Chapter 12 #5
“Violence is sometimes the only language people understand,” I argue, failing myself and my own pursuit of becoming a better man. Why does this part of me come out every time I want to protect her? As if I could slaughter a man with my bare hands and not bat an eye at it.
“I’m not sure that…” She hesitates, looking down. Her hands move too fast, just like every time she’s upset.
“Sweetheart, I’m sorry I didn’t get it. Could you do it once more for me, please?”
“I meant…fighting fire with fire won’t solve anything,” she signs again.
“You’re…you’re right, but I can’t let her get away with that.”
“I want peace and calm and…” She blinks hard. “My father is at home, near her. She has leverage over me. Always.” I come closer, cupping her cheek.
“Hey…there’s not a soul in this city who owns more dirt on anyone. Trust me, Ella. If I want to break someone, I will do it in every sense of the word.”
“Why not…kill them with kindness?”
“Kindness,” I repeat in a murmur to myself, or perhaps in awe of how good she is for this ugly world.
“Has it ever worked?” She does not answer, her silence confirming my statement.
“Here’s what’s going to happen. I’m going to drive you back home, and tonight, when everyone’s asleep, I will knock on your window, and you will tell me about all the things we did not have time to discuss today. ”
“Tristan, it is madness.”
“Do you trust me?”
“Yes, I do, but…why? Why me? Why now?”
I almost smile at her candor. “We’re people, Ella.
People who cannot seem to stay away from each other.
Maybe I am your Thomas, and maybe…maybe you are my Eleanor.
” Her lips remain sealed. Have I revealed too much of myself?
Why would I hide the obvious fact that she has been plaguing my every thought, my every desire, invading my personal space like no other?
A flash of images bursts behind my eyes.
Her dancing in my soulless kitchen, tiptoeing in my living room, thinking she could surprise me with her ballerina agility, covering my eyes with her palms, not knowing her scent betrayed her from the moment she set foot in my house.
And those are not the only images. More dangerous ones warn me.
Careful, Tristan. She could be my downfall, the perfect target of my weakness should the Vodianovs seek the equation of my death.
Could she be used against me? I highly doubt her ability to use me as a puppet, given the innocent portrayal painted on her face.
And those hands, delicate as snow, inviting me to hold her, to show the world she is mine.
God, I want to kiss her again. Only, I know that indulging in her more than I should could rush her into thinking this is all I am interested in.
Far from it, Ella. Far from it. Chess moves play in my head, my knight changing course.
How do I play now that she is involved in the game?
How do I keep her safe from me and my world?
I cannot trap her in a cage. Oh, but the idea is sadly as terrifying for her as it would be tempting for me.
Would I let her hate me for the sake of her safety?
No. This is a slippery slope where I am trying to find logic in roots made of selfishness.
Ella deserves happiness, peace, freedom.
She is not a bird I can trap, not a business I can own.
My fingers find her jaw as her eyes meet mine, full of questions and daggers, telling me she knows.
She knows I am not a good man; she knows I’m trying to fight my true nature and still… still, she is willing to stay.
“Tristan,” she whispers silently, two syllables rolling over her lips, forming a colossal memory I will never be able to erase.
Letters melting into chess pieces, into contracts, into her perfect fingers.
I have to find Cole, stop his human trafficking ring, buy all his assets, figure out how Mara Brooks is going to repay her debt, keep the people I care about safe, avenge my father, and…
Two palms rest against my crisp white shirt, my jacket open as she feels the trembling of my heart. It pounds beneath her hands, exposed and unguarded, calling me back down from somewhere far above. I can almost hear her. Breathe, she says.
I stare at her hands, taking in the intimacy of this moment. The closeness between us, despite how little time we have known each other. The undoubtable fact that both of us, surely together in another lifetime, are here, meeting again, recognizing each other.
“It’s…okay,” I read on her lips. Her brown eyes hold me there, pulling me into their depth, where kindness and truth rule.
Words get stuck in my throat. I am standing at the edge of something vast and uncharted.
One more step and I will fall. But it’ll be deep, and dangerous, and so I hold myself back.
I cannot fall, Ella. Because if I do, there will be no going back, no recovery, no end in sight.
Everything I have known, everything I have built, will tilt off its axis.
And you, my angel, will become the center of it all.