29. Chapter Twenty-Nine Ruby
Chapter Twenty-Nine: Ruby
I didn’t remember deciding to follow him. But I was inside again—his hand around mine, the door locking behind us with a final, metallic click that sounded too much like a verdict.
The house smelled like bleach and blood. A war zone scrubbed clean.
I was still in shock. The adrenaline had cracked and peeled off, leaving only the raw, aching center underneath. My pulse skittered. My palms itched. I felt like I was floating two inches above my body, just close enough to feel how wrong everything still was.
Maybe Kieran was right. Maybe it really was just kids doing drugs. But why were they on my street? And why were they watching me?
Kieran didn’t say anything; he just stood there, watching me as if he were waiting to see what I’d do next—perhaps waiting to see if I’d run again.
I wasn’t running anywhere. I had nowhere to go…he’d taken that form me.
The air inside felt just as heavy as the night had been. Every corner of the house seemed filled with shadows that shouldn’t have been there. I took a step forward and stopped, feeling Kieran’s eyes on me.
It wasn’t quite what I’d call comfort. More like a reminder. Like he was still waiting, still seeing if I’d go for the door or make a run for it.
I didn’t like what that made me feel. Or what it meant that he knew enough to stand there silently and let me sit with the tension.
Maybe he thought that if he waited long enough, I’d fall apart right in front of him. Or that the silence would drive me to say what was on my mind—something I didn’t even know myself.
The stillness between us stretched, but I couldn’t seem to fill it.
My pulse beat at my throat, a hollow echo under my skin, and I realized that I was frozen, standing in the middle of the hallway with no idea of what to do next. With no idea of how to handle the way Kieran was looking at me, like I was about to come undone.
Maybe I was.
Instead of retreating upstairs, I turned toward the kitchen on autopilot, but even as I walked, I felt Kieran’s reassuring presence behind me. I stopped at the sink and braced my hands on the counter. The faucet dripped once, each plink echoing through the space.
My throat was dry, and when I swallowed, I felt the tightness there, the soreness beneath the bruises blooming at my neck.
“You need to wash the night off,” Kieran stated in an even, sure tone.
His voice carried a calm authority that sent a sharp coil of anxiety through my chest. I let out a bitter laugh and shook my head.
“And if I don’t?” I managed, my voice shaky as I felt him shift his weight behind me—a subtle movement of muscle and presence.
The sound of the faucet dripping was louder than it had any right to be. Every drop hit the sink with a hollow click, the kind of sound that kept echoing long after it stopped. The air in the kitchen pressed down on me—thick with bleach and blood, the residue of everything I couldn’t clean.
Kieran stood there, still and solid, a shadow stitched into the room. His voice was calm, too calm.
“If you don’t, nothing happens,” he said. “But if you do, you might feel better. I had my men move the body to the backyard so you could use the stairs.”
It wasn’t kindness; it wasn’t a threat either. It was control . Quiet, unshakable control. He didn’t ask what I wanted. He didn’t need to. He was already making the decisions.
The man he’d killed had tried to murder me…and that should have meant something. I guessed it did. If Kieran hadn’t been watching my house, if he hadn’t intervened, I would be dead right now. But the way Kieran said it—as if the cleanup crew was just another part of the plan—made my skin crawl.
He was talking about a corpse while standing in my kitchen, and somehow, he made it sound like comfort.
He’d saved me. That was true.
He’d also destroyed everything, and now he had complete control over me.
I stared down at the sink, the stainless steel cool beneath my hands. My knuckles were white where they gripped the edge, every muscle in my body drawn tight. I couldn’t look at him, couldn’t let him see the confusion and anger that were fighting their own battle just beneath the surface.
Another drip. Another breath.
I swallowed again, the motion painful. I could still feel the shadows of Russell’s hands there, a ghost of violence that lingered even after the events of the night had ended.
The bruises were darkening, spreading like spilled ink across my skin, each one a reminder that I wasn’t as strong as I thought I was.
