24. Chapter 24
Rory
There’s something wrong.
I wasn”t sure exactly what it was, but something was definitely wrong. My eyes wouldn’t work. Everything was black. My throat hurt and my tongue felt like sandpaper. I tried to swallow but choked on the dry lump in my throat.
My lids twitched and twitched until finally I managed to crack one open but immediately slammed it shut because the light in the room was brighter than the sun. I yanked my hand up to shield my eyes, but something pulled painfully against my skin and I cried out.
“Rory? Baby? Are you awake?”
I stilled. That voice was so familiar. My consciousness swam through layers and layers of blackness until finally a face floated in my mind.
Cal.
My eyes popped open again but thankfully, the lights had been dimmed. Cal’s face was right above mine, his eyes pinched and full of worry. His facial hair had grown, his normally shadowy goatee creeping towards full grown beard.
My brows furrowed in confusion as I glanced around the room and down to the hand now cradled in Cal’s. “What happened?” I asked as I recognized hospital equipment stationed by my head.
“Do you remember the dinner with Mikhail?” Cal asked, his worry doubling.
“Yeah. And then after we were sharing a dessert and I had another glass of wine. Then I don’t remember anything.” My brow furrowed as I tried to remember what had happened.
Flashes of Cal’s worried face and a strange couch and a jacket that smelled like a man, but not my man, flashed through my mind, too fast and too distorted for me to linger on them.
Cal ran a hand over my forehead, brushing tangled, greasy hair behind my ear. “You were poisoned at dinner.” He kept his voice soft but I could hear anger burning hot behind the words.
Something simmered in my gut. I wasn’t sure what emotion it was. Anger, maybe? But there was sadness too, and regret, and fear, and confusion.
“Do you know who did it? Why somebody would want me dead?”
His eyes narrowed. “We know who it was, but we don’t know why. Yet.” He wrapped both his hands around my smaller one and pressed his lips to the back of my fingers. “But I promise you, solas, I will find out.”
I spent the next three days in the hospital. I slept a lot, but when I wasn’t sleeping, I wished I were. I was confused and scared. Although I trusted Cal to keep me safe, I saw now that if someone really wanted me dead, it would be easy for them to accomplish their goal.
My first instinct was to assume Elio or Fern was behind the attack. But then I thought back to the way Hajek had looked at me as he stormed out of our house. I thought of the way Mikahil’s men had been hesitant to accept me at their meeting, despite Mikhail’s own obvious acceptance.
And then I thought about how the men of this world were such excellent actors. They had to be. With alliances constantly changing, with someone always waiting for you to show your weakness and seize an opportunity to exploit it, the men of Cal’s world were all excellent at hiding their true emotions.
And with that thought came a dreadful doubt that I tried really hard to push out of my mind.
I had been fairly successful at ignoring that specific thought, until I received a text from Fern, not long after I was finally released to go home.
Cal had immediately taken me to the bedroom and insisted I lay in bed to rest. But, after a whole lot of begging and a few attempted bribes, he finally agreed to let me curl up in the huge, comfy chair by his fireplace. I hadn’t felt truly warm since I woke up in the hospital and my brand-new husband informed me that someone had tried to kill me, less than 36 hours into our marriage.
Ebony had brought me a tray of food, but it stayed untouched on the coffee table in front of me, my stomach turning at the thought of food or drink. I sat in that chair, huddled under a thick, woven blanket, right in front of the fire with a book that I was too distracted to read, when I received the text. Cal had gone off to handle this business but insisted that I keep my phone close by so that I could call him if I needed anything. I didn’t intend to bother him while he was…interrogating, I supposed was a good word for what he’d be doing.
The phone vibrated on the table next to me, and I looked away from the page I’d been staring blankly at for the past half-hour. I frowned and leaned over to pick it up, my frown deepening when I saw the message.
Fern: I just heard you were poisoned! Are you alright? I can’t imagine what you must be going through.
