by Penelope Sky
“I just want to talk to you.” When his nose continued to bleed, he wiped away the blood again.
“And say what?” I asked. “I told you I want nothing to do with you.”
“I thought you needed a few weeks to cool off.”
“Cool off?” I asked. “I’m not angry, Heath. I’m just indifferent to you.”
His eyes showed signs of pain, narrowing on my face like my words hurt more than the punch. “That’s not me. You know that’s not me. The man I am now is the man you’ve been with for months. That’s me.”
“If someone murders someone, gets away with it, and then becomes the Pope, does that mean it doesn’t matter that he killed someone decades ago?” I asked incredulously.
He sighed loudly. “I didn’t murder your father.”
“But you’re still a sick son of a bitch for trying.” I turned around to walk back to the table.
This time, he blocked my path with his size, but he didn’t actually touch me. “You know what I’ve been doing the last few weeks? I’ve been miserable. Fucking miserable. And I know you have too.”
“I’ve been fine,” I said with a straight face. “Absolutely fine.”
His nostrils flared. “You’re still angry, I get it.”
“I’m not angry. I just hate you.”
“No, you don’t.”
“Why is that so hard to believe?” After what he did, it was the most appropriate feeling I should experience.
“It’s not that it’s hard to believe. It’s impossible to believe.”
I rolled my eyes. “Damien told me everything about that night, how the only reason my father is alive right now is because your brother owed him a favor. And I told him you threw me in a cage.”
“Did you tell him I let you out?”
“Yes. But again, doesn’t excuse what you did in the first place.” I tried to move around him.
He positioned himself in front of me. “Please.” His pupils contracted as he looked into my eyes. “I’ll do anything you want to make this right. I’ll step down as the Skull King. I’ll make any sacrifice you want me to make—”
“Okay, Romeo.” I held up my hand to shut him up.
His nostrils flared again.
“I don’t want you. It’s that simple.” I dropped my hand, needing him to understand my stance on the issue perfectly. “I’ll never want the man who did that to my own father. I’ll never want the man who’s harassed my brother. I’ll never want the man who didn’t have the balls to be honest with me. Do you get it?”
He looked more anguished now than he did when I walked out of his house. His breathing was deep and labored, like he wanted to grab the nearby table and break it in two. “Then, what’s your plan? To go back to the losers who don’t know how to please a woman? To be with some boring jackass who works in an office somewhere? To be with a plain man? To have a plain life? No, you deserve more than that.”
“Maybe I do. And I definitely deserve better than you.”
He dropped his gaze for a moment, like I’d hurt him again. “If I’m the only man you’ll ever love, there’s a reason for that. It’s because we’re supposed to be together. I don’t believe in fate and destiny, all that other bullshit you see in movies, but I believe that. You.” He pointed at me then pointed at himself. “Me. We’re supposed to be together.”
I shook my head. “If that’s true, then God must really hate me.”
“Don’t say that…”
“Please leave me alone, Heath.” I gave him a bored look, showing him just how little I cared about this conversation. “I’m over it. You tricked me, played me for a fool, hurt my brother again by hurting me, and I’m done with it. We’re all done with it.”
“I didn’t trick you… I love you.”
I rolled my eyes. “No, you don’t.”
“Yes, I do—”
“A man like you is incapable of love. You never would have touched my father if you weren’t completely evil.”
Seconds passed as he stared at me. “You’re right. I was incapable of love. Until I met you.”
“Wow, what a line.”
“I’m serious,” he snapped. “I swear to fucking god, the moment we met, the moment I laid eyes on you…I was different. I let you go because you were already inside my soul before we even crossed paths. I’m still fighting for you because I believe in that, whatever we had. I understand you’re angry and I understand if you need space, but I need you to work with me on this. Please.”
“No.” I stepped back. “Do I need to spell it out for you? N-O. No.”
He bowed his head and rubbed the back of his neck.
“It’s not a matter of forgiveness. It’s not a matter of letting the past go.”
He raised his head and looked at me.
“I don’t feel the same way anymore. Whatever I felt for you died when Damien told me the truth. You kidnapped me, put me in a cage, and I let that go. You used to collect money from human trafficking, and I let that go after you stopped. You’ve fucked prostitutes, and I let that go. You were rude to my boss, and I let that go. You’ve been enemies with my brother, and I let that go. But this…it’s the straw that broke the camel’s back.”
He took a deep breath, his eyes almost closing as he processed the rejection.
“Not my father.”
He closed his eyes.
I shook my head, looking at him with disgust. “Instead of wasting your time bothering me, you should be preparing for what’s to come. Because my brother is coming for you—hard.”
He opened his eyes. “There’s nothing to prepare for. I would never hurt him.”
“Whatever…”
“I would never hurt someone you love. So, if he comes after me…I don’t know what I’m going to do.”
“Then I suggest you leave the country and start over somewhere else. Because he’s not gonna stop until you’re gone.”
He slid his hands into the front pockets of his jeans. “Then he’s going to kill me…because I won’t kill him.”
