Chapter 13
Thirteen
Elodie
Salvatore picks me up in the same blue sports car as before, around the corner and a few blocks down from my house as we agreed. His smile when I hop in might not be outright smug, but it’s definitely self-satisfied.
“Are you going to tell me what this is about now?” I demand, unable to stop myself from prodding his impressively muscular arm. He stayed cagey on the phone, not wanting to talk beyond agreeing on a meeting place.
He merely laughs and strokes his hand down my cheek as the car rolls to a halt at a stop sign. “Better if we talk somewhere no one could see us, right? I don’t want anyone calling the cops on me for loitering in this fancy-ass neighborhood.”
I grimace at him, but I can’t argue when I’m the one who made such a big deal about being careful. This isn’t a great locale for remaining anonymous.
And I’m glad to spend the time with him. That’s normal, isn’t it? Maybe… maybe not even a reason to feel guilty.
“This is where you fit,” Aunt Daphne said, and I feel it, simply sitting next to him. This Salvatore doesn’t feel any less like my true match than the one I left behind.
Why does my fate have to be so complicated?
At least it’s a fairly short drive to the downtown condo building where Salvatore cooked me dinner a couple of days ago. I walk in to see he’s added a new touch: a bouquet of red roses giving off a sweet perfume from their vase on the dining table.
Salvatore grins when he sees me noticing them. “You can’t take ’em home without saying who gave them to you, but you can at least enjoy them while you’re here.”
I dip my face to the blooms to inhale their rich scent even more deeply. “Thank you.” I lift my head. “Now what did you find out?”
“Right down to business! That’s my girl.” He motions me to sink onto the sofa with him while pulling out his phone. A disposable coffee cup with a dent in the rim sits on the low coffee table.
Salvatore props his feet on the table next to the cup. “I went on a private field trip yesterday. Took that look inside the Hearsts’ house that you couldn’t get.”
I jolt off the cushions. “What? How did you—what did you say to them?”
He shrugs, still grinning. “Didn’t need to say anything. I waited until the housekeeper went out and no one else was home. It’s not hard to smash through a security system if you know what you’re doing. You just have to make sure you get back out before anyone comes to see who did it.”
A chill washes from my throat to my gut. “You broke into the house?”
“Yeah. Found Kenneth’s room, looked around—like you found that pen at your friend’s place, the trash holds a lot of secrets.
He’d thrown out this cup.” He nods to the table.
“The logo’s from a joint I know not too far from here.
I thought that was weird, right? Why would he go out of his way to buy coffee there just to turn around and bring it home? ”
“Maybe he really likes their drinks?” I say, but the suggestion comes out weak even to my ears.
There are plenty of fancy coffee shops closer to our upscale lucent neighborhood. It is odd that Kenneth would have gone downtown for coffee if he wasn’t going to stick around at least long enough to drink it.
Salvatore makes a dismissive sound. “I think he had reasons much more interesting than that. It was a lot easier getting into the coffee shop, in case you were worried. They don’t even have magical security. I waited until they closed for the evening, alchemized myself a key, and strolled on in.”
I swallow hard. “Of course you did. All that stuff I said about being careful—”
“I was careful,” Salvatore interrupts. “Part of being careful is figuring this shit out. I got into the shop’s security footage, deleted the bits I was in, and jumped back to a week or so ago.”
Ah. “Right before Kenneth attacked me.”
“You got it. It turns out that Sunday he stopped by for just long enough to order his coffee… and chat for a couple of minutes with a woman who also handed him a package big enough it could have been holding the magicked clothes he was wearing and the military knife.”
He flicks to a recording on his phone and holds it so I can see.
The security footage is from an awkward angle, but there’s no mistaking Kenneth’s skinny, red-haired form when he ducks through the doorway. He walks over to the order line.
A woman steps into line beside him. She’s about the same height, with an air of assurance and sleek black hair that falls artfully to her shoulders, speckled with thin streaks of silver.
