AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Was I? “Yes.”
“Okay then.” She glanced around, noting all the people still in the café. “We should go somewhere more private then.”
Privacy. With Fallon. It had been something I’d been craving for weeks, but I promised myself I wouldn’t see her until I avenged her. Rising from my seat, I followed her out onto the street, staying a couple of steps behind her as she weaved through the masses of people clogging up the sidewalks. The weather was warm for this time of the year, and everyone was out enjoying it.
We walked to the apartment, entering the front door and walking to the elevator. She said nothing as we rode up to the eighth floor, and I had to physically restrain myself from reaching for her. I couldn’t touch her again until after she knew everything. Then, it would be up to her to decide whether she wanted me in her life—every fucked-up part of me.
Inside the apartment, she placed her bag on the counter and then filled up the kettle.
“Tea?” she asked.
“Sure,” I replied absently. I didn’t drink fucking tea.
I walked around the living room, looking at the metal shelving containing medical supplies while she busied herself in the kitchen. When she returned five minutes later, she held out a mug to me. I took it, then set it on the coffee table. Her gaze dropped to my steaming cup.
“You don’t want my tea?”
I wanted more than her fucking tea, but I had to think this out carefully. “I want to talk to you more.”
“Here I am,” she replied softly, blowing across the top of her cup, and sending steam spiraling through the air at me. It smelled of the tea she was drinking and of ylang-ylang. Fuck, I’d missed that scent. “What did you want to talk about?”
I swallowed, wondering why I could look a man in the face while I shot him, but I couldn’t stomach telling Fallon the truth. I tried to sit down, but when it was clear my frenetic energy wasn’t having any of that, I jumped up and began to pace. Fallon watched me curiously.
“Orin, you’re making me nervous,” she said.
“Sorry,” I bit out, running a hand through my hair.
She took a seat on the couch, resting back on the cushions like she had all fucking night to wait for me. I finally forced my legs to stop moving and stared at the woman who had stolen my heart without my permission. Without my awareness. Did I want it back? Fuck no. She could keep it. I wanted her to keep it. Forever. And I decided in that moment, that even if she didn’t want to keep it, that would be okay. I would find a way to move on because all that mattered was her happiness.
Her safety.
And now that I’d taken care of that little Owen Ward problem, I could deliver on at least one of those promises.
Sucking in a deep breath, I dug a hand into my pocket and pulled out the Saint Patrick medallion. The silver pendant was dull in my palm, but I offered it to her. Sitting forward, she set her cup down and then looked at what I was offering her.
She frowned.
Picked up the chunk of silver to get a closer look, then dropped it like it had burned her.
“How did you get that?” She nudged the thing with her foot, too shaken to do anything else.
“It’s for you,” I said. “I took it from him. It’s my trophy for the kill, but I took it for you.”
Her eyes widened at the wordkill. Could I blame her though. It wasn’t every day that the man who obsesses over you kills another man because he hurt you—at least not in her world.
“You killed Owen?”
“Yes.”
She stared at the medallion at her feet, then looked back up at me. “But how did you find him? Grayson looked everywhere.”
Her brother’s motivation was nothing on the all-consuming craving that I had harbored. “I found him.”
“And you killed him for me?”
“Yes.”
Couldn’t she see there wasn’t anything I wouldn’t do for her? Nothing I wouldn’t say. Nobody I wouldn’t slay for her.
