39. Addie
ADDIE
MATTEO DE GRANDIS – HEARTDUST
The world ended with a bang, after all—not a whimper.
Or maybe I did.
Every cell within me burned like wildfire, catching and spreading until it felt like my very soul was aflame. I tried to scream but no sound came out. Until eventually… eventually my eyes cracked open and tiny moans snuck through closed lips.
Maybe it ended with a whimper, after all.
Or maybe—just maybe—it was the beginning.
“You scared us for a second there, Deadly,” Dek said, his eyes suspiciously red-rimmed.
“Speak for yourself,” Beck grunted, rising smoothly to his feet and pulling a phone out of his back pocket. He started barking orders at someone on the receiving end and Dek exchanged a loaded look with Van as he helped me into a seated position.
I shivered, sucking air in through my teeth, mentally cataloguing all my injuries. Glancing down, I blushed profusely, realising exactly how vulnerable my mark had left me.
Van, of course, noticed my discomfort and shrugged out of his jacket. He draped it over me, murmuring, “It’s okay, pretty girl,” with the saddest of smiles. “I shook after my first kill, too.”
Only once he pointed it out did I realise I was indeed shaking like a leaf in a blizzard. The antidote inferno had abated, leaving me with nothing but ice-cold shock. Shock that only compounded once I let myself glance around the bloodstained room. The crimson spatters. The red-soled shoe.
Unable to contain it, I leaned over—mercifully avoiding Deklan’s lap—and retched all over the tiles.
Someone rubbed my back in smooth, slow circles but I waved them off, mortified.
“I’m o-o-k-kay,” I grumbled, teeth chattering as a fresh wave of ice washed over me. “I j-just need t-t-to clean this off.” I gestured down the length of my crimson-painted body.
“You’re not,” Van murmured.
“But you will be,” Dek added with a reassuring nod.
Both men helped me to my feet, supporting my off-kilter steps to the bathroom. Somehow one heel was still on my foot, the other somewhere I didn’t care to retrieve it from.
“First one’s always the hardest,” Dek said.
“I f-fucked up-p-p.”
Dek pulled up short, dragging Van and me to a halt with him, looking… angry?
“You didn’t fuck anything up, Deadly. The Academy did by sending you in so soon.”
“Dek,” Van warned.
Van’s warning made me realise there was a chance Blackwing was already listening. And I didn’t want my handlers to pay for my mistakes.
Beck glared at us from across the room, managing my mess but not letting me out of sight. I couldn’t tell whether it was because he was mad… or scared. I wasn’t sure I was ready to find out, either.
“Adelaide.” Dek’s fingers brushed my cheek, his warm hazel eyes capturing my attention.
“We came so close to losing you tonight.” They were so piercing in their sincerity that I couldn’t hold contact for long.
“And I would clean up a thousand more of these messes if it means you come home at the end of it.”
Home. I almost laughed. Blackwing would never feel like home to me. But as I stared between the faces of all three of my handlers, I wondered if I could find it somewhere else.
“But we really need to come up with a better codeword than duck.” Van grimaced.
And even though it was the last thing I intended—even though it hurt like a bitch—I giggled.
Dek and Van shared a grin, and Beck… Beck’s face softened at the sound. My heart did a little flip inside my bruising chest.
Not ready to open that can of worms yet, I stumbled over to the bathroom like a drunken giraffe. The boys deposited me into the shower after turning it on and checking the temperature, then stepped out to give me the illusion of privacy even though they’d all seen Marie’s handiwork more than once.
Lewis’ fancy penthouse shower ran over my bleeding, beaten, broken body for several minutes, washing away his blood and my sins until the water ran clear.
Before I got out, it occurred to me that I should probably wash away any lingering poison.
I grabbed a small washcloth off the bench and scrubbed at my face until it hurt, too.
And then I scrubbed it some more for good measure.
I didn’t bother to check my reflection in the fogged-up mirror—had no desire to see the evidence of my mistakes in a cacophony of purple and blue—then, with no other option, pulled the gown back on. At the last second, I also threw Van’s jacket over my shoulders.
I left the solitary heel behind, figuring whoever was coming to clean up the apartment would collect that as well. I did grab the clutch, though.
When I exited the bathroom, it was to a trio of silent, stoic soldiers guarding the door.
Dek threw a careful arm around my shoulders. “Let’s get you home,” he said softly, pressing a kiss to my temple.
“Wait.” I shrugged out of his hold, frowning in the direction of the mess. “That asshole owes me.”
My bare feet padded silently across the warm tiles—typical hotel penthouse having heated tiles. I rounded the couch, faltering at the sight of four very bloody, very dead men.
Hiking up my skirts, I drifted over to where Henry Lewis lay on the floor where I’d left him—my heel still lodged in his eye socket where I’d left it. I wondered if I’d ever be able to look at stilettos the same way as I reached into his jacket, locating the pocket I knew his wallet lived in.
The lying, conniving bastard didn’t even have the ten thousand he’d promised me, but he did have roughly half that sum.
I plucked it out and tucked it into my clutch, grateful I’d grabbed it.
Dropping his wallet onto his rapidly cooling body, I looked up, surprised to see three amused faces staring back.
“Fucker couldn’t afford me anyway,” I spat, shrugging.
“Check the others,” Van suggested, smirking. “They might make up for it.”
I grinned savagely. “Grand idea, professor.”
After fleecing the other three, I ended the evening with about eight thousand in cash—unbeknownst to the Academy, of course.
