Chapter 8 #2
“I can help,” the brunette insists, her smile stretching even wider. “I’ll…”
“No,” Nan bites out without offering further explanation.
Marianne’s smile slips into a scowl before it is once again replaced by what can only be described as a Malibu Barbie smile. Fake and plastic.
“Wel, if you ever want to know anything about her, just come find me. I have all kinds of juicy stories I can tell you.”
I paste on a smile and nod my head in fake enthusiasm.
I don’t trust her. There is a dark gleam in her eye that causes my body to stiffen and my heart to race as she gives me another once-over before striding from the room, her head held high as if she is some noble lady from court.
I’ve seen that look before, and it is never good.
“Watch yourself around her,” Nan murmurs in warning as she takes the tray of finished food from my lap.
“You don’t trust her?” I tilt my head a bit, watching her reaction. Nan snorts.
“She may have been your mother’s best friend, but that woman has always had an agenda.” She rolls back the comforter and holds her hand out to me. “You recognized her, an leanbh, and didn’t say a word. Tells me you don’t trust her either.”
I shrug a shoulder without answering. She may be my grandmother, but that doesn’t mean she automatically has my trust, either. I’ve been burned before, and I won’t let that happen again. My gut tells me I can lean on her, but my brain hasn’t caught up with that. It’s still weary, even of family.
“We can talk more about that while you get in the shower.”
Carefully, I slide off the bed with her help, the bite of pain a grim reminder of my mortality. I willingly threw myself in front of a bullet for Seamus, a brother I didn’t even know, who came to rescue me without knowing me either.
That means something.
I lost the one I called sister. There was no stopping her death, and I have no idea where the hell Kenzi is or if she is okay. There is no way in hell I wasn’t going to take that bullet. That meant losing another member of my family, one whose eyes lit up when he saw me.
Like I was something special.
Something previous.
Even Matthias never looked at me that way before. His gaze was full of lust and desire, yes. But he never stared at me like he couldn’t live without me.
Because he could.
My jaw trembles as Nan helps me out of my borrowed button-down shirt.
The woman in the mirror is nearly unrecognizable.
Her long red hair is dull, covered in dust, a matt of knots on top of her head.
Dark bruises cover her from head to toe, varying from deep purple to jaundice yellow.
She is thinner; her curves lessened ribs showing, face gaunt.
The brightness in her emerald eyes are gone, replaced by a wary darkness that has crept in.
All of this damage caused in only a few weeks.
A white bandage with blood just barely seeping through covers the right side of her abdomen just below her breast.
This can’t be me.
“It’s all right, an leabh,” Nan’s voice is low and soothing in my ear. “It’s merely a graze and the rest will heal in time. There’s no need to cry.”
Cry?
Who is crying? Me?
I bring my hand up to my cheek, and no mistake, the wetness of my tears soaks the fingers I trace along their path. I am crying, but it all feels so numb.
“My mother once said, ‘Briseann muid ionas gur féidir linn a chur ar ais le chéile níos láidre fós.’” Nan recites, her Irish accent thickening as she speaks. “It means we break so we can be put back together even stronger.”
I swallow back the lump in my throat.
“I killed him,” I whisper, my eyes lowering to the marble tile of the counter. “I’m a murderer.”
“Are you talking about the man who was trying to rape you?” Nan asks. Obviously, someone has filled her in on what happened at the stables. All I can do is nod, a fresh wave of tears falling. Nan’s slender finger dips beneath my chin, forcing me to look at her.
“There is a difference between murder and survival, my child. The guilt you are bearing is not needed for a man like that and will only weigh you down until it consumes you, and you drown in it.”
Dropping her finger, she moves away from the counter, and a moment later, I hear the squeak of metal and the sound of running water. The room begins to fill with steam, the heavy presence of heat at my back stilting my anxiety just enough for me to breathe.
“Death in our world is nothing new, and you will need to learn to accept that,” Nan continues as she leads me to the glass-enclosed shower.
The walls are covered in a mystic green hexagonal tile with the glass flanking it on one side.
A large, golden rain showerhead with vertical jets take up one side.
A perfect complement to the exotic-colored tile below it.
“It sounds harsh.” Nan closes the shower door behind me,” but it is necessary to survive.”
“What if I don’t want to accept it?” I ask her curiously, gently running a bar of soap along my battered body.
“Then the guilt will consume you and drive you mad,” is her simple statement.
I turn her words over in my head, the wheel spinning and spinning as I robotically go through my shower routine with some help from Nan.
She is right. It was about survival. It was him or me, but isn’t that everything in this world?
I think back to the shootout just a few weeks before the wedding.
I felt such guilt for those men that it affected my sleep.
One nightmare after another, their faces flashing before my mind’s eye like a broken record.
I doubt they would have felt the same.
I know they wouldn’t have.
My whole life, I’ve allowed myself to be the victim.
I allowed myself to be used and hurt and broken because I don’t want to be like them.
I don’t want to murder or maim or torture.
Fighting back means I have to hurt someone, and if I hurt someone, I’m no better than they are. Animals. Killers without a conscience.
They aren’t all that way.
Matthias.
I’ve never seen him torture someone for the fun of it.
Never seen him kill on a whim. He could have killed Mark after he got the information he needed from him, but he didn’t.
Then there are Matthias’s men. Elias would have killed every single one of them without a second thought for talking to him the way Matthias’s men do.
They aren’t disrespectful. They’re comfortable, and Elias never allowed his men to be comfortable with him.
He hadn’t wanted comradery and respect built from love and loyalty. Elias wanted respect built on fear, but men who fear. You never truly respect you. They ‘d never be blindly loyal.
Dante’s words at the funeral stir something inside of me.
They aren’t your men, Christian.
The tension between the pair had been palpable. Christian doesn’t respect his uncle or his men, and that is an opening I can work with. Dante wants the name of Libby’s killer, and I’ll give him just what he wants.
I just need solid evidence to present to him.
Without Dante’s men Christian will have nothing. Elias’s men fled after the port was seized and his assets frozen.
A dark smile tips up my lips as a plan forms in my head.
I am done allowing myself to be the victim. Done playing the damsel in distress. Nothing is going to stop me from brining Christian’s empire to the ground, and God help anyone who gets in my way.