Thirteen
Heath
Balto stepped out of the hallway, pulling on a t-shirt as he walked. “Do you ever call?”
I helped myself to the liquor cabinet, searching for a bottle of vodka. There was none, unfortunately, so I grabbed a substitute.
“Change your codes if you don’t want me to stop by unannounced.” I was the only one besides the two of them who had unrestricted access to their place, because I used to occupy the third floor. And I knew he never changed it because I was family—and I was always welcome. I filled my glass then made one for him.
“None for me.” He fell onto the couch.
“Then more for me.” I carried both glasses to the table and sat on the other couch. The last couple weeks of my life had been filled with booze and solitude. When I went to the Underground and took care of business, I was usually out of touch with my own actions, only partially listening to conversations.
Balto watched me, his hands together on his lap as he relaxed into the couch, watching me go to town on both drinks. “What’s wrong?”
“Why do you assume something’s wrong?”
His eyes didn’t blink. “Because you look like shit. And it’s two in the morning.”
“Not a night owl anymore?”
He didn’t answer the question.
I downed the first drink. “One down. Another to go.” I pushed the empty glass away then grabbed the other.
Balto was right on the money, and instead of interrogating me about it, he chose to hold his silence, to let me come clean when I was ready to.
I stared at the ground a long time, unsure how to handle the tightness in my chest, the devastation that had destroyed my entire body. Time and patience healed all my physical wounds, and pain could easily be treated with a couple of pills. But this…there was no shortcut for this. “She left me.”
My brother didn’t react. “I haven’t seen you this low in a long time…so I assumed.”
Wa
s my agony that obvious?
“You told her?”
I shook my head. “Damien did.”
He bowed his head slightly. “That’s even worse.”
“She told him about me, I think in the hope of burying our mutual grievances so she and I could be together. That just makes it so much worse, that she was willing to fight for me.” I pressed my hands to my face and just sat there, imagining how that conversation backfired and exploded in her face.
“I’m sorry, Heath,” he said quietly. “What are you going to do now?”
“I’ve tried talking to her…she wants nothing to do with me.” I gave her a few weeks of space so she could calm down, let the initial flame lower to room temperature, but when I saw her at the bar, she was the same. She wasn’t just hostile—but indifferent. That was the worst part, watching her burn white-hot then become an arctic winter. “All those feelings she had for me…just died.”
“What kind of feelings?”
“I told her I loved her… She never said it back. But she implied it.”
Now Balto’s hard expression softened entirely, giving me a look he’d never shown me before. He actually felt terrible for me, actually felt the pain I felt.
“But that wasn’t enough for her. She said what we had was never real…not if it was based on a lie.”
He dropped his gaze and stared at the floor.
I did the same, sitting in the painful silence, wanting my brother to comfort me even though I already knew there was nothing he could do for me. “I don’t know what to do.”
“Heath, I don’t think there is anything you can do.”
I opened my eyes. “Don’t say that to me.”
“You know I’ll never tell you what you want to hear. I’ll tell you the truth. That’s my job.”
I raised my head and stared straight ahead. “She said she hates me, that she wishes she hadn’t warned me and fucked up Damien’s plan…that she wishes I were dead for what I did to her father.” That hurt the most, to hear her say those things and mean every word, to wish everything we’d had never happened at all.
“You did a pretty terrible thing, Heath.”
I closed my eyes in a grimace. “I was a different person then. And come on, don’t make me feel worse—”
“But I find it hard to believe she really means that.”
I opened my eyes and looked at him.
“Maybe she means them in the moment, but I don’t think she means it literally. She doesn’t strike me as the kind of person to wish death on anyone…especially the man she loves.”
“Loved,” I whispered.
He gave me another remorseful look. “I think you should give her space. A lot of it. And maybe…someday…you can try again.”
“I don’t want to wait until someday. I want her now.”
“Well, I just don’t think that’s possible,” he said. “This woman was in a deep and emotional relationship with you, then heard something so terrible. Of course, she feels betrayed. Of course, she feels foolish. Her mind is in shock. The initial anger is so potent that it’s masked all of her other feelings. Her shell is hard, her guard is up. She’s not who she used to be…because this was so traumatic for her.”
God, I felt like shit.
“You have to be patient…and wait.”
That meant she would sleep with other men. I’d sleep with other women. I’d have to live a numb existence until I could get her back, to finally come back to life and feel emotion once again. “I really don’t want to do that.”
“I know, Heath. But that’s how it has to be. You knew this would happen.”
“Yes,” I snapped. “But I never expected…” I rubbed my hand across my chest. “I never expected it to hurt this fucking bad, to feel so goddamn lost, to feel like…I’ll never be happy again.” I dropped my hand.
Balto was quiet for a while, taking a deep breath like that description was painful.
“And now Damien is coming for me. I don’t know what to do about that.”
“Wasn’t he always coming for you?”
“Yeah, but now that I hurt his sister, I know it could happen any minute. And now, I can’t kill him. I can’t hurt him. I can’t do anything. It’s like fighting with both hands pinned behind my back. He’s not going to go away.”