There’s no audio in the recording, but their mouths move with several exchanges back and forth. Kenneth’s expression tightens as if he’s not entirely happy about the conversation.
But when she surreptitiously shifts a plastic shopping bag out from under her arm, he takes it under his.
Then the next customer gets their order, and Kenneth steps ahead of the woman as if they were never together.
I keep watching, but all that happens afterward is Kenneth getting his drink and walking out still carrying the bag. I slide my finger over the screen to rewind the video to his interaction with the woman.
Something about her tugs at my memory. She looks almost like…
It can’t be, can it? How would that make any sense?
“That’s got to be her, doesn’t it?” Salvatore says, pulling the phone closer to his view again. “This woman who was telling him crazy things about you and getting him riled up.”
“It doesn’t seem likely that he had two mysterious women he was having clandestine interactions with.”
Does that mean my friends, even Stella, are in the clear? This woman could still be connected to a larger conspiracy… but some part of me relaxes with the thought that my supposed besties haven’t been the direct instigators in the plot to murder me.
I motion to the phone. “Text me that recording? I want to have a copy of it in case I think of something else later. It still doesn’t totally add up. Have you seen that woman before?”
Salvatore shakes his head. “I don’t think so. Definitely not on the academy staff. I have no idea how she’d beef up the guy’s grades.”
“Maybe she didn’t. Maybe that was just him getting his act together.”
It could be two outcomes caused by the same source rather than one causing the other. We can’t know how the connection worked until we know who she is.
“We’ll track down all the answers one way or another.” Salvatore tucks the phone into his pocket, his tone all unshakeable confidence. “I can get access to other security cameras in the area—maybe catch her getting into a car, run the license plate—”
“No.” I touch his chest, willing down another jolt of panic. “No more breaking and entering. I told you I didn’t want you sticking your neck out like that.”
Salvatore gazes down at me, his bright blue eyes unwavering. “You told me not to do anything I didn’t need to. I need to know who’s behind all this fuckery so I can make sure they don’t come after you again. That matters more than anything else.”
“More than you getting arrested?” I protest. “Maybe going to jail?”
“You really think I can’t avoid the cops? Even if I couldn’t, yeah.” He puts his hand over mine. The beat of his heart radiates through his shirt into my palm. “You’re my match. You come first. That’s how it’s always going to be from now on.”
I swallow hard and firm my voice. “Even if I don’t want you to go that far?”
A muscle in Salvatore’s temple ticks. He works his jaw before he speaks. “I know you’re not used to handling problems this way. It isn’t how the ‘good’ people in those pretty houses do things. But what’s happening to you isn’t pretty, and this is how I fix what’s wrong. This works.”
“There are other ways that work too.”
“Those other ways weren’t getting us anywhere!”
I wave my free hand in a gesture of frustration. “You didn’t give it much time. If you go straight to crashing into people’s houses and hacking store security footage, then…”
I don’t know how to finish that sentence.
For the first time, the determined light in Salvatore’s eyes dwindles. “Then what? Then I’m nothing but a criminal who’s the son of criminals and grew up surrounded by them? Because that is what I am, mia amata. I can’t change that.”
He doesn’t sound angry, only… resigned. Almost defeated, in a way that wrenches my mind away from all my fears about the danger he’s facing on my behalf.
I made him feel defeated. I’m doing everything I can to protect him, and it’s left him thinking I’m ashamed of who he is.
Can I even blame him for taking matters into his own hands? I’ve been pushing him—all of my matches—as far away as I can, telling them as little as possible so they can barely do anything. Shouldering most of the burden on my own.
But by cutting him out, I’ve left him with no choices other than to feel like an unworthy match or to throw himself into even more danger.
What is he supposed to believe I think of him when I’ve avoided spending time with him whenever I can, when I burst into tears just making out with him? This Salvatore has an even more overblown ego than the one I left, but he’s got plenty of brains to go with it.
