“He tried.”
Not wanted after all.
“How much?”
“What?”
“How much was I worth?” I asked.
“I told him no.”
“How much?” I shouted.
“Twelve million.”
Ghost whistled.
I blinked, completely flabbergasted. “All my life, I thought I was nothing. Come to find out I’m worth twelve million.”
“You aren’t worth twelve million,” Kieran said, rushing over to grab my arms and shake me. “You’re priceless.”
I didn’t say anything. In fact, I felt a little… empty. Maybe this was dissociating. My old counselor told me about it once. It seemed to fit what she said. I was here but not. Standing in this room but disconnected from my surroundings and even from my own mind. Instead of racing thoughts, there was nothing. An odd sort of stillness, a quiet place to drift. It was kinda nice to be honest, a lot better than trying to make sense of mob life and my impending murder.
Kieran shook me again. “Hazier.”
I heard his voice. I even looked at him. But I didn’t hear what he said, and I didn’t really register his face.
I was lifted off the ground. The air around me moved. Seconds later, cold water made me gasp. My whole body jumped, trying to get away from the icy needles.
Kieran made a noise and pushed me beneath it again, and clarity rushed back like a flood. My teeth chattered, and the blue button-up clung to my chest.
“Kieran!” I complained. “It’s freezing!”
He grunted, and I looked up, catching my breath at the sight he made completely saturated under the shower spray. His inky hair was plastered to his forehead, and droplets trickled from the lashes framing his resolute blue stare. His nose was pink from the icy temperature, but his strong bone structure counteracted it. Instead of looking cold and weak, he reeked of endurance and resolve as if he could stand there beneath the frosty sheets as long as it took for me to come back. His bare chest was drenched as water poured against his neck and over his pecs, the temperature turning his nipples hard. The tattoo on his shoulder told a tale of the last shadow that tried to swallow him but failed.
Water slid over his lips, beading in the cupid’s bow and collecting at the corners of his mouth. Looking at it made me thirsty, but I didn’t move to take a drink.
“You asked if I refused a job,” he said, voice somehow blending with the water droplets clinging to my skin. “What did I say?”
“Once,” I answered.
“They tried to hire me before I even knew it was you. I told them to eat shit and die.”
Amusement lit me up inside. “Liar.”
“The mob doesn’t like to hear the word no. They sent me an address. It was yours.”
If he wanted me dead, I would be. He’d had so many opportunities. It would have been an incredibly easy payday.
“And that’s why I left in the middle of the night. To personally make it clear that I was not doing this job and to find out why they wanted you dead.”
“And now we know,” I said, shivering beneath the spray.
A mobster’s son.Yeah, I always wondered about my parents, and now that I knew, I wondered if not knowing would have been better.
He reached around to adjust the temperature, the water warming instantly. “It changes nothing.”
“Seems like it changes everything,” I murmured. Even if I wasn’t quite sure how everything was different, I just knew it was.
