Chapter 28
I spritzed the room with another layer of air freshener.
The expensive kind that Raimondo insisted on stocking in his house.
This one was geranium incense with patchouli and myrrh.
But it didn’t matter how much I sprayed, the bitter scent of the hospital lingered.
Silence reigned in the halls now, apart from the regular shuffle of nurses as they completed their night rounds.
Adelaide had pulled her considerable strings to let Jonah, Beck and me stay on past visiting hours.
Ray’s eyes moved under his lids, active despite not waking yet. The bandage across his face made my stomach twist.
“He’ll be alright,” Jonah said from his seat on the other side of the bed.
As if he were trying to convince himself. Twenty-four hours without Ray’s special brand of charm left me aching inside. Would he still manage a lackadaisical smile when he finally woke and saw the mess of his face? I rubbed my thumb across the back of his clammy hand.
“Of course he will. He’s a fighter.” Beck tapped his fingers on his knees.
Fierce pride laced his strained tone. Ray had catapulted in Beck’s opinion after he sacrificed himself to give us the time to escape.
Jonah had to carry me out and drag me into the water.
My head sank below the frigid waterline just as the explosion lit up the sky.
The violent roar still echoed in my ears.
“Any news?” I jerked my head to the screen Beck had balanced on the armrest. “I want those rats running scared.”
Larson King was ash, along with Connall. Ackerman and the rest of the council could still be tempted to steal back their former glory as members of The Unseen. We crippled them, leaving only scattered agents.
Ellington would be proud.
“V-vicious.” A croaky voice cut through the beep of the machines.
Ray’s hand twitched in my hold, and I gasped as one eye blinked back at me. He turned his head and winced.
“Don’t move.” Jonah steadied him, eyes rimmed red.
“You’re awake.” I gripped his hand like a clamp.
“Can’t get rid of me that easy,” Ray joked, and swallowed hard.
His voice was rough like sandpaper, and it made my insides tremble.
We’d all had too much smoke in our lungs, but it swallowed Ray.
He’d fought the dark, flames, and death for all of us.
Now his face would forever hold the scar from that choice.
I remembered the first time I saw him, at a gala.
He’d fluttered his long lashes at Adelaide, and I felt them against my cheek like butterfly kisses.
I considered him spoiled. Irresponsible.
He didn’t have the brains or the drive to make something of himself.
I’d been so wrong about Ray, and all the layers he hid under a charming smile.
How tender his heart was, and how fiercely he loved.
How hard he fought for those he considered family.
He wasn’t made to be a crime lord, but he’d stolen my heart with the skill of one.
“Don’t you ever do that again. You understand me?”
“Ahh, ti amo, mia volpe.”
My bottom lip wobbled until I flattened my lips in a scowl. Ray’s smile widened until it tugged at his skin, and the expression dissolved into a wince.
“Nice to have you back, spare. It was getting boring without your peacocking.” Beck offered Ray his version of a smile. Sinister and unsettling.
“My back hurts like crazy. I-I don’t remember what happened.” Ray lifted his fingers to the bandage on his face. They trembled there for a moment. “How bad is it?”
“What were you thinking playing the hero?” Jonah scolded before offering a drink.
Jonah angled the straw toward Ray and held it while Ray took a long sip. Heat expanded in my throat, pricking with uncomfortable truth. Ray barely escaped with his life. In the space of a breath and a step, the result might have been different. Relief made me dizzy while dread froze my nerves.
How would the vainest man in Greenich Bay react to having his perfect looks scarred?
“That bad, huh?” Ray said as Jonah pulled away.
“It doesn’t matter.” I rushed to fill the silence.
Ray scrunched up his face, wincing as it pulled his injury. My stomach plummeted at the need to placate him.
“My dashing looks are fundamental to my brand. What do you mean they don’t matter?” His frantic gaze landed on Beck. “Tell me the truth, Chief. I know you won’t sugarcoat it like these two.”
Beck let out a guffaw, a sober one.
