Declan.
Fuck, I’m not strong enough to do this.
My chest heaves and the cage weakens as I shut the door on my past and walk into the unknown future with Bennett’s gun tucked into my bag.
As I pull out of the trailer park and onto the main street, my cheeks are coated with tears.
I’m lost.
Alone.
All I can do is go back to my phony life because what other choice do I have? Three men—men that are all linked to me—have been murdered. Bennett, Declan, and Pike. I try to get focused so I can create a plan on what to do when my gut twists in fear as I see Matt’s car pass me by, going in the direction I just came from.
Shit!
I could turn around, catch him, explain what happened, but then I hear Pike’s voice urging, “Don’t stop driving.”
So I don’t.
Shadows of the city pass by as I make it back home and pull into the parking garage.
Wiping down the gun and placing it back in Bennett’s car—one bullet short—I rush into the quiet building and up to the penthouse, undetected.
I take a quiet step across the threshold, and when the door slams behind me, I collapse to the floor. And this time, when I wail, my voice erupts in a fiery sob that burns in my soul. Vulgar cries, ripping through the cords of my throat as they expel into the hopeless air, echo off the walls and evaporate into silence. Tears mix with the dried blood of Pike and Declan, dripping from my chin, and fall lifelessly to the tile beneath me. When I see the swirled, translucent red, I let go of my voice and choke on my breath. I’m lost in the splatterings of my pain merged with all that’s left of my loves.
Who do I ache for more?
And like the animal I am, with hands braced on the chilling floor, I lean forward on my knees, and I lick the blood.
My salt.
Their metal.
My heart’s elixir.
Peeling off Pike’s clothes while I make my way to the bathroom, I stare at the blood that’s dried on my body, and with no control, I begin to lick that too.
Fingers, hands, arms, knees.
I take it all, loving Declan and Pike, making a home for them in the depths of my body, deep inside. Everything’s a haze; my only goal is to consume every last piece of vitality.
And I cry.
Eyes burning.
Lungs aching.
Hope disintegrating.
I’m all powdered ash, so hold your breath before a drift of air picks me up and carries me away to nullity.
“NINA.”
Tension aches in my muscles as I stir awake. When I roll over and open my tear-stung eyes, I notice Clara, the housekeeper and cook moving around the room.
“It’s nearly noon. You’ve been sleeping all morning.” She speaks in a gentle voice before pulling the drapes back.
Light flashes, burning my eyes, and I jerk my head away, squinting against the sun’s rays that pierce the room.
Clara walks around the bed and takes a seat next to me, stroking her fingers through my tangled hair, and the touch awakens the swollen wound in my heart that only sleep can soothe. Tears leak out onto my pillow, and I close my tired eyes.
“You should eat, dear. It might help you feel better.”
I shake my head. Food can’t heal this. I’m not sure anything can. I’ve lost everything. My baby, Declan, Pike ... everything that mattered to me. And for what? Everyone is dead and there’s nothing gained. Nothing but misery. The constricting around my heart makes each breath unbearable, and I desperately want to drift away. More than drift, I just want Declan to hold me. To anchor me by wrapping his warm arms around me, cocooning me into his chest, and filling my lungs with his scent—his life.
The one man who showed me what it was to be loved ... truly loved ... in the purest form is gone. Gone at the hands of my brother ... my other love, my protector.
“Maybe a shower?” Clara suggests, but I don’t respond. I just keep my eyes closed.
It isn’t but a moment until I hear her sniff. When I peek my eyes open, I watch as she brushes the tears away from her cheeks. I shift my body against the tender bruising that remains from Pike’s brutal beating a few days ago, the beating that killed my baby and led to the deaths of my husband, my lover, my brother, and my own soul. Clara looks over to me when I sit up and wince.
“I’m sorry. I don’t mean to cry.”
I don’t say anything as I watch her try to recompose her poise through the sorrow she feels. I feel it too but for entirely different reasons. So I pull on my mask and continue my role, saying, “It feels so lonely without him. I keep thinking he’s just away on another trip and he’ll be walking through the door any minute.”
She nods while her tears continue to fall and then looks to me. “I’m worried about you.”
I am too.
“I’ll be okay.”
“Bennett wouldn’t want you to be suffering like this.”
What she doesn’t know, what nobody knows, is that I’m not suffering for Bennett. I’m not the harrowed widow mourning over her husband. No. I’m mourning over the man I was cheating on my husband with and my brother that no one knew anything about. My hidden life. My clandestine existence.
“How could I possibly not suffer, Clara? He was my husband,” I choke out. “How am I supposed to live without him when he was my reason for waking up every day?”
“Because the world doesn’t wait on us. It keeps moving and expects us to move right along with it.”
“I’m not sure how to move right now.”