I pressed the lock button and closed the message without responding. I wasn’t under any delusion that she gave a shit about my well-being and guessed she was either fishing for information on who we suspected, or genuinely didn’t know who had done it.
My money was on the first option. She was probably fishing for information to be sure we didn’t suspect her.
I put the phone back on the table and laid the book next to it, giving up on the pretense of reading. I stared into the fire, pulling my legs up to my chest and wrapping the blanket tightly around my shoulders. My stomach rumbled as I watched the flames dance, and my eyes flickered to the food on the tray, but the thought of eating it made my stomach clench with anxiety and nausea.
Who had had access to that food?
My phone vibrated again, but I ignored it and tried to sort through my confusion over who would’ve wanted me dead.
I thought about my three main suspects and weighed the motives for each, creating a chart in my head to sort out the pros and cons.
Elio.
Motive - he hated me for reasons unknown. Maybe because he thought I had betrayed him by forming a relationship with Cal behind his back. But also, I was a woman who dared speak my mind, and for him, that was reason enough.
Fern.
Motive - jealousy that Cal had chosen me. Jealousy that I could dance, and was prettier than her, at least, in her mind.
Hajek.
Motive - I had emasculated him in front of other mob bosses. I had spoken back to him and kicked him out of our home.
I went back and forth about the three of them, deciding it must’ve been one and then second guessing myself and deciding maybe it was another. My head began to ache and my stomach growled again. I studiously ignored it.
My phone vibrated again and I sighed as I reached over to read the messages I’d been ignoring.
Fern: Do you think it was Cal? He seems the most likely, since you’ve only just married him. It wouldn’t be the first time a man tried to poison his wife only days after marrying her.
Fern: Seriously, are you alright? You better text me back. I’m getting worried.
I blinked as I read and re-read the messages. She didn’t actually care…
Did she?
And as hard as I tried to fight it, her words sent a seed of doubt through my mind. Before I could stop it, my brain had added a fourth column to my mental spreadsheet and the pain I felt in my chest was enough to make tears sting my eyes.
He’d been so perfect since he took me from that dinner with Fern and Elio. He’d never so much as raised his voice at me. He’d been kind and caring and he paid attention - close enough that on just my third day here, he already knew how I liked my coffee and that I preferred to sprinkle sugar in the grounds instead of adding it to my cup after brewing.
A memory of him sprinkling a white powder into my coffee grounds flashed through my mind and this new seed of doubt had me questioning if maybe…
…maybe it wasn’t sugar?
No. No, he wouldn’t hurt me, much less poison me. He wouldn’t.
He wouldn’t…right?
Sweat beaded on the back of my neck and my palms turned clammy. I turned the phone off, left it on the table by the chair and headed up the stairs to our bedroom. I went to the bathroom and filled the tub, watching the water pour from the faucet through tear-filled eyes.
I sank into the steaming hot water, hissing at the burn on my skin. I held my breath and sank under the water. I counted to thirty and let my air out slowly before I allowed myself to resurface.
I pulled my knees to my chest and sat in the too-hot water until I couldn’t hold my tears back any longer. No matter how much I told myself that Cal would never hurt me, I just couldn’t get rid of that small niggle of doubt.
Fuck you, Fern. Why couldn’t you just leave me alone? Why do you have to keep on torturing me?
My stomach growled and the noise made me suddenly angry. I gave the command for Cal’s virtual assistant to play music. I Hope That I Don’t Fall In Love With You by Tom Waits bled through the little round pod and I leaned my forehead on my knees.
I sat there until the water cooled, listening to song after song, and still I didn’t get out, ignoring my stomach that begged for food. I cried and watched my tears drip into the water until my eyes ran dry.
Suddenly, the door burst open. My head snapped up and a frantic scream ripped from my throat as a large man came barreling in. He quickly turned his back to me and closed the door. Over the music, I barely heard him yell, “I FOUND HER!”
