33. Thirty-Three #3
He caught my wrist and pressed my palm flat against his chest, over his heart. I could feel it pounding beneath my fingertips, strong and steady, belying the calm on his face.
“The tabloids would love it,” he said. “Virelli Bride Stabs Groom Before Wedding. Blood-Soaked Ceremony Proceeds As Planned.”
Despite everything, I laughed. It hurt my ribs, my throat, every inch of me that had been used and abused in the last hour. My eyes drifted to the stab wound again.
“Let me clean that,” I said, sliding off the desk on unsteady legs.
Arrow caught me before I could fall, his hands gentle now. “I can handle it.”
“I did it, I’ll fix it,” I insisted, pushing away from him.
I limped to the bathroom, aware of his eyes tracking my every move.
The bathroom light flickered on automatically, illuminating my reflection in the mirror. I looked like I’d survived a war—hair wild, mascara streaked down my face, bruises blooming across my skin like violent flowers. My lips were swollen, my neck marked with his fingerprints.
I looked owned. Claimed. Ruined.
And I fucking loved it.
I wet a washcloth with warm water and grabbed the first aid kit from under the sink. When I returned, Arrow had removed his shirt, exposing the wound on his side. It wasn’t deep. I hadn’t wanted to kill him, just hurt him, but it was still bleeding.
“Sit,” I commanded, pointing to the edge of the bed.
Surprisingly, he obeyed, watching me with those predatory eyes. I cleaned the wound with antiseptic, watching him flinch slightly when the alcohol hit raw flesh. He didn’t complain, but kept his gaze fixed on my face as I worked.
“It’s not that deep,” I muttered, dabbing at the blood. “You’ll live.”
“Disappointed?” He asked, amused.
I pressed harder than necessary on the wound, satisfied when he hissed in pain. “If I wanted you dead, you’d be dead.”
His hand caught mine, stilling my movements. “I believe you, sadist.”
I looked up, caught in his stare. The penthouse was silent except for our breathing, still slightly ragged from everything that had happened.
“You went to her because you saw me with Svetlana,” he said.
I shrugged, focusing on applying butterfly bandages to his wound. “I went to her because I wanted to.”
“Liar.”
“You don’t know everything about me, Arrow.”
His finger traced my jawline, tilting my face up to his. “I know enough.”
I jerked away, suddenly angry again. “You know what? You’re right. This started as business. A transaction. Your family wants mine, and mine wants yours. But don’t pretend this is still just about family politics. Not after what we’ve done to each other.”
His eyes darkened. “It was never just business. Not from the first moment I saw you.”
“Bullshit,” I yanked the final bandage tight, making him wince. “You hated me.”
“I wanted you,” he corrected. “Hating you was just easier.”
I finished cleaning his wound and stood up, my body aching in places I’d forgotten existed. Arrow caught my wrist before I could walk away, pulling me between his legs. His hands settled on my hips, surprisingly gentle compared to minutes before.
“Why did you go to her tonight?” he asked again, voice low. “The truth.”
I stared down at him, at this man who’d torn me apart and put me back together so many times I’d lost count. My fingers traced the bruise forming on his jaw where I’d hit him.
“Because I wanted to hurt you the way those photos hurt me,” I admitted finally. “I wanted you to feel what I felt when I saw her hands on you, her mouth at your ear. I wanted you to imagine someone else touching me, making me come, hearing the sounds only you should hear.”
His grip tightened on my hips. “It worked.”
“Good.”
He swept me up, carried me to his bed, stripping the ruined clothes from my body, and tossed them onto the floor, then slid alongside me under the sheets, our bruises and blood mixing together.
Arrow wrapped a leg over my hips and buried his face in the back of my neck while the city finally exhaled below us.
For a long time, we lay that way, just breathing, the lull between wars. My head spun. I didn’t know if I needed water or a priest. I only knew that his arm around me was the only thing that made me feel shaped at the edges, like a body and not an afterimage.
He dozed first, the fucker. I watched him, memorizing how his face looked when it wasn’t fighting or performing. I wondered what love would look like if either of us survived, if we staggered to the far side of marriage with our throats unslitted and a city worth ruling still under our feet.
Arrow inhaled, voice hoarse with sleep. “If you ever want out,” he muttered. “You ask me, not the city.”
I thought about what that meant and whether leaving was even possible. If, in my lifetime, that door would ever actually open.
I bit my tongue, let the raw, healing silence gather, then murmured, “Deal.”
I curled my body around his, felt the tatters of sleep pick at my vision. The city would try to end us, just as it had the generations before—but maybe, just maybe, Arrow was right. If I needed an exit wound, I’d let him make it on his own terms, or, if I was very lucky, on mine.
* Baby girl