“Don’t be funny.” I grabbed his hand and intertwined our fingers.
“Who’s joking?” Ray was indignant.
Beck’s sigh whistled through the room as he put aside his phone. I knew Beck didn’t care to give Ray a soft landing like Jonah or I would. But as he emptied his lungs, reluctance deepened the lines on his face.
“You’ve got a big slice over your eye. It’s impossible to tell until it heals. It’s too soon to say if admittedly extraordinary looks will be destroyed or enhanced.”
Ray waved off Jonah, who offered him another sip with a furrowed brow.
“Explain?”
His petulance made my lower lip tremble.
It was so Ray. Even in a hospital bed, with his body bruised and marked beyond its normal pristine perfection, he was still alive and here.
When Jonah dragged me under the water, a blast of heat rolled over us.
As we resurfaced, all I could think about was Ray never being beside us again.
All the moments I needed more of. Like sharing a cheeky glance over a rising speedometer.
He made each laugh richer, and each smile brighter.
“Don’t you know? Women love a morally gray man with a scar.” Beck wasn’t wrong, but it didn’t placate our vain man.
“Get me a mirror? Please?” Ray begged Jonah.
He clenched his jaw but handed him his phone, letting Ray turn the camera on himself and inspect.
The bandage covered half of a singed eyebrow.
Ray peeled it off and gasped at the puckered, weeping skin, black around the edges.
A lasting memory of the piece of heated metal that caught him on his face during the escape.
“And this?” Ray cursed as his attention when to his bandaged left arm.
“You fought with a wall of fire. Guess who won?” Jonah flattened his lips.
Ray prodded the injury with a scowl. Luck had its fickle hand on Ray and allowed him to live. I squeezed his fingers, and a well of sweet relief overflowed in me. He wasn’t unscathed, but he was here.
“Damn. Lucky I’m charming.”
Ray stared at me, just as I swiped an errant tear from my cheek.
“Are you crying for me?” He pulled me closer.
The hopeful shine in his lone eye intensified the sting in my nose. Another tear escaped, creating a river.
“You almost died saving us.”
“You didn’t reply to me. We could’ve had a melodramatic exchange of hearts before my near death, but you left me hanging. Did you hear what I shouted through the smoke?”
I shook my head. The dark tendrils had obscured him like a shadow, one I thought I was saying goodbye to. All I had on my mind was how to escape Beck and get back to Ray.
Ray tossed his hands up.
“What did you say?” Jonah fussed with Ray’s blanket.
He’d been my staunch support since we’d pulled Ray from the rubble and raced him to the hospital. Even with his heart bleeding, Jonah kept me upright. Ray leaned close to me, his one eye searching.
“I love you, Lyra.”
A crackle of energy electrified my spine.
It sparked, blistered and burned away any lingering regret and hesitation.
Caution was not natural for me. Adrenaline throbbed through my veins like a reminder.
The men in this room wrapped around the beating organ bruising my ribs right now.
I could hide, I could turn cold, but I would never extinguish the fire they lit inside me.
“I love you, Raimondo Donato.”
“R-really?” His smoke-laced voice cracked.
I reached across the bed and grappled for Jonah’s big hand. “I love you, Jonah Charles Black.”
Jonah, a mountain carved into a man, crumbled into pieces. His fingers squeezed mine so hard that pain lanced through my arm. His feet shuffled as he rose and slammed back into his squeaky hospital chair.
“You’re my world. Always.” He shuddered and added. “I won’t ever hurt—”
My hand lifted, and I waved him off, not wanting to revisit the past. I’d forgiven them a long time ago, back before we went to The Unseen’s base.
But there was a pocket of fear I needed to process.
To fight what Beck always taught me, to leave an exit path.
I’d wanted space to escape if I changed my mind.
Fingers laced around my throat, and Beck tilted my head back. The touch deepened, possessing. He arched an eyebrow.
“Little Liar, if we’re giving out confessions, you’d better have one for me.”
