Chapter Sixteen
Zahra
My mind stayed fixated on my argument with Elio as Daiyu applied the finishing touches to her work.
I wanted him here, with me. Our disagreement had been unexpected, and I didn’t think he would just walk away, as if he couldn’t stand to be near me.
I understood why he was upset, and maybe I didn’t do enough to ease his worries.Maybe I didn’t see why he should be worried because this wasn’t something I’d done before.
Relationship. Commitment. Those were foreign words to me. Words I was only just starting to understand.
“Everything is prepared for the coming days,” Daiyu said in Mandarin. “Once you supply the coordinates, my people and I will take a getaway boat to the cruise ship.”
I nodded absentmindedly. “I already have plans to get my friends out so I can assist,” I responded in the language too.
She paused. “You don’t have to, Zahra. We don’t know the ranks of these people. They might recognize you and send word to Sicily. I would hate to get you in trouble with Manuel.”
My chest tightened at the mention of that name. “Don’t worry about Manuel, he’s taken care of,” I said. “And even if he wasn’t and word gets back, he wouldn’t care since he’s no longer in the business. He left after … that incident.”
Daiyu nodded in understanding. “Well, if that’s the case, it wouldn’t hurt to have the extra hand,” she said.
I nodded, wondering what Elio was doing now.
“Are you sure your friends can’t be involved? From what you’ve told me about Street, they seem like great guys.”
“They are,” I answered. “But the less they know about me, the easier it will be to protect them from … everything.”
“You don’t think they can handle it?”
I frowned. “They might have been through hard times but they’re innocent to this part of the world and the ugliness of it.
I don’t want to ruin that, I don’t want to taint them like that.
They deserve more.” I sighed. “We both know that being aware of this organization is literally the end of anyone’s normal.
They’d never be able to leave the box once they’re in.
I don’t want them to be caged. I know how it feels, and I’d rather they hate me than ever have to feel what I feel every day. ”
“You care about them.”
I nodded. “Yes. They showed me the meaning of family. The least I can do is make sure they leave unscathed.”
Daiyu went quiet, but I could already hear the question before she asked it. “You don’t plan to be with them long, do you?”
I dragged in a breath and let it out. “I have many plans, and one of them is making sure they don’t live the rest of their lives as … criminals. Whatever that might mean in the future, it’s a burden I’m willing to bear.”
Daiyu smiled, applying a cooling ointment to my new tattoo. “You never change, do you? Sacrificing your happiness for the sake of the people you care about,” she said in English.
“That’s the thing, Daiyu. I was never created to be happy. I was created to give happiness. At least now I get to choose how I do that.”
She chuckled lightly. “Well, I can’t argue with that.”
I smiled.
“Anyway, while I might be okay with you helping, I still don’t think you should risk yourself like that.”
“It’ll be fine.”
The pain from the tattoo was dull, and my mind was moving between here and where Elio currently was.
The thought of him distracted me from Daiyu’s concerns.
She was right to worry, but honestly, I couldn’t be bothered, not when I was too busy trying to understand how the fuck everything with Elio had gotten so serious so fast, how I’d almost reached the finish line of this whole thing after starting the race without a heart or an attachment to anyone or anything.
But the past few years had impacted my life in a way I never thought they would.
Street, Elio, our relationship—I was swimming with a boatload of denial, guilt, regret, and anger, heart-stopping, nerve-racking anger at the fact that I had to do any of this at all, that I had to fight in secret, a fight that was meant to be fought in broad daylight.
Hearing footsteps approaching, I turned my head toward the door. The room was occupied by Daiyu, me, and some guy who was getting his whole back inked. He had headphones in his ears. The door opened, and my eyes widened. All my previous thoughts took a back seat in my mind.
Elio walked in, his eyes finding me instantly while he closed the door behind him.
Some warm and fluffy feeling swirled around my chest at the sight of him. He came back. I didn’t know why, but all that mattered was that he did. Maybe that was his way of showing me he wasn’t mad to the point that he didn’t want to be near me.
But he was here. He was around my past, around a story I’d never told.
I brought him with me to create a picture, one that featured my present with my past. I wanted to see him in that lighting, to pretend even for a moment that he knew every single thing about me, and he accepted me, flaws and all.
