I’d promised God that I’d actually listen to Doyle’s services rather than sleeping through them if he brought Camille back to me, but the last laugh was on me, because I knew she hadn’t needed that prayer.
She’d been fine. Was fine now.
Even if I couldn’t reconcile it.
Last night, when I’d known she was sleeping hard, when my brain was tired of thinking, I’d gone to her bedroom to find the little box she’d hidden in her jewelry case. I’d found it during my first sweep of her room—I wasn’t about to invite a stranger into my home without checking everything out.
While the contents of the kit weren’t new to me, loaded down as it was with thin razor blades, each one scrupulously clean, tucked beside alcohol wipes, it was the small journal that interested me.
The first time I’d seen it, I’d known what it was. She’d doodled a title onto it: ‘Reasons to live.’ Not opening that was the only slice of privacy I’d given her, but last night, I’d cracked the seal on that journal. I knew it made me a bastard, but it was hard to reconcile a woman who could harm herself, who had to give herself justifications to live, who’d whored herself out because she didn’t recognize she had worth, with the creature who’d been alight with fire yesterday even when she should have been cowering and crying like her sisters had been.
Had it given me any insight into her?
Not really.
I’d betrayed her trust for nothing. I’d learned that she was filled with hope. That, no matter what she claimed, she was a romantic. I guessed I’d also discerned an inherent insecurity that went bone deep, one that made me want to shore her up...
Hence the coin.
Once she poured herself a drink, her attention tipped down to the counter, where I saw she had the paper lying flat out in front of her. That was how she saw me watching her, at long last. Muttering, “Classic saying originated by John Donne,” under her breath, she’d lifted the pen to her mouth to gnaw on as she thought about her answer.
I knew I needed to work on her survival instincts if she didn’t sense a predator like me walking around. And instead of scowling at me with hatred for letting her down, like she should have, she dropped the pen and beamed a grin at me.
“Do you want a smoothie?”
Grimacing at the green gunk, I shook my head, letting my eyes drift over her tits and her tiny waist which were revealed in her cami, before I murmured, “You know I’m training Shay to fight?”
“Yeah.” She took a sip from the bright, lurid green shake. “I know.”
“I want you to come with.”
“You want to train me to fight too?”
“Victoria as well, if she’ll let me.” Hell, I’d hold a self-defense class for all the O’Donnelly women if they’d join in.
She frowned a second, then she beamed a grin at me, bouncing a little in a way that had her tits bouncing along for the ride. “I’d love to! When you talked about it with Shay, I thought it sounded fun.”
Fun. Yeah.
“You should have said.”
Camille shrugged. “I’m not good at asking for things.”
“No, I know that. I guess it’s time you learned, hmm?”
Her grin turned sheepish. “It’s hard to change the habit of a lifetime.”
“Not true. Yesterday’s proof of that.” As expected, pride lit up her eyes. It both bewildered and amused me, but mostly, I was just relieved. I remembered Ma after the Aryans had done with her. She’d been a broken wreckage. Of course, her situation, her experience was different than Camille’s, but either way, they were both survivors.
I remembered how useless I’d felt back then, too.
I’d watched the little sanity my father possessed drain away like water in a bathtub when Ma came home.
The rampage was known the city over. Even the cops hadn’t tried to stop that particular war, and I was fucking honored to have taken part in it.
There was a reason there were no remaining Aryan groups in the vicinity—my da had annihilated them all from the East Coast to the Midwest. He hadn’t just gone city-deep, he’d gone coast-wide.
“Brennan?” She was there. In front of me. Close enough to touch. To reach out to hold. “I lost you for a second.”
Her smile was teasing, but the words resonated.
Because I needed to, I cupped her chin and murmured, “I have something for you.”
She shook her head. “I don’t need anything.”
“I want you to have this.” With my free hand, I slipped the pouch onto her palm. Her ravaged palm that was only just starting to heal up. Bright pink striations of fresh skin that had once been torn open by her razor blades.
