spoon slides between her lips, metal against flesh, an intimacy that feels deeper than it should. I watch her throat work as she swallows, my own mouth going dry.
“Is this going to be our life now?” she asks after several more spoonfuls. “You feeding me like I’m helpless?”
“Like you’re precious,” I correct, tearing a piece of bread and offering it to her. “Only until I’m sure.”
“Sure of what?” She takes the bread, her fingers brushing mine.
“That I won’t lose you.” The words come out rougher than intended, scraping past the knot in my throat.
Eve’s expression softens, something tender and sharp in her gaze. “Jack,” she says, my name both benediction and chastisement. “You’re not going to lose me.”
I don’t answer. Can’t answer.
The memory of her hanging from that hook, bleeding and broken, is still too fresh. The terror of holding her in the car, feeling her blood seep through my clothes, certain she was slipping away—it haunts my sleep, drives me to check her breathing in the darkest hours.
Instead of telling her that, I finish feeding her in silence, watching with fierce concentration as she takes each bite, as color returns to her cheeks by slow degrees. When she can’t eat any more, I set the tray aside and retrieve the medical supplies Carmichael left for us.
“Time to change your bandages,” I say, gesturing for her to turn, before I quickly snap on a pair of plastic gloves.
Eve complies and shifts onto her side, exposing her back to me, a trust that still steals my breath. I peel away the gauze covering the worst of the lash marks, relief washing through me at the clean, healing lines.
Luckily, there’s no infection. Just new skin forming, scars that will fade but never disappear completely.
“How does it look?” she asks, voice muffled against the pillow.
“Better.” I apply the antibiotic ointment with careful fingers, tracing each mark with a reverence that belies the rage still simmering beneath my skin. “You’re healing well.”
She hums, the sound vibrating under my palm. “And my shoulder?”
“That comes last.” I finish with her back, securing fresh gauze over the wounds, then help her onto her other side to access the bullet wound. “It looks good.”
“It’s itchy and sore,” s he admits, wincing as I clean around the edges. “But not as bad as yesterday.”
I work in silence, methodical in my care, my touch clinical even as my gaze devours every inch of her. When I finish, I help her into a fresh t-shirt, easing it over her injuries with practiced gentleness.
“Thank you,” she says, settling back against the pillows. There’s something in her tone—a weight, a decision reached—that makes me pause.
“For what?”
“For finding me.” Her fingers twist in the sheets, knuckles whitening. “For not letting her win.”
I sit beside her, taking her hand in mine. “I will always find you,” I promise, the words a vow carved in bone. “ Always. ”
She nods, swallowing hard. The room feels suddenly charged, like the air before a storm breaks. “I’m not sure I deserve it,” she says, looking away.
“Why the hell not?”
“I…” Pausing, she licks her dry lips and runs a hand through her hair, twirling a strand around her finger. “I’m not completely innocent,” she says, voice dropping to barely above a whisper.
Unless this is some poorly timed joke about not being a virgin, I have no fucking clue what she’s getting at. “Spit it out,” I order, taking her hand and squeezing it. “Whatever it is, you can tell me.”
“It’s about my dad.”
I go still, recognizing the importance of this moment, this offering. “I’m listening.”
“I killed him.” The words fall like stones between us, heavy with truth long carried. “Some think it was Valentine, but it wasn’t. It was me. I did it, and he helped me cover it up.”
While I wait for her to continue, I trace circles on her wrist, feeling the rapid flutter of her pulse.
“Valentine was going to kill him, and he nearly did. He attacked us in an alley. But he… well, he didn’t finish the job.”
“But you did,” I state.
She nods. “Yeah, I killed my dad. Instead of gett ing him help, I sliced his throat and let him bleed out in an alley. If I’d had more time or been better prepared, I would have dragged his ass into a coffin like he used to do to me.”
I don’t interrupt as she tells me about the years of abuse she suffered at her dad’s hand. When she explains the coffin of shame, I nearly lose my fucking shit. Especially when she describes in gruesome detail how he shoved her in there and locked the fucking lid.
“When that happened, I had to convince him to let me out.” She lets out a sad laugh. “Even when I was eight, he made me convince him. It was harder when I was younger and I remember this one time where it took me two days.”
My vision goes red, and my nostrils flare with barely constrained all-consuming rage. “Fuck!” I roar.
She exhales shakily, and just when I think she’s going to clam up, she carries on. My beautiful, strong wife straightens and tells me how he used her entire upbringing as teachable moments and published her failures as medical papers.
“That’s fucked up,” I growl, squeezing her hand harder. “Fuck, I wish you hadn’t killed him.”
“You do?” Her voice is small.
I nod. “Yeah. But only because I’d love to make him fucking cry for mercy. If I could, I’d bring him back to life just so we could lock him in his own coffin of shame.”
That makes her laugh, a sound that’s too rare these days. “That would be something,” she giggles. She places her hand against my cheek, cupping it. “I got the last word when I told him just how much I hated him while he bleed out in a dirty alley—”
“It’s not enough,” I seethe. “He deserves—”
“Nothing.” She raises her chin. “He deserves nothing. To men like Charles Mortis, nothing is their worst nightmare. But I canceled his book deals and Valentine helped make sure no college or uni use my dad’s books.
I also sold the family home. That’s partly why his final resting place is on a mantle I hardly ever clean. ”
I whistle slowly. “Fuck, Little Bride. When you say nothing it really means…”
“Nothing,” she smiles.
A p regnant silence falls over us, and I wonder what she’s thinking. Judging by the way she’s biting into her lush lower lip, it’s not anything good.
“What’s on your mind?” I ask when I can’t take it anymore.
“You said I was the doctor who did nothing, and you’re correct.” Her voice rises. “I could probably have stopped Valentine from getting involved with Ruby. You were right to blame me. But, Jack, I need you to know something.”
“What?”
“Even if I could go back and change things, I wouldn’t.” Finally meeting my gaze, I see the challenge in her gray depths. “Because he loved her. Like I love you. Even the damaged and broken deserve love, don’t we?”
Refusing to give her the fight I feel her angling for, I bend and fuse my lips to her. “You have no idea how true that is, wife. ”
She lets out a low moan as I nibble on her bottom lip, but instead, I pull back. “I knew about your dad.”
Her eyes widen. “What?”
“I didn’t know all the things he did to you. But when I looked into you before my first and only therapist appointment, I already knew you’d killed him.” I lift her hand to my lips, pressing a kiss to her knuckles. “So I know what you did.”
“And you don’t care?” Disbelief colors her voice.
“You’re misunderstanding me,” I chuckle. “I care very much. But only about what he did to deserve it. Now, if you’re asking if I care that you took a life, the answer is no. No, I don’t give two shits. Do you?”
She scrunches her nose in confusion. “What do you mean?”
“I’ve killed plenty of times. Do you care about that?”
Eve’s never been more beautiful to me than right now, as she shakes her head and looks at me from beneath her long, black eyelashes. “I don’t care who you’ve killed or that you’ve killed. All I care about is us and our future.”