I was careful not to move even though I had the urge to. “Hey.” I smiled, but he didn’t come over; he just settled onto the visitor’s couch next to a kid of about eleven, who I supposed belonged to the guy getting his back tattoo.
“Hm,” he responded.
“Why did you leave the car?” I swallowed. “Did something happen?”
He was looking around the room, displeasure in those sharp eyes. “No. It was too quiet,” he said before his gaze shifted to me, then Daiyu, then me. “When will you be finished?”
“Just a couple of minutes,” I answered, my gaze lingering on him cautiously, trying to see if he still carried the anger he had left with, but his eyes gave nothing away, and his vibe was completely neutral.
And me, I was utterly overwhelmed, but comfortable, and weirdly happy that he was sitting there waiting for me, so dedicated.
The kid beside him had stopped playing on his phone; his head was raised toward Elio, jaw dropped, eyes wide in awe, like he was looking at something extraordinary.
Elio noticed, too, because he looked away from me to the kid by his side. He raised a brow as if to ask why the kid was looking at him.
“You are so … huge. Are you a wrestler?” the little boy asked.
Elio’s frown grew very slowly, morphing into a glare.
I pressed my lips together, trying to suppress a laugh.
“Do you just make comments like that—”
“Elio!” I yelled, grabbing his attention and making him look at me. “He’s just a kid, Jesus.”
“A kid who needs to learn how to control his tongue.”
“I know how to control my tongue,” the kid fired back, sticking his tongue out to Elio, who inched back, looking seconds away from flicking the kid on the forehead.
“When will you be finished here?” Elio asked again, irritation lacing his voice.
“Just chill, okay?”
“I am chill. I would not be here if I were not chill.”
“Okay, got it; I won’t ask you to chill again.”
Now the irritation in his eyes was directed at me.
He whipped out his phone and looked at the screen, which marked the end of the conversation; his eyes didn’t leave the device until I was done and checking out the work in a mirror.
It was red, a little swollen, shiny but very neat, and simple, nothing extra. I covered it with my palm and gave a subtle nod to Daiyu before approaching Elio with a silly grin on my face. He was already on his feet, looking relieved.
“Now,” I started, “I want you to tilt your head to this angle.” I showed him, using myself as an example. “While you look at it.”
He blinked at me, unamused. “Okay. I have no idea why you would…”
I removed my hand, and he trailed off.
A frown dragged his brows down, but then he tilted his head to the angle I’d asked him to, his gaze taking in the tattoo, and the frown slowly—ever so slowly—eased out of his brows, his lips parting, eyes softening sadly before they rose slowly to mine, locking, staying and searching, making my grin falter.
He looked … sad, appalled, terrified.
“Why would you do this?” His voice was soft, almost breathless like it took everything in him to ask that one question.
I blinked. “Why wouldn’t I?”
“Those are—why would you tattoo my—my—my initials on yourself? On your body? Why would you do such a thing? You know this won’t—you know this is permanent, right?”
I watched him warily, my excitement dying.
“Yeah? I mean, I could just draw a skull over it if I get tired of it?” My gaze searched his as concern and confusion fucked with my head.
“What’s—what’s happening right now? Why are you freaking out over this?
It’s not like it’s a confession of my undying love or something; I have a reason for getting this one. ”
“What could compel—” He stopped, looked around us, and then back at me. “Can we go to the car? I don’t feel comfortable discussing this here.”
I nodded, and we left the room. I bid a quick farewell to all the familiar faces while rushing out with Elio right ahead of me; he opened the passenger door for me, meaning he was going to be the one to drive this time. I didn’t comment on it as I got in, and he rounded the car, getting in too.
The second he locked the door beside him, his eyes latched onto mine. “Why?”
I sighed. “Remember your gun? The one that’s always underneath my pillow?
It has your initials, and well, you were the one who shot me with your bullet, so I tattooed your initials to the spot that you shot me, but as you can see”—I shifted my sweater to the side—“at first glance, it just looks like a heart shape and a letter M, but with, like, a thunder kinda font? So no one except you and me would get the concept unless, well—they turn their head that way…”
He shook his head. “You know the concept. That’s my problem. You shouldn’t have done this—you should have picked something else.”
“Should I have tattooed a huge eggplant? Would you have loved that?” I snapped.
“No, it’s—”