“What is it?” she asked, not bothering to open it.
Arching a brow at her, I dropped my gaze to the pouch and waited for her to huff, pass over the bright green concoction to me, then let the coin drop out onto her scarred palm. Amused that she’d handed the glass to me when there was a sideboard beside us, I dumped it on there, then returned my attention to her.
She frowned at it, then at me, and said, “Huh.”
My lips twitched. “Huh?”
“Never took you for a numismatist.”
“I shouldn’t be surprised you know that considering you’re a crossword buff, should I?” I questioned ruefully, scratching my stubble.
“Nope.” Her eyes twinkled. “Consumable product of melting numismatist’s prize. That was the first time I came across it.”
My brows rose. “You remember the clue?”
She hitched a shoulder. “Sure.” Unaware she’d blown my mind, she lifted the coin to her eye, before gulping, “1880?”
“I collect all kinds of coins.” I frowned at her. “What was the answer to the clue?”
“Rarebit. It’s a type of grilled cheese.” She blinked. “Why are you giving this to me?”
“I want to do a deal with you.”
Warily, she lowered the coin, her gaze drifted to me and back again to the rare Stella with the coiled hair. “What kind of deal?”
“That’s my most favorite coin. It’s unique. It cost over one and a half million dollars.”
“And you’re giving it to me?” she rasped, swallowing when she raised the coin to eye height again. I watched as she almost dropped it as she fumbled, before she snatched it back up in her hand—at least her reflexes were semi-decent. That boded well for our training.
“I am. On one condition.”
She bit her lip. “What condition?”
“You can cash that in anywhere in the world, Camille. I’d suggest you don’t,” I said wryly, “I’d suggest that you take it to Sotheby’s or somewhere like that, because you’ll earn more money that way—”
“Is it stolen?” she interrupted.
“No.” I couldn’t fault her for thinking that. “I have provenance for it. I’ll make sure you can access that.” I’d have to install a safe that only she had codes for, but it would be worth it. “But at any given moment, you have access to a fortune. If you’re careful with it, you could live very well for the rest of your life on that amount of money...”
She blinked up at me, that damn bottom lip of hers back between her teeth. “T-Thank you, Brennan.”
“You haven’t heard the deal yet,” I teased.
Camille gulped and said, “Of course not. Sorry.” Then she broke my heart. She reached up and swiped at her eyes.
This woman, this crazy, fucking woman who hadn’t cried once yesterday, had wet eyes now.
How I didn’t haul her into me, I’d never know. My hands itched with the need to hold her close, to have her in my arms, but this had to be done.
“Don’t be sorry,” I rumbled, and I gave into temptation and let my hand cup her shoulder. My fingers spread out over the bare skin, and I watched as her body gave her away, just like I hoped it always would—a wave of goose flesh whispered down her bicep.
“What’s the deal?” she whispered, peeking at me with liquid green eyes.
“Remember I told you that I’d tie you to the bed if I caught you self-harming?”
She licked her lips. “I remember. You said you’d spank me and make me come hard enough to forget why I was cutting too.”
“Well, I recognize that wasn’t the right command to make,” I drawled, noticing the flush of arousal on her cheeks.
“No?”
“No. That might incentivize it,” I told her gruffly, smirking when her cheeks flushed even more. “See? I know you’re getting hot just thinking about it, and one day, I will tie you to the bed, but I don’t want it to be because of that. That’s not what we’re about.” I tipped up my chin. “Unless you don’t like how I’ve treated you in the bedroom?”
Her brow puckered with genuine confusion. “You taught me what a climax is. How couldn’t I like that?” She bit her lip. “Unless, you don’t… want, I mean, maybe you don’t like—”
Her goddamn insecurities.
I squeezed her shoulder and told her, “I want you. I don’t want anyone else, that’s how much I want you, Camille. Any which fucking way you’ll have me, but just because I need that, doesn’t mean you like it.” It didn’t mean that a queen wanted to be treated the way I treated her...
