12. June #3
It’s then that I recognize where I took him. The park. The one I go to in an attempt to decompress from the chaotic world around me. The place I accidentally crashed all night and scared a couple kids into thinking I was dead. I’ve never taken anyone here.
He lowers himself onto the bench first and pats the spot next to him. “Please.”
I comply because what else do I have to do. I’m not due at Jack’s until this evening and it’s not like I want to go home and deal with my idiot roommates. I was supposed to be working for the next five hours, not wandering around the city pissed off with Magnus on my tail.
“What happened back there?” Magnus leans into the bench, his arm resting behind me.
I have the strong urge to keep my mouth shut, to not burden Magnus with my mundane issues, but I find myself talking anyway, despite my natural tendency to bottle everything up. “Apparently, my appearance was bad for business.” I leave out the part where Saul had invaded my space.
“Wait, so let me get this straight. You got fired because of something completely out of your control?”
“Pretty much, yeah.”
Magnus runs his hand through his hair. “Damn, princess. I’m sorry.”
“It’s not your fault.” It was mine, for being in the wrong place at the wrong time. For not paying better attention to my surroundings. For walking home intoxicated.
“It might as well be.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?” I turn and face him, pulling my leg up and resting it on top of the other. I ignore the ache from the bruises on my knees and shin and continue to look at his serious yet gorgeous face.
He flits his gaze at my bottom half.
“It’s nothing,” I tell him before he can ask.
“If it was nothing you wouldn’t have winced.”
“You noticed that?” I thought I hid it well enough.
“I notice everything.”
Does he see that despite my injuries and how pissed I am about losing yet another job, that I still want to rip my pants off and climb on top of him, sliding myself over his shaft until he’s buried deep inside me?
I break eye contact and try to keep that one off his radar. Neither one of us can afford to deepen our already intense connection.
“What happened to you…” Magnus touches my shoulder, bringing my attention to him once again. “It wasn’t your fault.”
“It wasn’t yours either.” Why are he and Coen hellbent on making this their problem?
“I wouldn’t be so sure.”
“Stop being cryptic and tell me why you think this is about you. I’m not your responsibility.” I take a drink of the coffee I’m still holding in my grip.
Magnus must have left his at the pizza place when I stormed out in a fury.
“I have enemies.”
“Don’t we all?”
Magnus rocks his head back and forth. “Not like this.” He extends his hand, gently tucking a strand of my hair behind my ear. “It’s not safe for me to tell you much more.”
“If what you’re saying is true, and it was your enemies that did this." I hold up my bandage-covered hand and circle my face with my finger. "Pretty sure we're past the point of keeping me safe."
“I never meant for you to get hurt, I promise.”
I don’t mean to, but I let out a laugh. “Stop blaming yourself. It wasn’t your fault.
It was some freak misunderstanding that had nothing to do with you or Coen or Dominic.
How would that even make sense? I’m a nobody to you three.
How would they know who I was and better yet, what the hell would be the point?
They might as well kidnap and torture your fucking paperboy. ”
Magnus’s jaw tenses at that last bit. “You really don’t get it do you?”
“Get what? Please tell me what I’m missing here.”
“How important you are to us.”
I chuckle again, this time standing up from the bench. “Right. And I’m the Queen of England.”
“Princess,” he mutters under his breath.
“Whatever.” I roll my eyes and fold my arms over my chest. “You guys clearly have some issues to work through, but they don’t involve me. I have my shit taken care of. I don’t need any of your help.” And right now, I should be on the hunt for another job, not dealing with this.
“You think this is a joke?” Magnus rises to his feet in front of me. “There’s nothing to laugh about. These men are dangerous. They let you go to prove a point, but that doesn’t mean they won’t finish what they started just to drive it home.”
“They didn’t let me go,” I say quietly.
“What?” His eyes shift back and forth across my face.
“I escaped.”
“Did you…did you kill the person? How many were there?”
“No. I stabbed him in the thigh and ran out the door. There was only one of them.”
“Christ.”
“It had nothing to do with you, Magnus. Stop blaming yourself. How would they have even known to go after me anyway?”
"They must have seen you leave the house."
“I…” My heart picks up its pace when my mind catches up to what he just said. “I wasn’t alone, Magnus. I was with Cora.”
All the doubts I had, all the moments I blew Coen and Magnus off for their overconcern that could have never been linked to me disappear in the blink of the eye. If what they’re saying is true, and that it is their dangerous enemies who attacked me, that means Cora is in danger, too.
And if I don’t get to her before they do, she might not be as lucky as I was to escape the twisted ways of the man who threatened to carve me like a pumpkin.