Chapter 44
LEGION
“ I ’ll make us some coffee,” Vanna says, flicking on the lights as we step inside her home.
She moves quickly into the kitchen, heels clunking on the hardwood floor.
I shut the door behind me, watching her busy herself with the task.
“Afterward, you can bring me back to my car. I should be sober enough to drive by then.”
That will monopolize too much of the time we have…
“I can’t relax after what happened.” She sighs, frustratedly pulling open a cabinet to retrieve two mugs.
“Then perhaps coffee isn’t what you need right now.”
She turns to face me as I lift the cell to my ear. “Legion, you don’t have to?—”
I silence her with a flippant gesture and proceed to make the arrangements. They invoice me the bill with assurances that her vehicle will be in transit within the next two hours.
I shove the cell in my pocket. “There, now. How hard was that?”
“How much is this going to be?”
“Five hundred.” I don’t tell her I’ve already paid it …just in case.
“That’s ridiculously expensive for something we could have taken care of ourselves.” She makes her way over to her purse sitting on the edge of the marble island and rummages inside it. “I don’t even think I have half that much on me.”
“I never asked to be reimbursed.”
She tilts her head to the side, saying nothing, but looks at me wryly.
“I’ll settle for a thank you and a drink.” I smile.
“Coffee?” She forces a smile back and abandons her purse for the coffee pot again. “I think we’ve both had enough alcohol, and you still have to ride tonight.”
“If you insist.” I’ll take what I can get. I slide onto one of the island barstools while she rinses out the pot.
A familiar feline hops up onto the island and saunters up to me.
“Hello, old friend.” I stroke the sleek, black fur of his back while he greets me with a robust purr.
Vanna smiles as if her furry companion’s acceptance of me puts her a little more at ease. “Nico remembers you.”
“Indeed…”
She scoops him up and relocates him to a chair in the living room. “Sorry about that. Cat hair doesn’t pair well with coffee.” She chuckles and returns to the kitchen. “I’d feel better about this whole thing if you let me pay you back.”
“It’s nothing, sweet one. Let it go.”
“You must still have quite a bit of that reward money left,” she says, tapping some grinds into the filter.
“In addition to everything I’ve liquidated, yes. I’m quite loaded .”
She peeks over her shoulder at me curiously before cracking the tops off of two bottled waters and pouring them into the coffeemaker. After slapping the lid shut, she presses the brew button and turns to face me. “I should call Dean.”
I keep my expression neutral while she pats down her pockets in search of her cellphone, to no avail of course, then moves to her purse once again. “Damn it! Don’t tell me I dropped it on the sidewalk or something! I had it when I was talking to Latisha outside.”
“It’s not in your purse?” I feign concern. “I could have sworn I saw you tuck it inside after your call.”
“Maybe I accidentally left it on the seat or something. I knew we shouldn’t have gotten rid of the landline. We never used it, but it would come in handy now.”
“Well, your vehicle will be here shortly, and you’re welcome to use mine,” I bluff with a grin. “I’m sure if he calls, he’ll simply assume you didn’t hear it over the ruckus in the bar.”
She hesitates, considering my offer and weighing the consequences, then glances at the digital clock on the stove. It’s only a quarter past eleven. There are still several hours before the bar closes. “If they don’t get it here soon, I’ll have to take you up on it.”
Once the coffee is made, she joins me on the front porch while I smoke and wait for my next opportunity. When my cellphone chimes, she glances over at me.
“Is it Dean?” she asks.
I retrieve the phone from my pocket and glance at the notification with a smile. “Not exactly, though I am pleased to inform you he won the fight.”
She lets out a heavy sigh of relief and finally relaxes into the Adirondack beside me. “I’m glad that’s over.”
“I told you there was nothing to worry about.” I lean forward to flick my ash through the spindles of the porch railing.
“How much did you make?” She smiles at me with playful ease, now unburdened by the worry over Keegan’s wellbeing.
“Well, your husband was the favored bet, so I had to put down a substantial amount in order to turn a decent profit.” I pull another drag while she continues to study me curiously. “One hundred and fifty thousand was just deposited into my account.”
Her eyes widen in shock. “ You just won one hundred and fifty grand?”
“Well, no. I won fifty grand. One hundred thousand was the stake. I get that back.”
