I swat his hand away. “Think of it as repaying you for this morning,” I tell him. Though, I’m not really sure why I’m doing it if I’m being honest. Something about the sight of the man being inured just…gets to me.
“Very well,” Damian mumbles.
I take his hand slowly, and look at the burnt skin along the side of his large fingers and palm, up his forearm.
“This will take a couple weeks to heal completely,” I remark. “I’m surprised you didn’t get hurt worse.”
“Like I said, the explosion wasn’t as bad as it seemed.”
I chuckle softly. “Why do I get the feeling you’d say that even if you lost half of your face?”
“I’d be alive, wouldn’t I?”
I shake my head and start to clean up the wound. Damian doesn’t hiss or make any sound of discomfort whatsoever. He just takes it. I know it hurts, though, because his muscles tense every time the cloth touches the burnt flesh, the veins in his hands and arms becoming more prominent.
I chew on my bottom lip for a second before pulling my head together.
“Why are you doing this?” he asks me.
I blink and look into his eyes. They’re warm and curious, but hold a darkness that I can’t quite read into. I’ve no idea where he’s from, who he really is. Just why he’s here.
Yet, I couldn’t let him stand out there injured.
“I don’t know,” I say honestly. “I just am.”
Damian’s eyes search mine, just as mine do his, and I wonder what he’s seeing there. My heart beats quickly, and I try to ignore it.
I look down away from him and put ointment on the burns before wrapping his arm in bandages just tight enough. I run my fingers along his tattoos for a moment. Some of them are floral. Darkly shaded vines tangled all around them.
Nothing else is said. Not even as he rolls his sleeves down and we leave the bathroom.
But I still smell him, just like I did this morning. Like a spicy musk, pine, and wood.
I remember those words he spoke to me too. Even if they’d been so quiet I almost didn’t catch them with my ear muffs on.
Good boy.
Two days later, it’s time to marry Rosalie. Officially. Legally. Though not celebratory. The wedding ceremony will be a week from now, but Eivor insists that we go over the contract of our marriage and make it official now rather than later.
How romantic.
Weddings that take place in a judge’s office aren’t exactly uncommon in my family. Sometimes marriages need to be secret, or not told to the public until a certain time. But this one? I’m not sure why Eivor is so adamant that we tie the knot in the law office first. Perhaps because of the bomb threat.
The warning.
The Carvels are our main suspect, but there are other enemies that both of our families have had and maintain. Truces between our families only last so long; it was only a matter of time before someone lashed out.
Still, the show must go on.
I’ve smoked about four cigarettes by the time I finally step into the law office and head to the judge’s chambers with Carmine and Soren on my heels.
“There’s no rush, Alessio,” Carmine reminds me.
“You could have fooled me,” I reply with a smirk. “Besides, the sooner this is over, the sooner I can get a drink. Don’t you want one,Carm?”
My brother glares at me. “You’re on thin ice.”
I push the door open. “Just like you. Don’t think I forget what you were like when our father died.”