A choked laugh fell from my lips. I expected nothing less from Beck. He was obsessed and demanding, but beneath his bluster, a needy boy yearned for my love. Fear lurked in his dark eyes, even as his hold tightened.
“I love your dark heart, Beck. You’re all mine. All of you. The parts that no one would ever accept, I will cherish. We’re made for each other, burned, broken, and jagged together.”
“I guess this scar really has its perks.” Ray gave a lopsided smirk.
Later that night, I stayed and curled up beside Ray. I lay my head on his unharmed shoulder. Ray fumbled across the bed and flipped on the low light.
“You need to sleep,” I scolded, drowsy with half-dreams.
“How can I? I missed Sunday roast.”
I exhaled and snuggled close to him. He hummed as my warmth melted against him.
“Don’t worry, I called and made excuses for you. Now, can you rest?”
He shook his head.
“I’m workshopping a new name for myself. “One Eye Lothario or Scarface. Too on the nose?”
I elbowed him with a click of my tongue. “How about Arrogant Ray Flattened into a Pancake by His Girlfriend? Would that work?”
He nuzzled into my neck with a delighted giggle. “Girlfriend? What about when you were my bride? Doesn’t that make you my wife?”
“That was pretend.” My breath hitched.
“Not to me.”
I pressed my lips to his, once only. Even with his injuries, Ray still tried to convince me to role-play as a sexy nurse earlier.
“What happens now, mia volpe?”
I knew he wasn’t asking about nicknames or sex. The Unseen would take time to wipe out, and questions remained. But right now I wanted to lie in his arms and forget about the world. Maybe I wanted to get married for real. It would mean a honeymoon was in the future.
“We got Larson, and that’s what matters. There are still other members of the council I don’t trust. We’ll get them eventually.”
“So, did we win or not?”
I didn’t know how to answer a question that wasn’t black and white. The years of corruption made it too complex. My lungs cramped as I held in my breath a beat longer than I should.
“The Unseen won’t ever be the same, but it won’t truly end until every one of them is dead. I’m going to dismantle it by hand if I must, even if I spend my entire life doing it.”
“Why?”
I looked up at him, dark eyes like warm velvet in the soft light.
“Why do you have to do it?” he added.
I chewed my bottom lip. The question seeped through my ribs.
The Unseen were as much a part of me as my mom.
I’d spent my life doing as they asked. I had blood on my hands, stains that I would never remove.
My heart was dark, more like Beck’s than I cared to admit.
I never pretended to be a perfect person, and my revenge was selfish.
But if I could save one small girl from losing her family, because she saw the truth of the world? That was worth it to me.
Who watches those in the shadows?
It wouldn’t be me. Let the crime world have its freedom and make its mistakes. Who were we to control them? People are selfish by nature. Most were cruel. Power in the hands of one shadow organization didn’t make sense.
Better to burn it all down and let something better grow from the ashes.
“If we don’t, they’ll come for us. Besides, don’t you think we’d get bored without someone to fight?”
Ray’s fingers swept over my ribs. The air smelled of antiseptic and of the blood-red roses Adelaide had dropped off earlier. We hadn’t spoken of the future, too busy trying to survive the present. But now that Larson was dead, we still had unfinished threads to tie off.
“I’ll be your fierce yet sexy sidekick any day,” Ray winked.
“You got your confidence back quickly.”
“Never lost it.”
“Oh?”
“Let’s be real. Even with a scar, I’m still more handsome than most men. I’ll sort the singed hair out before our wedding.”
A laugh escaped me, this one unburdened by secrets, hurt, and worry. Ray swallowed it with his lips, taking the sound with a greedy swipe of his tongue. I let the kiss linger this time until we broke apart, panting.
“I can’t believe I’m considering it.”
“You mean you can’t believe you get three tongues whenever you want?”
“Well…”
“Now she agrees,” Ray crowed, squeezing me closer. “Just wait, mia volpe, I’m going to make you beg.”