When we're as alone as we can get in this den of vice, I turn to face him. Those bright eyes that usually make my heart race now feel like they're hiding landmines.
"What did Eng mean when he said he knows about what happened to Vanessa?"
The color drains from Reaper's face so fast I think he might collapse. His mouth opens, closes, opens again like a fish gasping for air.
"I don't know what — "
"Don't you dare lie to me." The words tear out of my throat, raw and bleeding. "Not about this. Not about her."
He flinches as if I've slapped him, and something inside my chest shatters completely. His reaction tells me everything I need to know. There is something. There is a secret he's been keeping from me about my sister's death.
The man I love has been lying to me about the most important thing in my world.
"Adriana, please — "
"Please what?" I step closer, invading his space, my voice dropping to a whisper that carries more venom than any shout. "Please don't ask you about whatever you've been hiding?Please pretend I didn't hear that smug bastard hint he knows something about Vanessa that I don't?"
Pain flickers across his features, and for a moment he looks like he's going to crumble right here in front of me. Part of me wants to catch him, to hold him, to tell him whatever it is doesn't matter.
But it matters. It's Vanessa. It’s our relationship. It’s the truth. It's everything.
Then he takes a deep breath, turns those eyes to me, and their luminescence bores into the walls of doubt and anger I’ve thrown up around my heart.
“Adriana,” he says. His voice is warm, loving, open, vulnerable, poison. “I’ll tell you.”
I try to sound angry, doubtful. “Speak.”
Even I can hear I fail.
“I knew Vanessa was in danger. That she was at risk for…” His voice trails off into a shaky breath. I stay silent, waiting, until the pain in his eyes pulls my hand to his shoulder; I’ve been in enough interrogations to know when someone is telling the truth. “I knew and I couldn’t get to her in time. If I had done things differently, if I had been faster, if I had been able to stop V…”
Pain and grief cut his words short. I squeeze his shoulder, then pull him closer and put my arms around him. He shakes in my arms.
“It’s OK,” I say. But even as I hold him, I wonder — is it? Is this really the great secret that Eng hinted at? That everyone knew an addict was at risk of relapsing?
He pulls back from that hug and those bright eyes, now shining with pain that shimmers in the prism of tears that cling to those brilliant orbs, bore into mine. My resistance wavers, fades, weakens to near nothing in the face of that loving luminescence. “That’s what happened. I knew she was at risk,and I couldn’t get to her in time to save her. That’s why I blame myself.” He blinks, pauses, looks away.
“Is it?” I say, wondering why now he can’t look me in the eye. “Reaper?”
He shakes his head. “This place… This isn’t easy for me, Adriana. Eng could see it. The man is a fucking snake, and he wants every advantage he can get. Being here, surrounded by all this… I can smell it in the air, feel it crawling across my skin — the addiction, the poison they’re smoking and shooting up in the shadows. It doesn’t just pull at me; it makes me think ofherand every way I let her down. But there’s something Eng doesn’t know, something no one really, truly knows, and it’s something that keeps me going and keeps me from joining those people in the shadows chasing fucking oblivion with a needle.”
“What is it?” I breathe.
“You.” His hand brushes my chin, cups it, tilts it upward, and I moan as he leans and kisses me. His eyes dive into mine and wrap themselves around my racing heart. “It’s how much I love you that keeps me going. I never imagined I’d find a second chance, never imagined I’d love someone so deeply that it makes me want to live again. And then I met you.”
I want to believe him. Want it so desperately. For his sake, and for the sake of my fragile heart. I kiss him again, deep, hoping to dispel every ounce of doubt that lurks in the shadows inside me.
“I love you, Reaper.”
“I love you, too.” Another kiss that lights me up inside. That forces my doubts into the furthest reaches of my heart. He takes another look over his shoulder, and those eyes return to mine, and I feel my resistance, my doubt, my concerns, melting beneath their heat. “We’ve had a hard day, and being down here surrounded by all this isn’t good for me. Why don’t we go upstairs and check out the rooms that are waiting for us?”
I want to believe him. I want to believe. I want him. Nodding, I say, “Okay.”
He stands and takes me by the hand, leading me on.
I want to believe.
I want to.