Deep down, he’s probably wondering just how horrified I am by this match. How much the affection I’ve shown him is nothing more than a sense of duty and the inherent compulsion of the bond.
Fuck.
As I stare back at him, I find myself reaching inside myself the way Daphne suggested. Searching for the traces of the Salvatore I knew before that will have woven themselves into my being over our three years together.
The glint that so often came into those gorgeous eyes. The swagger in every movement he made. The tang of leather from his favorite jacket and the mossy, musky scent of his skin beneath. The buoyant chuckle that could roll through an entire room.
He’s there, in fragments of the energies that tingle through my being. And all at once, I can hear what he’d say as clearly as if he was standing next to us.
“Look at him, a shíorghrá. He’s as much me as I am, and he needs you. I think you need him too. He’s the only way I can still be there for you. So what are you waiting for? Show him how much you belong to him.”
Tears prick at the backs of my eyes, but not so forcefully I can’t blink them back. They’re for the man I lost, yes—but also for the man in front of me.
For all the ways my actions have hurt him while I was trying to do the opposite. For how badly I’ve screwed up this budding relationship in my efforts to do right by my matches.
I sparked our bond, and this is what we have now. I’ve seen enough of this Salvatore to know he’s every bit as bold and fierce and devoted as the one I already adored. Maybe even more, considering how quick he’s been to dedicate himself to me.
I’m never going to not want him, and he’s never going to not want me. Resisting the bond… it’s tearing away at me and making him think the worst.
Maybe the best way to keep these men safe isn’t shutting them out but holding them close.
My heart squeezes at the thought of what I’m about to do, but I push through all my instinctive hesitation and scoot over to straddle Salvatore’s lap.
As my legs settle against his thighs, his hands move to grip my waist automatically. Steadying me, just like he always does. Like he always did.
“That’s right, mia amata. You deserve this. Take what’s yours.”
As the imagined voice of his counterpart tingles through my thoughts, this Salvatore studies me. He’s waiting for me to show my full intentions, but a renewed gleam has lit in his eyes.
I set my hands on his neck, my thumbs stroking over either side of his jaw. The heat of his thighs between mine courses over my legs and up through my chest, setting off a pulse of desire at my core.
And that’s okay. That’s how I’m supposed to feel about my match.
Devas save me, wouldn’t the other Salvatore have been offended if there was any version of him I wasn’t attracted to?
I tease my thumbs along Salvatore’s jaw again, holding his gaze.
“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to make you think— This isn’t about you.
I know who you are, Tore. I’m happy you’re my match.
It’s been killing me not being able to show you how much.
And it kills me to think of anything bad happening to you.
That’s all it is. You want to protect me, and I want to protect you, just the way mates should. ”
Salvatore’s voice comes out soft but a little rough. “I think you’re the one who needs most of the protecting right now, Elodie. No one’s tried to murder me lately.”
“That is a very good point. One I haven’t been taking into account enough.
” The mix of hope and desire in his eyes draws me in.
I dip my head until our noses almost touch.
“Thank you for looking out for me. Thank you for taking those chances so we can unravel this mystery. I’m not going to ask you to stop again.
Let’s just… Let’s figure out the safest option out of all the dangerous ones before you keep going? ”
That low chuckle I love rumbles out of him, painting my skin with his heated breath. “I guess that’s fair.”
He doesn’t move, doesn’t pull me closer or slide his hands from their careful position just above my hips. Doesn’t rock his own hips toward me the way I’m now aching for.
I made him think I wasn’t longing for this. That there was something wrong with how much he craved me. But the only problem was just how right it felt.
It doesn’t seem like a problem now. Every particle in my body is thrumming with our closeness as if aligning my very cells with his.
I’d swear I can even feel the other Salvatore’s hand on my shoulder, nudging me forward, grinning encouragingly.
So I go.
I lower my head the last couple of inches and press my mouth to his.