She pressed her hand to my chest and then she nearly had my eyes crossing as she purred, “I love what we do together.”
My throat felt like an orange was stuck in it as I rasped, “Okay, then. So I’m not going to incentivize this. What we do together isn’t going to be reduced to that level.”
“What we do together is about you being nasty in the sack, huh?”
“Exactly,” I said with a grin, “and you loving every step of my being nasty.” My grin softened as I carried on, “Now, my deal is, when you want to cut, you come talk to me. You call me if I’m not home. Or you text me if you don’t want to talk—”
“That’s not practical,” she inserted, shaking her head. “You won’t always be able to answer—”
“That’s my point, Camille,” I rumbled. “I will always make time for you, okay?” A gasp escaped her, and I nodded. “Now, the day you decide you can’t talk to me, or call me, or text me, that’s the day I want you to grab this coin and I want you to sell it so you can make a new life somewhere else.”
Her brow puckered. “You wouldn’t want me if I cut myself?”
“It’s not about wanting you, Camille.” I groaned, then grabbed her and dragged her into me. “Christ, can’t you tell? I never fucking stop wanting you. It’s like you’re dosing me up with Viagra or something.” I grunted when I saw the pleased smile dancing on her lips. “It’s about trust. It’s about us talking. The day you can’t do that is a day you don’t trust me and it’s the day I don’t deserve to be your husband.”
“Y-You said there’d be no divorce.”
“And we wouldn’t. But that doesn’t mean you can’t have your own freedom.” I swallowed, because the concession was hard to give her. It was only after reading her journal, a small, padded book that was set up funny, each page waiting for a date to be written in, and each one able to house five days, that I’d seen how far back this thing went.
Reading her tell herself that she was lovable, that she hadn’t found her purpose yet, that she had to live to make up with her sisters... it had broken something inside me. Something that had already been cracked the day the Aryans took Ma, and I was the reason they’d gotten to her.
“It’s the only out I’ll give you, Camille,” I told her gruffly.
She shocked me—when wouldn’t she?—by whispering, “I don’t want an out.”
“Then always talk to me.” I let my hand come up to cup her cheek, allowed my thumb to wipe the single tear track that arced over the curve. So beautifully poignant was it that I felt choked up too. “Always let me in. No punishments for cutting, Camille. No punishments. Ever.”
She stepped into me, and I hugged her, holding her close as she whispered, “Just trust.”
“Exactly,” I rasped. “Lyanov...” My voice waned as she tensed. “He wants Victoria, Camille. I don’t know the extents he’ll go to to have her as his bride. Far as I know he’s from an orphanage in Moscow, so he’s trying to buy his way to respectability as Pakhan. I didn’t think about the consequences when I dealt with him, but I promise you this, now, after we’ve had this conversation, the day before she turns eighteen, I’ll kill him before I let him have her.
“She wasn’t a part of the promise I made your ma, because she wasn’t born then, but that doesn’t mean shit. She’s family. Through her, I’m going to redeem myself and I won’t let her—”
She tensed, interrupting, “You’ll start a war.”
“We’re always at war, sweetheart. Ain’t you figured that out yet? Life is fucking war.”
“I made him promise that he’d court her.”
“You think he’s got time for that?” I snorted. “He’s got three years to turn even more fucked in the head as the power corrupts him. I don’t want him anywhere near my family.”
Her hand clenched in my shirt. “Abramovicz said something that resonated with me yesterday. You’re born Bratva, and you’ll die Bratva—there’s no escape.”
“There was for you and Inessa. You’re Irish now,” I rumbled, even gladder now that she’d bitten the fucker’s dick off after he’d told her that. “We can wed her to one of our men.”
“I don’t want that for her. I want her to make her choice.” She stared up at me, repeating, “I told him that if he wanted her, he had to court her. If she chooses him, then he lives.”
“Why let it get that far?”
“A feeling.”
“What kind of feeling?” I grumbled.
“Did you see him yesterday? When we drew Victoria outside?”
