Ironically, ever since that night, Ihavebeen in free-fall.
Not a dramatic or suicidal one. One that involves falling intoher, into something I can’t bring myself to name.
And what worries me now is the sudden stop.
Will she come to her senses? Remember more about our pasts and realize she shouldrun, not walk, away from me? Or realizewhy I’ve still got a wall up between us, and still haven’t shared her bed?
I still haven’t told her that one truth that could destroy her.
The problem with falling for someone is that eventually, you have to touch the ground again.
AndI don’t fucking want to.
I pace the length of my living room, the moody lighting casting deep shadows over my face. I glance out the window, then back at my phone, my brow knitting.
She went outhoursago, after using the Mercury's treadmill. Last I heard, she was getting food with Evelina and Brooklyn.
Nothing since.
I want to tell myself it's fine. I do feel a little bit of an asshole that I'mnotworrying about a looming, shadowy threat trying to “get” her. But I’ve looked through the security footage from the night she was supposedly chased back to this building. I also paid someone to hack into the Metropolitan Transit Authority's system and steal a copy of the dash footage from D’Angelo’s bus. It wasn’t theclearestimage, but…
Yeah.
I’m not so sure she was pushed, either. And there seriously isn't atraceof anyone chasing her through the Upper West Side the other week.
That'swhat's worrying me right now. Not that someone is trying to hurt her. That her own mind is fucking with her.
Making her see people and threats that don’t exist. Confusing and twisting her reality. She told me about seeing Dr. Turov, andmentioned dialing back her meds. It made me take a closer look at what she’s on. It’s a lot, and some seriously high doses, too.
I exhale, gritting my teeth.
I’m not fucking used toworryingabout somebody like this.
Caring about them.
…honestly, a lot fucking more than justcaring.
I want to say that this is something I “haven’t felt in a while”, since Lark. But the reality is, as much as losing her broke me, I can look back on our relationship now through clearer glasses, not the rose-tinted ones I wore back then.
I can look past the shiny veneer and see the rot that was there. The way we clashed. The way I changed who I was to be what I thought she needed. The way I told myself that feeling manipulated and fucked with was part of what love is.
I don’t think those things anymore. I know better.
So when I consider what I feel now for this woman I’ve brought into my life?
It scares theshitout of me.
My phone buzzes with a message from one of my men down in the lobby.
She’s back.
I stop myself from going to meet her at the elevator like a fucking puppy dog. Instead, I stay where I am, by the living room windows, gazing out at the city.
The front door to the penthouse opens, and I hear the heavy thud of her chunky black combat boots.
“Bane…”
I imagined I’d get an apology for going AWOL, or her usual shrugged-off sass.