I don’t bring up the amusing fact that he won me that money thinking he was chasing justice. He won me that money while I’m here with his wife, about to show him the true meaning of degradation… The formal term used in chivalric orders when a knight is stripped of his rank or title…
“It’s nice being able to talk to you without all of the cryptic head games.” She scrunches her nose at me playfully.
“Ah? Like friends do?”
“Yes.”
“Is that what we are to each other? Friends , Vanna?”
“I don’t know… I suppose?”
“Between men and women, there is no friendship possible. There is passion, enmity, worship, love, but no friendship. Do you know who said that?”
“ Sounds like a man… But I think friendship can be pure and simple.”
I chuckle. “You’re right. It was Oscar Wilde. Alas, you wish for me to speak plainly to you? Like friends?”
“Yes.”
“Then let me plainly state… loving you is the only pure thing I’ve ever done in my entire life… You’re both a blessing and a curse. An addiction I’ll never purge from my system.”
She winces and averts her gaze, seemingly afraid to even look at me now. “You can’t say things like that.” Her words are nearly a whisper, despite the ever-present tension radiating between us.
“Why not? Does it make you feel things for me you think you shouldn’t?” I ask. She only fidgets with the flannel tied around her waist. “Do you not find it curious?” I press.
“What?”
“This… comfortability between us, this odd, familiar feeling we’ve shared since our first meeting… You’ve never truly feared me. Why not, Vanna?
“I don’t know…”
“I think you might.”
The silence between us screams she does, though I know she’ll never admit it out loud.
And where I do respect and admire her steadfast loyalty to him…
knowing there is something there for me within her beautiful heart…
that it will remain locked away and denied forever…
churns an aching, longing pain within my chest.
“ I envy him .” The words topple from my lips of their own volition. “I envy him to the marrow of my bones. I envy even the simplest of moments he has with you. That he can hold you in his arms and tell you exactly what you mean to him… And it had better be the whole damn world, Vanna.”
“Damien… I don’t think we should be talking like this.”
“Intention empowers words. Without intention, they’re nothing.
I could spew played-out lines like I’d burn the world for you!
Is that what you want to hear? Well, I have!
I ended my brother’s life for you. The only person who may have ever truly loved me…
Vanna, I have burned the world for you… My whole world …
And I did so without letting the lick of a single flame ever get near you…
I’ve written you love letters in the blood of your enemies. ”
“Legion…”
My defeated sigh seems to concern her. As if fighting her better judgment, she reaches over to touch my hand.
I relinquish my death grip upon the arm of the Adirondack, bending my wrist to lift my fingers and allow hers to gently slip between them.
There is love in her touch. An undeniable apricity that has managed to seep into my frigid soul.
“Damien.” She sighs my name in that godforsaken way that makes me want to cut out my heart and throw it into the deepest pits of flaming Hell.
I stare at our entwined fingers. “It’s agony…being forced to love you from a distance… That a friend is all I’ll ever be to you. I’m lost… I’m fucking drowning , Vanna. I ache in places I never knew existed, within depths of a soul I didn’t know I had.”
“You don’t love me… You can’t,” she says the words almost fearfully, pleadingly .
“Because you believe I’m some loathsome monster? Incapable ? —”
“ No . Because you don’t actually know me.
You’re infatuated with some idea of me you’ve dreamed up over the last few years you were away.
You don’t know me. Whatever you think you feel, it isn’t love.
Maybe it’s remorse, maybe it’s obligation because of everything you regret.
I don’t know. But it isn’t love… It can’t be . ”
“When I’m with you… something inside of me… hurts less … Do you care about me, Vanna?”
“Yes.”
My heart flutters with exhilaration, yet it is short-lived, for I know what is soon to follow her admission…
She slips her hand from mine and sits back in her chair. “But…my heart?—”
“ Belongs to him … I am painfully aware.” I pull a long drag from my cigarette and let the smoky breath out slowly.
It’s now or never… “You know, it wasn’t O’Keefe who led me to North Carolina.
” She peers at me over the rim of her coffee mug, brows furrowing inquisitively.
“It wasn’t until I was standing in your former foyer that the revelation struck me. ”
She sets the mug upon her knee, confusion further knitting her brows. I gesture to the old Victorian farmhouse down the street, barely visible in the darkness. “You summoned me.”
Curiosity drains from her expression along with her blood as she seems to pale before my very eyes. “What?”
“I’m the knight. Your knight.”
She tenses and quickly places the mug on the little table between us. “Legion…”