I thought back to those moments when I’d had to get both of them to the SUV without either of them getting shot. Eoghan had popped off some rounds, saving us from the remaining bastards who refused to surrender, but I hadn’t exactly been on the lookout for Pakhan-wannabes who had calf eyes.
“I didn’t.”
“He wants her.”
“So?”
“To be wanted like that isn’t something Victoria knows.”
“It’s pretty fucked up that he wants a kid. I should kill the bastard now.”
She growled, “No, not like that. It was as if she was a Christmas present he couldn’t afford.”
“I thought you weren’t a romantic,” I chided softly, though her diary had told me otherwise.
“I’m not.”
I snorted. “Everything you just said makes no sense unless you are.”
Camille huffed. “If he’s willing to fight for her, then let him. And if he isn’t, and he raises his voice to her just the once, I’ll let you kill him.”
“You’ll let me, huh?”
“Yes.” She licked her lips. “I’m a woman who knows what it is to be unwanted, Brennan. I don’t want that for her.”
Closing my eyes, I tucked her closer then propped my chin on the crown of her head and corrected, “You’ve known what it felt like. Not anymore, Camille. I’ll spend the rest of my fucking life showing you if that’s what you need.”
Her voice was small. “I do.”
“Then that’s how it’ll be.”
“No war, Brennan, not with the Russians. Not yet. Promise?”
I heaved a sigh. “Promise. Until you let me loose.”
Hearing the smile in her voice made everything inside me feel like I was being hung upside down as she whispered, “That’s five promises. If you include last night’s too.”
“I know. Things are getting out of hand.” She laughed as I continued, “I just got off the phone with Ma actually. Da’s softened up some. She’s invited us over for Sunday lunch because she’d like to talk to you.”
“About what?” She didn’t tense up, so I didn’t think she was saying no.
I cleared my throat. “You were young but most people haven’t exactly forg
otten about the war with the Aryans.”
“God, no, it’s legendary.”
I nodded. “Ma was hurt real bad, Camille—”
“I think I know, but… what was your promise to your mother, Brennan? Was it to do with the Aryans?” she interrupted.
“Yeah. I vowed I’d never let her down again.” Her gaze softened, but before she could say another word, I carried on, “Ma knows what it’s like to be taken, Camille. She wants you to know you can talk to her. She wants you to be with family today.”
Funny how that had her tensing up.
How that had her sobbing in my arms.
And funny how I felt like crying too as I held a woman who’d started out a stranger, who’d fucked me so filthy that she’d uncrossed my eyes, who’d shown a resilience and a strength so magnetizing that I felt bound to her in a way that I’d never felt with another person.
I knew what it was to be the man with broad shoulders. To be the one everyone relied on. Who protected the rest, who took the first hit so everyone else could duck.
Somehow, somehow, I’d found a woman who knew how that felt too, and that strong creature felt safe in my arms.
I’d tried to live with honor ever since I’d failed Ma, but it was the first time I actually felt honored.
I don’t need to think up a reason to live today.
Forty-Eight
Camille
I was nervous when Lena invited me into her country-style kitchen.
This time, I hadn’t dressed up to visit with Brennan’s family, instead wore a simple pair of black slacks, a thin cashmere jacket above a camisole, and my bracelets that helped me cope with motion sickness for the drive upstate. My hair was tucked into a loose ponytail that I hoped hid the bald patches, while also taking off some of the pressure on my scalp. No one else had dressed up either, and from last Sunday, I knew that wasn’t normal.
The men had been in suits, Aela, Aoife and my sister had worn expensive dresses. Now, they sported jeans and sweaters, Aoife had a sapphire-tinted woollen dress on that complimented her hair with cute ballet pumps on her feet, but Aela and Innie wore sweaters, yoga pants and UGGs. Victoria, of course, was dressed like a miniature First Lady, but I took no notice of her. I could imagine her going to a rave dressed that way.
Filthy Sex: The Five Points’ Mob Collection: Four Page 46
