I bring my hand up to my cheek, and no mistake, the wetness of my tears soaks the fingers I trace along their path. I am crying, but it all feels so numb.
“My mother once said, ‘Briseann muid ionas gur féidir linn a chur ar ais le chéile níos láidre fós.’”Nan recites, her Irish accent thickening as she speaks. “It meanswe break so we can be put back together even stronger.”
I swallow back the lump in my throat.
“I killed him,” I whisper, my eyes lowering to the marble tile of the counter. “I’m a murderer.”
“Are you talking about the man who was trying to rape you?” Nan asks. Obviously, someone has filled her in on what happened at thestables. All I can do is nod, a fresh wave of tears falling. Nan’s slender finger dips beneath my chin, forcing me to look at her.
“There is a difference between murder and survival, my child. The guilt you are bearing is not needed for a man like that and will only weigh you down until it consumes you, and you drown in it.”
Dropping her finger, she moves away from the counter, and a moment later, I hear the squeak of metal and the sound of running water. The room begins to fill with steam, the heavy presence of heat at my back stilting my anxiety just enough for me to breathe.
“Death in our world is nothing new, and you will need to learn to accept that,” Nan continues as she leads me to the glass-enclosed shower. The walls are covered in a mystic green hexagonal tile with the glass flanking it on one side. A large, golden rain showerhead with vertical jets take up one side. A perfect complement to the exotic-colored tile below it.
“It sounds harsh.” Nan closes the shower door behind me,” but it is necessary to survive.”
“What if I don’t want to accept it?” I ask her curiously, gently running a bar of soap along my battered body.
“Then the guilt will consume you and drive you mad,” is her simple statement.
I turn her words over in my head, the wheel spinning and spinning as I robotically go through my shower routine with some help from Nan.
She is right. It was about survival. It was him or me, but isn’t that everything in this world? I think back to the shootout just a few weeks before the wedding. I felt such guilt for those men that it affected my sleep. One nightmare after another, their faces flashing before my mind’s eye like a broken record.
I doubt they would have felt the same.
Iknowthey wouldn’t have.
My whole life, I’ve allowed myself to be the victim. I allowed myself to be used and hurt and broken because I don’t want to be like them. I don’t want to murder or maim or torture. Fighting back means I have to hurt someone, and if I hurt someone, I’m no better than they are. Animals. Killers without a conscience.
They aren’t all that way.
Matthias.
I’ve never seen him torture someone for the fun of it. Never seen him kill on a whim. He could have killed Mark after he got the information he needed from him, but he didn’t. Then there are Matthias’s men. Elias would have killed every single one of them without a second thought for talking to him the way Matthias’s men do. They aren’t disrespectful. They’re comfortable, and Elias never allowed his men to be comfortable with him.
He hadn’t wanted comradery and respect built from love and loyalty. Elias wanted respect built on fear, but men who fear. You never truly respect you. They ‘d never be blindly loyal.
Dante’s words at the funeral stir something inside of me.
They aren’t your men, Christian.
The tension between the pair had been palpable. Christian doesn’t respect his uncle or his men, and that is an opening I can work with. Dante wants the name of Libby’s killer, and I’ll give him just what he wants.
I just need solid evidence to present to him.
Without Dante’s men Christian will have nothing. Elias’s men fled after the port was seized and his assets frozen.
A dark smile tips up my lips as a plan forms in my head.
I am done allowing myself to be the victim. Done playing the damsel in distress. Nothing is going to stop me from brining Christian’s empire to the ground, and God help anyone who gets in my way.
nine
Nan helps me dry off and dress in the clothes Marianne brought. The fabric is soft and smells faintly of lavender detergent, something warm and domestic that feels strange against my skin. We do not talk any more about killing or murder. The air between us stays fragile and delicate, so she fills it with chatter about her family.
Our family.
