2. Cali #2
"So let me recap. There's a man out there," I say slowly, "who taught your father how to hurt people, and he doesn't like that you decided not to continue the family legacy.
So now, he wants to hurt you, and the method he chose to do so was to come into my house in the middle of the night while my children were sleeping, and tie me up, and put me in the back of a van. "
"That more or less sums it up, yes."
I nod. I keep nodding. I don't know how to stop, but for some reason, it feels good, like the more I nod, the more things all settle into place at last.
"I want you to hear something," I say. "But I want to make crystal clear that you understand me when I do. Are you listening?"
Ronan swallows. "I'm listening."
"I have spent my entire adult life," I say, "making myself smaller so that men could feel bigger.
Todd told me what to weigh. Todd told me what to wear.
Todd told me I was crazy for months on end while he cheated on me behind my back with my best friend.
I found out and I did what I had to do before it was too late, and I was so, so sure that that would be the end of it. But it wasn't, was it, Ronan?"
He keeps his face aimed downward and doesn't speak. He knows it's a rhetorical question.
"Because then,” I continue, "I met you. You came on so strong, Ronan.
So smooth and irresistible. The mirrors taken and the debts paid, the lawsuits fended off.
Ronan Akov with a big S on his chest. My hero.
My superman. My children's idol. But you weren't a good guy, were you?
Not truly. You were good on your terms. But it was always your call, all of it, every last little bit.
What I got to have, to see, to know, to feel—you picked it all.
" I'm crying again, but I don't wipe the tears; I let them run down my face, free and unchecked.
"You are the second man in a row who looked at my life and decided it was yours to manage as you saw fit.
And now, there's a bloodstain on my stairs because of it. "
"Calista—"
"No. Absolutely not. I'm not finished."
He closes his mouth.
"You came tonight and saved me. I recognize that.
That man was going to get to my babies, but you came up my stairs and you stopped him, and I will be grateful for that until the day I die.
" I swallow hard and brace myself for the finale, the hardest part yet.
"But you don't get to hold that over my head.
One act of saving my life for all the ways you've ruined it.
That's not how it works. That's a con, and I am so beyond done being conned. "
I take a breath. My whole chest is heaving and I feel flushed and sick.
"I want you to get out," I conclude. "I want you to get up off my stairs and walk out my broken door, and I want you to leave me and my children alone.
For good. I'll deal with Lev. I'll deal with the feds.
I'll deal with all of it, the way I've dealt with everything else: by myself, because I am the only person I trust to get it right. Get out, Ronan."
For a long moment, he doesn't move.
Then he stands. Slowly. He unfolds up off the step until he's towering over me again the way he's supposed to. I have to tip my head back to keep my eyes on his, and I hate that, I hate that even now, he's bigger than me, but I hold his gaze anyway.
This is it, then.
This is goodbye.
This is the last time I'll ever—
"No," he says.
It's quiet. There's no heat in it. It is simply a no.
"'No'?" My voice climbs to an incredulous note that probably frightens the dogs down the street. "You don't get to say no. This is my house."
"I'll leave your house tonight," he says, so very reasonably, "and I won't come back inside without you asking me to.
I'll respect every boundary you set. If you never want to look at me again, I'll live with that, and I'll deserve it.
" Then he shakes his head. "But I will not leave you alone.
Not while Lev is out there. I will not do it. I will not take that chance."
"That's not your decision!"
"You're right. It's not. But I'm making it anyway."
The cold-hearted beast in me wants to scream that I don't need him, that I stuck a man like a Christmas ham with a chicken knife and held the top step and won, and if Ronan decides to pursue this course, I'll do the same thing to him without a second thought.
But I didn't win. Not truly. I just delayed the inevitable. If Ronan hadn't come when he did, I'd be the one zip-tied in a tarp instead. And Hayden and Isabella would be… well, it's best not to even think about what might've happened then.
I look down the stairs at the wet patch on the wall where the blood once was.
"You put us in this," I croak. "You did this to us."
"Yes."
"And now, you want me to let you protect us from the thing you caused."
"I don't want that," he corrects. "As a matter of fact, 'wanting' no longer factors into the equation.
I gave up wanting things where you're concerned the second you handed me that napkin.
All I'm telling you is what's real. There's a man out there who wants to hurt me, and he's figured out that the way to do it is through you.
That's true whether I'm standing on your street or not.
I can't undo it by leaving. I can only make you safer or less safe, and I'd rather cut off my own hand than do the latter.
" He steps back, toward the stairs, giving me room the way he always does.
The room to run, the room to choose. "So one way or another, I'll be here, Calista Meadows.
I'd say I'm sorry for that, but we both know I'm not. "
I stand there at the top of my own stairs, in a hallway that's been scrubbed of a dead man's blood, four feet from where I almost got taken out of my life in a wool blanket, and I think about the two doors behind me and the two small people breathing behind them, still asleep, still safe, still mine.
I don't answer him. Not yet. I won't give him the satisfaction.
But I don't tell him to leave yet, either.
I'm just not quite ready to quit Ronan Akov for good.