“I’m ready now,” I said, stalking past them to the elevator at the end of the hall. I just had to make it out of this building and then I could fall apart.
The doors dinged open, signalling that I was almost there. Almost done.
All four of us filed into the elevator and Beck jabbed the button for the ground floor. My fingers tapped relentlessly against my thighs, though I couldn’t even say for sure what song they might have been playing out.
Deklan noticed the pattering of my skirts first, sliding his hand beneath mine and interlocking our fingers with a gentle smile.
No, not yet, I sobbed internally, feeling the tears welling up already.
Van did the same on my left, cracking the floodgates open.
And if Beck hadn’t scooped me up, I’d have collapsed into a messy little Addie puddle, right there in elevator three. He tucked my head beneath his chin, murmuring quiet words of reassurance until the doors slid open again.
The other held them open while Beck strode out, down the hall, and passed several rooms on his way to the exit.
My gaze snagged on one room in particular and I all but scrambled out of his grip.
“Addie? What is it?” he asked, hand on pistol, alert and ready.
I backtracked several steps to the double doors on the left, shoving through into the dark, open space. And it was there that I finally fell apart.
Because the light from the hallway illuminated one thing—the thing I’d missed most while stuck inside an assassin academy.
A grand piano.
I whirled on Beck, knowing it was his permission I needed. “Please,” I begged, grabbing his arm.
His usually hardy exterior cracked, utter sadness spilling out. His warm hand cupped the side of my tear-covered cheek.
“Adelaide, you never have to beg me for anything. If I have the power to give it to you, it’s yours—and if I don’t, then I’ll find a way. Go play for as long as you need. Blackwing can wait.”
He leaned in to kiss my forehead, but I shifted at the last second so that our lips met instead.
Beck’s surprise lasted all of a second before he was kissing me back with all of the longing I’d felt for him for weeks—if not months.
I crashed into him with the crescendo of an orchestra reaching its peak, and he met me at every note along the way. His hands circled my waist, dragging me up to his height, and my legs did the best they could at wrapping around his hips beneath twenty layers of fabric.
But Beckett, knowing what I needed better than even I did, simply deposited me onto the bench seat in front of the piano with one final, telling kiss and a look that promised we’d continue this later.
“Play us a song, Ice.”
And I swore my heart swelled at his request.
Van and Dek perched on covered dining chairs next to him, silent but not unhappy.
I didn’t know how I’d managed it, but none of them seemed mad about my growing affections for all of them.
A discussion we’d have to have later.
If there was a later to be had.
Pushing that thought to the back of my head, I flipped the fallboard up, exposing such pristine ebonies and ivories that I almost lost it again at the mere sight of them. My fingertips drifted across their shiny tops, and then I couldn’t resist any longer.
I played.
I played for Fleur, for my parents, for the life I mourned.
I played for Beckett, for Deklan, for Van, and for the future I thought we might carve out.
I played and I played and I played, until I couldn’t play any longer.
Exhaustion and emotion crept up in tandem and tapped me on the shoulder, letting me know that it was time to go home. I closed the lid again, spun on the seat, and clambered into Beckett’s lap.
His usually inscrutable face was overcome—it was obvious he’d been crying—that they all had.
Dek sniffed and stood, but not before pressing a gentle kiss to my lips. “Thank you for that, Deadly. I think I needed it as much as you did.”
Van followed suit, but opted to kiss my forehead instead. “Let’s go home, Pretty.”
Rising last and taking his time about it—like he knew such moments were limited—Beck carried me out past the hotel’s unsuspecting guests, past its oblivious staff, and past London’s sleepless residents.
He didn’t let go either. Not the whole way back to Blackwing.
Not until we were inside their shared apartment and beside his perfectly-made bed.
He placed me down gently, drew a clean shirt from his chest of drawers, and handed it to me.
“I know you have your own clothes now, but I really liked seeing you in mine,” he rasped, exposing another sliver of the man beneath the mask.
Dek scoffed from where he leaned against the doorjamb.
Van rolled his eyes from just inside the room.
And I just turned to face the window. “I’m gonna need a hand with this zipper, please.”
It didn’t take a genius to realise that more than one set of hands ran over my bare skin, dragging the zip down to the bottom of my spine. I stepped out of it, entirely naked and more vulnerable than I’d been in a room full of vipers.
Beck wordlessly handed me his shirt and I tugged it on.
I looked between them and sighed, sitting on the edge of the bed with my heart hammering so loudly I swore they could all hear it. Fidgeting with my fingers in my lap, I spat out the words I’d been chewing on since Lewis’ bathroom. “We need to talk.”
The three of them exchanged looks, seeming to pass unspoken messages between them in that uncanny way of theirs. Then Beck nodded once, and turned to face me head-on. “No. We don’t.”
“But—”
“Adelaide.” The tone of his voice silenced me. He was serious, if not a little defeated. “If tonight has taught us anything, it’s that the three of us would stop at nothing to protect you—even from yourself if it came down to that.”
Dek and Van nodded behind him.
“None of us could live with something happening to you,” Van said. “Or something happening to each other because of you.”
Dek frowned at him. “That came out wrong”—Van blushed—“what he means is that we couldn’t veritably ask each other to give up something we wouldn’t be willing to give up ourselves.”
Beck placed his hand on my leg, just above my knee. “And we have recently discovered that the only thing none of us are willing to give up… is you.”