Ripping open an alcohol wipe, I clean away the crusted blood and inspect where I sliced into his neck with my knife.
His vocal cords vibrate under my fingers when he replies, “You would have never believed me without proof.”
I don’t disagree because he’s right.
After dabbing antibiotic ointment over the area, I use two butterfly strips to keep the cut closed so it heals properly, thenchoose a large, waterproof adhesive pad instead of gauze and gently smooth out the edges to make sure it stays secure.
“You’ll live,” I tell him when I’m done.
He covers my hand with his and softly says, “Thank you, Aoife.”
Aoife was the girl I used to be. The woman I am now is someone entirely different. In order for me to begin taking back my life, I have to make a choice. Be the naïve girl whose life wasn’t her own or become a strong woman who will never let anyone control her again.
“It’s Syn,” I reply intentionally. I pack everything back into the first aid kit and move over to sit on the couch across from him. “And you can thank me by telling me where to find the man with constellation tattoos.”
I refuse to say his name out loud. The next time I utter it will be the last thing he hears before I kill him.
Considering me, Aleksander props his elbow on the arm of the chair and touches his thumb to each finger, pinky to index and back again.
“Tristan hasn’t told you anything, has he?”
My heart painfully slams against my chest. No matter how much they’ve hurt me, I can’t just shut off my feelings or make myself stop loving them by flipping an invisible off switch.
“If there’s something you want to say, spit it out.”
He leans forward, and by the seriousness on his face, I know I’m not going to like what’s about to come out of his mouth.
“Tristan came by looking for you last night. He also wanted to know where our father was.”
Our father?
Whatever I was going to say abruptly dies on the tip of my tongue. And then I get angry. Fuck him. My tolerance for manipulative bullshit is at capacity.
Unable to listen to one more person lie to me, I’m off the couch and walking toward the elevator.
“Syn, don’t leave.”
“I won’t let you use me for your stupid vendetta against Tristan.”
“Don’t go,” he implores, sounding almost panicked.
Incensed, I stab at the down button.
Aleksander bounds out of the chair and makes the mistake of grabbing me. Twisting out of his hold, I spin around to his back and kick out his knee. The hard wood judders under my feet when he hits the floor.
“You don’t ever fucking touch me without my permission.”
He twists his body around and looks up at me. I’m taken aback by the visceral sadness that clouds his storm-gray eyes. Aleksander is twice my size, but right now, he looks so much like the shy boy I remember from the gala ten years ago.
Bending his legs to his chest, he cups the back of his neck with both hands and drops his face to his knees.
“I’m sorry. I just…please, don’t leave.”
I glare down at him. “Give me one good reason I should stay.”
I said something similar to Tristan not too long ago.
His deep, gruff voice is muffled and barely coherent when he replies, “Because I have no one else.”
