ZAHRA
Declan’s grunts and groans of frustration and the thump of his fist slamming into the punching bag fill the room. Again. And again. And again. The last words he uttered came out as a growl as he instructed Aidan—‘Find Lorkan and bring him to me.’His brother had left, Azula and Connor in tow, before Declan had even finished the sentence. Instead of waiting in the office until we got word that the traitor was captured, Declan had barged straight to the basement of our home.
He’d thrown the gym door open and slammed it against the wall with such ferocity I’m surprised the door didn’t fall from its hinges. Declan didn’t bother changing into his workout gear as he ripped open his dress shirt, tossing it on the floor, and started his barrage against the punching bag. The first punch he threw sent the bag flying, which I knew was no small feat. Ten minutes into his barrage, his entire body is dripping in sweat, and the temperature in the room has increased at least ten degrees from the heat radiating from Declan’s body.
Once he started his punches, he never let up. Hit after hit, every time I thought he would pause to take a breath or shake his hands out, he did the opposite, adding more heat to every punch he threw, as if it wasn’t just a punching bag in front of him. Initially, I figured he was imagining it was Lorkan in front of him. Lorkan, his uncle. The man who tried to kill me. The man who killed my father. And Declan’s.
The longer this goes on, the more I’m convinced there are bigger demons Declan is fighting.
Declan lets out a loud hiss as his knuckles finally burst open, blood dripping down his hand and onto the cushioned floor of the gym. He haphazardly wipes the blood off on his dress pants, wipes the sweat off his forehead with the back of his arm, and spits on the ground. My throat dries at how utterly obscene he looks right now.Are you serious, Zahra? Stop ogling the man when he’s clearly on the brink of a mental breakdown.
The rational part of me is right. Now is not the time to focus on how Declan is standing right in front of me, looking straight out of one of my fantasies. He needs a friend. Needs to know that just because the world is cruel doesn’t mean he’s alone.
His fist connects with the punching bag again, except this time, before he can pull back, I wrap my hand around his wrist and hold him in place. “That’s enough.”
Declan freezes, but his eyes are feral. As if he lost himself so much in the violence that he doesn’t even realize where he is now. I imagine it’s a lot like how I looked when I killed the man at the warehouse. He had been able to calm me down then. Had been able to stop me from fully snapping. And I would do the same for him.
Keeping one of my hands on his wrist, I move the other to his face, brushing away the sweaty strands of hair that havefallen into his eyes. “Declan. I need you to take a few steps back and sit down.”
He blinks, standing in place before speaking. “I’m getting my blood on you.”
My heart squeezes at the sound of his voice—gruff and defeated. “That’s okay. I don’t mind it. What I do mind is you hurting yourself for no reason.”
Declan’s eyes fall to the ground.
“Let’s get you cleaned up.”
He begrudgingly lets me bring him into the small trainer’s room attached to the gym. I shove him onto the bench, leaving a water bottle next to him, while I rummage through the different medical supply cabinets.
Declan chugs the water in a matter of seconds, but protests as I open some alcohol wipes. “This really isn’t necessary.”
“It is,” I insist, and begin cleaning his wound.
He tries, and fails, to pull his hand back. “I don’t think I need to remind you that I’ve had much worse injuries. I just survived a bullet to the shoulder; a few cracked knuckles is nothing.”
“Just because you’ve survived worse doesn’t mean I can’t take care of you now,” I insist, grabbing another alcohol wipe.
“Zahra—”
“Declan, whatever excuse you’re going to say, I’m not going to listen. You were incredibly stubborn when it came to taking care of me after I sprained my ankle. I’d also been hurt much worse in the past but that didn’t stop you from dotting over me like a mother hen.”
His eyebrows narrow, tension forming on his face. “So I took care of you, and now you’re returning the favor?”
My heart feels like it's been punctured. It’s more than that, more than me just wanting to call it even. I want to be the one who helped heal him. I shake my head vehemently. “No. This isn’t transactional. Our relationship isn’t transactional.”
Declan looks at me like I’m a puzzle he can’t quite solve. “It’s not?” he asks.
I can’t blame him for asking. Up until this point, the only explicit conversations we’ve had about our relationship included laying out the very specific details about how our relationship is only transactional. But the more we got to know each other, the more the lines started to blur. Maybe those lines were never even there to begin with. I just kept fooling myself with the idea that we could keep things strictly business. Strictly professional.
“I’m your…friend,” I state, wincing at how simple that sounded. ‘Friend’ doesn’t seem to quite scratch the surface of what we are to each other. But at the same time, saying I’m his wife feels like rubbing salt into the wound, a reminder of our business arrangement, as opposed to what it should be—a declaration of love.
Declan stays quiet. Contemplative. He continues to study me in a way that makes me want to squirm, so I try to distract myself instead. “Do you want to tell me what you were thinking about when you were hitting that punching bag like it owed you millions of dollars?”
He shuts his eyes, and for a few minutes, I’m convinced he won’t open them until I leave. Eventually, he whispers, “Every time I think I’m finally treading water, a tidal wave slams me back down and I’m drowning. I thought I was ready for this. Ready to be a boss. And yet all I’ve done so far is allow traitors to enter our ranks right under my nose. My whole life, I’ve underestimated my uncle. And it got my father killed.”
“Declan, you can’t blame yourself for that?—”
“Except I can. My uncle was always reckless, with an uncontrollable temper. I don’t think he has a rational bone inhis body, which is why I know my grandfather counted his blessings that my father was born first. My entire life, I watched as people disregarded my Uncle Lorkan. Sure, he inherited some wealth and say in the business, but at the end of the day, my father held all the power. Lorkan was at his beck and call. People would harass him all the time about it. On a good day, he would curse those people out, and on a bad day, he would pick fights. Using their disrespect as an invitation to get his anger out.
