Chapter 23 #2
As soon as I leave her, I already miss her. It’s a strange feeling, to miss a woman, yet here I am missing her anyway.
I head toward the large parking lot on Patrick’s estate, a short distance from her house. But when I approach my car, I register footsteps behind me. Hope erupts in the marrow of my bones, wanting it to be her.
My pulse quickens.
But when I turn around, I find Tynan there instead.
Under the streetlamp, his stare is hard and unrelenting.
“What are you doing here?” I ask, my tone matching his hardened expression.
“I should be asking you that.” His eyes burn with ill-consumed indignation. “What the hell were you still doing at my sister’s?”
I really don’t like how the son of a bitch is looking at me, and I’m seriously close to shoving my nine into his face.
“I was at the party,” I reply cooly, pivoting to open my car door to get the fuck out of here.
“Party’s been over for hours, and everyone thought you left.”
“Seems like I didn’t.” I grate my jaw, keeping my back to him.
“What the hell are you doing with Iseult? Is this a fucking game to you? I saw you at the party. Everyone did.”
I turn around sharply and walk into his space. “Does it look like I’m playing games? Do you think Michael asked when he arranged a marriage between Eriu and me?” My face tightens with a glare. “It’s not my or Iseult’s fault we met first. She’s the only fucking Quinn I actually like.”
“Does my father know that?” His voice grows with irritation, and I no longer care who knows I have feelings for her.
“No. If it were up to me, he would, but she doesn’t want to tell him. And I have to somehow convince her to.”
“If you care about her, you’ll let whatever this is go and forget her. Because if my father finds out, you’re as good as dead.”
“I can’t do that.” A cold smile slips over my face. “She’s impossible to forget.”
“Even if my father allowed it…” he goes on. “She doesn’t want to get married. So you’d be wasting everyone’s time.”
I inhale a strained breath. I don’t need him telling me what Iseult wants.
“Before I met her, I didn’t want to get married either. Things change.”
“She doesn’t.” He eyes me with an edge. “She does better alone.”
“No one wants to be alone, even when they tell you they do.”
His jaw tics. “I’ve known my sister far longer than you have, and her stance on marriage will not change.” He runs a hand down his face like he’s recalling something. “She’s a little bit broken.”
With the remote I retrieve from my pocket, I click the door to my car open.
“Well, it’s a good thing I find broken things beautiful.”
Then I get in, turn the Bugatti to drive, and get the hell out of there, hoping Tynan doesn’t fuck things up and tell his father what’s been going on.
ISEULT
As soon as he walked away, I wanted to run after him and tell him to stay. Would he have? Would he still want me if he saw all the things I try desperately to hide?
There’s no way he would. No one would want someone like me.
I stare down at the small square box, the black and gold wrapping paper neatly tucked around the edges. It’s a little heavy, and I start to wonder what he could’ve gotten me. Not that I need anything, but it’s nice that he thought of me.
Ripping the paper off, I toss it into the garbage in the corner of my room and gently open the black box.
And when I see what’s inside, I start to laugh.
Of course he got me a gun, because he knows just what I would’ve wanted.
This one, though? It looks custom made. It’s got a bright red grip with a shiny black barrel. I can’t wait to test it out. Maybe on him.
A smile freezes over my face as I pick it up, and it feels nice to smile this way. To be happy. As I aim the muzzle at my wall, my thumb rests on the trigger before I place it on the nightstand.
Taking out my cell from my pocket, I dial his number. It rings once, and I hope he doesn’t answer it so I can leave a voicemail. Hearing his voice makes my heart beat faster, and I don’t think he realizes just how much it does.
But two more rings, and his voice comes through the line.
“You must’ve opened your present,” he rasps, and the sound wakes up every inch of my body, like I’ve been dead for years until he came along.
“I did…and I think this is my favorite gift.”
“Ever or just this year?” he teases.
“Ever…” I run a fingertip over the black metal, admiring the craftsmanship. “Other than this one gift I got when I was younger.”
As soon as the words leave me, I instantly regret it. I didn’t mean to say that out loud. Didn’t mean to remember.
Emotions clog the back of my nose.
“And who was it from?” he wonders while I slowly settle on the bed, quiet for a moment, afraid to speak about her.
Talking about her out loud makes her loss hurt more than it already does.
It’s then I see her, her full smile, the twinkle in her warm eyes as she walked out of my room for the last time.
My pulse beats unevenly.
My chest stiffens.
My lungs burn with every inhale.
I fight the tremor rolling through my muscles, that grip of panic clutching my throat. My head spins, but I fight it, jumping to my feet.
But as soon as I do, my left arm tingles and the left side of my chest grows heavy, like someone is weighing it down with cement.
“I can’t breathe,” I whisper, gasping for every ounce of air. “I can’t breathe.”
If I didn’t know better, I’d think I were dying of a heart attack, but this isn’t the first time.
My breaths come in gasps and I drop to the floor, the phone landing beside my thigh, while my hands claw my chest. My heartbeats fire out of me so quickly, I’m afraid that I’m really going to die this time.
“Red?” he calls with alarm. “What’s the matter, baby?”
I can barely hear him, the sound falling into an echo.
“Iseult, answer me,” he demands.
But I can’t get out of this, not once it’s embedded so deep into my subconscious.
My hands tremble. Or I think they do. Or maybe I’m dizzy.
Oh, fuck. I can’t let this happen again.
I have to stop thinking about her. About what he did to her. What he did to all of us.
But I can’t. The more I tell myself to stop, the more I see it play out in my head. The flesh at my back throbs, like the pain is all too real. Like it’s happening all over again.
It’s okay. I’m okay. This is not real.
If only I’d begged her not to go, maybe she’d still be here.
“Hold on, Red,” Gio calls. “I’m coming back.”
The roaring of the engine sounds off in the distance while I recall the gift my mother gave me a few months before she was killed.
It was a simple silver heart-shaped locket, and inside there was an engraved photo of our entire family.
I still wear it every single day as a reminder of what was taken from me.