That I needed help.
The thought made my stomach twist.
“Ruby.”
Kieran’s voice broke through the fog, the single word spoken with a calm patience that unraveled something inside of me. I didn’t turn to face him, not yet. I let the silence stretch until it felt like a living thing between us, until I could pretend that I was still the one in control.
But I wasn’t.
We both knew it.
The dripping faucet marked time, a slow and steady rhythm that grated on my chaotic thoughts. I exhaled through my nose, trying to force my body to relax, but the tension coiled tighter instead.
“What do you want?” I repeated, my voice a hoarse whisper.
“I want you to fucking shower, because if you don’t, you’ll stay like this,” Kieran replied, his tone infuriatingly steady. “Stuck in your own head.”
I wanted to laugh, to spit back some retort that would shut him up and send him away, but the words wouldn’t come. My throat closed around them, around the truth that he’d spoken, and I was left with nothing but the sound of that damn dripping faucet.
I needed to wash the night off.
He was right.
But I hated him for saying it.
“You think you’ve got me all figured out, don’t you?” I said finally, forcing the words past the tightness in my chest.
Kieran didn’t answer right away.
Instead, he let the silence stretch again, his presence solid and unyielding behind me. He was a wall I couldn’t get around, a force I couldn’t ignore. And I hated that more than anything.
“Not all,” he said at last. “But enough to know you’re not doing yourself any favors right now.”
The honesty in his voice cut through my defenses, leaving me raw and exposed. I clenched my teeth, trying to hold onto the anger, trying to use it to push him away, but it slipped through my fingers like smoke.
Like everything else.
“Then maybe you don’t know as much as you think you do,” I muttered, though the words sounded weak even to my own ears. But he didn’t, did he?
Rosie was his daughter.
He didn’t know.
He would never know. “A shower won’t fix everything. It won’t fix, anything, really,” he said. “But it’s a start.”
“What do you want from me?”
“What I told you before. I can make this go away, Ruby, but you have to listen. Right now, it doesn’t feel like you’re listening,” he said, taking a step closer to me.
He brushed a strand of hair away from my face.
“I need you to help me so I can help you. So will you please go upstairs and have a shower?”
My grip on the counter loosened, my fingers uncurling one by one until they lay flat against the cool metal. Until I didn’t have the strength to hold on any longer.
I didn’t answer him.
I couldn’t.
But I didn’t push him away, either.
It felt like giving up.
Like surrender.
And maybe that’s what it was.
I turned to face him again, slowly this time, the fight gone from my limbs and my voice.
“So what, are you just going to babysit me now?” I asked
“If that’s what it takes,” Kieran replied.
I allowed a hollow laugh to escape. “I don’t need you.”
“Sure you don’t,” Kieran murmured back, and the worst part was that it sounded as if he believed my claim. Yet, he still didn’t leave.
The air between us was thick with uncertainty, with all the things I couldn’t say and all the things he wouldn’t push me to admit.
And in that space, in that silence, something inside of me broke.
It was my last defense, the last wall I’d put up to keep him out.
And once it was gone, I didn’t have the energy to rebuild it.
I didn’t have the energy for anything at all.
The anger was gone, the defiance burned out, leaving only acceptance and an exhaustion so deep I couldn’t see the bottom of it.
I needed help.
I needed Kieran.
I couldn’t keep pretending otherwise, no matter how much I wanted to.
The last of my resolve slipped away, leaving me bare and unprotected in front of him.
Leaving me open to whatever came next.
I looked at Kieran, really looked at him, and I saw the truth of it there in his eyes, in the way he held himself, in the way he didn’t turn away when I was finally laid bare.
The air shifted, the weight of everything settling into something I could almost breathe through.
Almost.
I wasn’t going to win this one.
But maybe that was okay.
Because with Kieran there, maybe I didn’t have to.
And it was fucked up…sure. But maybe part of me liked that.