Balto sighed quietly.
“If I kill him, she really will never forgive me.”
“So, no matter what, you lose.”
“Yeah…” If he killed me, I’d lose Catalina forever. If I killed him, I’d lose her forever. The outcome was the same no matter what I did, unless I really did take her advice and flee the country. But I wasn’t going to do that.
“You could hire someone else to do it.”
I shook my head. “No.”
“Then you could buy him off.”
“There’s no amount of money that will change his mind.”
“Then give him something else he wants.”
I couldn’t think of anything.
“He doesn’t want to pay you, right?”
“I already released him from the obligation.”
“Alright, then give him his independence.”
My mind started to consider the idea, to wonder if that would be enough to change his mind. “And if he said yes, then what?”
He shrugged. “Buys you some time…”
I turned the corner and walked down the hallway, my fingers wrapped around the green stems of the sunflowers I’d just picked hours ago. Tied with a single black ribbon, they were together in my grasp, smelling like her hair, bright like her smell.
I stopped in front of her door, feeling the connection with her grow stronger in my chest just from being near her. My eyes moved to the crack under the door, seeing the shifting blue light from the TV in the living room. She probably sat on the couch, drinking a bottle of wine by herself, skipping dinner because I wasn’t there to encourage her to eat.
I closed my eyes and felt the pain worsen, felt our separation strangle me like a noose at the end of a rope. I didn’t make a sound as I stood there, opening my eyes and staring at the bright yellow petals that infused the hallway with sunshine. I knew she would throw them in the trash the second she spotted them. It wouldn’t make her reflect on our time together, the way we loved each other in a way that most people never got to experience. But I wanted her to know I still thought about her, that I was still here, that I still missed her…
That I still loved her.
I placed the flowers on her doorstep then pressed my palm against the door, just so I could be as close to her as possible. My forehead rested against the metal, and I stood there for a while, listening to the faint sound of the TV in the background.
I finally turned away.
Then I heard the TV turn off…and the sound of her footsteps.
Fuck, she’d heard me.
I rushed down the hallway, striding quickly without making noise. I rounded the corner just when I heard the locks turn.
There was a mirror on the wall that reflected the hallway leading to her door, so I could -watch her from my spot around the corner. She might be able to see me if she looked hard enough, but the mirror was at least twenty-five feet away, so it was unlikely.
Then I saw her.
I watched her open the door and stare down the hallway, as if she expected to see my back as I walked away. She was in her pink pajama shorts, wearing a black camisole, her hair pulled over one shoulder. There was no makeup on her face, nothing but her natural olive skin and full lips.
And she was so fucking beautiful.
So beautiful it hurt.
Coming here was a bad idea because it only made me feel worse, made me want her more.
She looked down and spotted the sunflowers. There was a slight flinch, like the sight of her favorite flowers did bring a subtle softness to her eyes because it was an involuntary reaction. She bent down and grabbed them, but she didn’t bring them close to her face to smell them.
&nb
sp; She looked annoyed, dropping her hand so flowers were held by her side.
Then she walked back into her apartment.
I sat on the throne at the top of the platform, staring at the opposite wall without really thinking about anything. There was no reason for me to be there, but I had nowhere else to go. My house was haunted by her ghost, and I’d rather be here than listen to her old whispers, get a whiff of her scent when I opened one of my drawers or walked into my closet.
There were a few Skull Kings there, along with the girls serving beer.
No one bothered me, like they knew I didn’t want to talk.
I sat with my knees apart, the diamond on my right hand. I had power, money, everything…but after losing Catalina, I felt like I’d lost everything.
Steel stepped up to me. “Heath, Damien is here.”
It took me a few seconds to process what he’d said, to drop my fingers from my jaw and snap out of my haze. “Why?”
He raised both hands. “Wouldn’t tell me. But he’s got a lot of bags of money.”
Shit, that wasn’t good. “Send him in.”
Steel turned to retrieve him.
Without looking at anyone in particular, I addressed the people who lingered. “Leave the room.”
The guys left right away, and the girls dismissed themselves too, dropping everything they were doing so I could have the room to myself.
I stayed on my throne, waiting for him to walk in the door.
When he did, his green eyes were venomous like a snake with pointed fangs. A bag was in each hand, and he walked down the aisle between the benches and headed straight toward me. He dropped them, the heavy weight making a loud thud.
Then more men filed in, adding more bags to the pile.
I stayed in my chair, giving no reaction because this man was my enemy.
His men left, and he remained behind.
Steel stepped back into the room. “Everything has been scanned. It’s just money.”
All I did was slightly raise my hand from the armrest to excuse him.
Steel walked out.
Now it was just the two of us.
Damien stood at the bottom of the stairs, surrounded by the money he’d brought me. Now that he was looking me in the eye for the first time since knowing the truth about Catalina and me, he was livid, his eyes spewing fire like volcanos. His arms remained by his sides, and they shook slightly, as if seeing me in the flesh made him lose all control.