A moment later, a panicked Cal called my name, just before he burst into the bathroom. When his wild eyes settled on mine, he took a deep breath and exhaled heavily, his eyes closing before finding my face again. He gave the virtual assistant the command to pause the music. He came to the side of the tub and kneeled beside me.
His gaze roamed my face and his expression changed from wild and frantic to concerned as he reached out to run his fingers over my bare shoulder. I flinched, despite my repeated reassurances that he wouldn’t hurt me. He pulled his hand back, hurt flashing in his eyes. I hadn’t flinched away from him since he brought me here.
We stayed locked in a strange sort of confused standoff, him wanting to reach for me and me huddled as small as I could get in the cool water, my arms wrapped around my knees.
“Mo solas, what is going on?” His brogue, which usually only came through in the heights of passion, was thick and heavy with worry. “Why have you been crying? Why didn’t you eat your dinner?”
When I didn’t answer, he reached out again and I forced my body still, refusing to flinch away from him again. He brushed his fingers up and down my back and goosebumps spread across my skin. “Baby,” he said softly, tilting his head to catch my eyes again. “What can I do to help? Please, talk to me. What happened?”
I swallowed and stared at him, my gaze bouncing between his beautiful, light green eyes. “I’m okay,” I whispered, my voice cracking from the strain of all the crying. “I just- I wasn’t hungry.” My stomach immediately growled and he frowned at me. But he didn’t call me on the lie. He just stood up and removed one of his huge, fluffy towels from the rack and held it out to me.
For a moment, I didn’t move. But then I stood slowly and he immediately wrapped the towel around my wet body. He didn’t dry me off, simply lifted me bridal style in his arms and carried me into the bedroom. He sat on the bed, one leg folded up and one resting on the floor, and sat me in the cradle of that one leg. His hands gripped my face.
“Mo solas, I don’t know how to help you right now and it’s driving me crazy. Please, please, tell me what I can do to help you.” His voice was pleading, his eyes begging me to tell him what was happening in my head. I lifted on shoulder barely an inch and let it drop, my bottom lip trembling with the threat of more tears. “Okay, baby. Can you at least tell me why you flinched from me? Or why you weren’t answering any of my phone calls?”
My stomach dropped at the thought of the phone I had shut off and left down in the study. Before I knew what I was doing, I was speaking. “I got a text from Fern and she-” I stopped myself, fear knotting in my stomach.
What if he gets mad that I doubted him?
What if it really was him and he does something to me, since I know the truth?
Anger lit in his eyes and I whimpered, trying to shrink myself enough to disappear into the fluffy towel, pulling it up over my mouth and nose. But his next words soothed some of my fear.
“What did that vile soith say to you? I swear to God, I will kill her with my bare hands if she did this to you.” The vehemence in his voice had me coming out of my hiding place behind the towel.
“She asked me if I was okay.” He frowned, this obviously taking him by surprise. “She-she told me she couldn’t believe this had happened and asked if…” When I trailed off and a shiver raced over my body, he ran his hands up and down my arms through the towel, trying to rid my skin of the goosebumps it raised. “She said you seemed the most likely suspect,” I whispered, my voice barely audible.
Cal froze. His entire body went eerily still, even the breaths in his lungs halting. A muscle fluttered in his jaw and his eyes bored into mine. I thought he was angry, unable to identify the emotion in his eyes, but when he spoke, that thought died.
“And you believe I could do this to you? You believe I would poison,” he spit the word like it was a curse, “my solas, the day after we were wed?” His voice, although strong, was coated in doubt and pain.
I looked into his eyes, assessing his features for any sign of deceit. Hearing the pain in his voice, it became obvious that the emotion in his eyes wasn’t anger.
It was anguish.
When I didn’t see anything that made me think he might’ve been putting on a show, that feeling in my chest, the one that had clenched tight the second I had the thought that Cal might’ve been the one to poison me, released. The tension bled from my body so quickly I almost felt lightheaded. I licked my lower lip and shook my head slightly. “No,” I said softly.