induratize
(v.) to harden one’s heart against love
MILA
“How did you know?” I asked Ronan, who walked away from me, the lines of his back as tense as granite. He knew I was asking about my mother and that my papa murdered her practically in front of my eyes.
“I don’t know anything,” was all he said before going into the bathroom and slamming the door shut behind him.
I stared at his absence and realized he didn’t want me to know the truth. He was trying to protect my view of my father. He knew how much my papa meant to me, and while I had no doubt Ronan was going through with his revenge, he still didn’t want to mar the vision I had of my father.
My papa killed my mother.
He callously shot her in the same house I was in.
My chest held an ache so sharp, the pain searched for holes to spread through. It was hard to fathom how the father I knew and loved could do that—though, in the back of my mind, I must have always known. The knowledge warped everything I thought I understood. Thinking about it sent a harsh throb through my head. I couldn’t deal with this right now, so I exhaled deeply and forced it to the back of my mind.
What came to the forefront was what Ronan was trying to do for me. He couldn’t act like he cared now I loved his every shade of black. He couldn’t throw out so much gray while I already struggled to contain the expanding heart in my chest.
He couldn’t do this to me.
He could use, restrain, and torture me—but he couldn’t act like he cared. Not now. Not when those cartoon hearts threatened to rain down on me in the shape of bricks.
Chest burning, I got to my feet and stormed to the bathroom, throwing open the door. Head bowed, Ronan stood in the shower, the water running red rivulets down his naked body.
“I know you’re trying to protect my feelings,” I snapped. “And I think it’s disgusting.”
Slowly, he cast me a dark look. I was dealing with D’yavol now. Good. He held onto his gray tightly—as well as his response when he wasn’t interested enough to reply. His expression made me feel unwelcome, so I continued.
“You’re truly the worst kidnapper I’ve ever met.”
His eyes flashed before he looked away to continue washing off the priest’s blood on his chest. “Coming from the girl who gives all captives a bad name. Spreading your sunshine all over my house, apologizing every step of the way. Let’s not forget the part where you came to your kidnapper’s room and begged him to fuck you. At least you’re not a cliché.”
Heat washed up my back. “It’s called Stockholm syndrome. What’s your excuse? Mobster Decency Disorder?”
Teeth clenched, his narrowed gaze returned to me. “Is Stockholm syndrome responsible for the lapse of memory you’re fucking engaged?”
“Technically, I’m not engaged. And it’s not as if it came up organically.”
His eyes were dark pools. “Technically meaning yet.”
I was the one who was supposed to be angry, and now he was? For what? I doubted his noble conscience would fault sleeping with a nearly engaged woman. The thought of him having protested out of pure honor if he knew was almost comical, but I didn’t have any humor left inside me.
I’d given this man my virginity and multiple other firsts. Didn’t he know he would haunt me forever? Apparently, it wasn’t enough for him. He had to control me from afar, guaranteeing I’d never forget or replace him while he moved on with others like Nadia. The idea roiled in my stomach, making me nauseous.
Ronan would forget me eventually. And that felt like the biggest rejection of all, searing the very core of my heart. Stinging pride was what forced the next words out.
“At least Carter doesn’t murder people for a living.”
Ronan made an unamused noise, practically baring his teeth at me. “Fuck you, Mila.”
I bristled. “Fuck you! And fuck your decency too. I’m so over it.”
He was on me so fast I didn’t even get a chance to escape. Not that I would. I didn’t fear D’yavol, and that was one of the biggest problems of all.
“You don’t want my decency?” he growled in my ear, pressing his wet body against mine. “So be it.”
A shiver ghosted down my spine. The anger, the truth about my papa and mother, the anxiety of the future—it was tangled; overwhelming; draining. I didn’t have the energy or desire to struggle when Ronan bent me over the vanity. The marble dug into my hips, but the hollow ache in my chest overrode the pain.
Ronan jerked my thong down my thighs, pushed my shirt to my hips, and shoved into me in one thrust. I hissed a noise of half-pleasure, half-pain, as his hand collared my throat. Water dripped down my collarbone like tears.
I braced my hands on the mirror while he fucked me hard from behind, each slap of flesh radiating his anger. There was no intimacy involved. Hardly any pleasure. But I took his rage, my heart suddenly deciding it needed him in any way it could have him.
He yanked my head back by my hair, his growl at my ear. “Malen’kaya lgunishka . . . fucking engaged.” The words sounded like a curse, but a subtle note in his voice reached my heart, tugging at each frayed edge. Beneath his fury, a hint of vulnerability lay.
I’d found another weakness.
He was weak when he was left behind.
Breathing harsh pants, my fingers slipped down the mirror, the words escaping my throat. “I never wanted the engagement.”
“Well, congratulations are in order then,” he gritted, “because it’s not happening.”
The word “congratulations” hit me with a mocking load of vulnerability: My papa murdered my mother and would soon be killed himself. Congratulations . . . Ivan hated me. Congratulations . . . I’d be left destitute by my own brothers. Congratulations . . . Ronan would again be on the other side of the lonely Atlantic. Congratulations . . .
The final truth sent hot tears down my cheeks. I dipped my head so Ronan couldn’t see them. My fingers slipped farther down the mirror as I cried for an uncertain future and for a man fucking me physically and emotionally.
Ronan went still for a second before slowly tilting my head up so he could see my reflection. A smudged mirror. Red-tinted tears streaked paths through the dried blood on my face. Inked fingers collared my throat.
“Fuck.” He pulled out of me, turned me around, and framed my face with his hands. “Did I hurt you?”
I shook my head.
“I don’t mean just physically, Mila.”
His words burned the backs of my eyes, and I shook my head again.
“Why the tears?”
Throat thick, I simply lifted a shoulder, biting my lip to hold in the sudden urge to sob, but the gentleness of his hands on my face broke me like a dam.
With a rough noise, Ronan pushed my face against his chest. “I’ve never met a woman who cries as much as you. You’re like a faucet.” He let me sob into his chest for a long time. When the tears faded, he asked, “Is this about your papa?”
I swallowed. “Some of it.”
“The rest?”
I didn’t want to think of my father/mother/murder situation, so I avoided it. “Ivan hates me now . . .” It went silent for a second, but he waited for me to continue, somehow knowing there was more. “I always wanted family . . . siblings.” My voice was thick with emotion. “And it sounds like they hate me too.” A single tear escaped.
Ronan tipped my chin to meet his eyes, brushing away the tear with a thumb. “Lions don’t lose sleep over the opinions of sheep.”
My body quieted, every cell in me soaking up his words and leaving a weightlessness behind. He was being decent again, but I didn’t complain this time.
It was too late for that.
I loved his black and his gray and every shade in between. I loved him so much it was embedded in my skin. I loved him, and even knowing I would lose him, it felt like my heart would simply stop if I didn’t tell him.
With an exhale, I opened my mouth, but it slowly closed by what I saw in his eyes—or rather, what he saw in mine. His softness evaporated, and the cool, insensitive D’yavol returned. Without a word, he walked away, leaving me wet, cold, and drowning beneath the heavy weight of rejection.
I didn’t know how long I stood there before I caught my reflection in the mirror. Numb, I turned to meet it face-on. It had to be residual tears. Or a trick of the light. Though I knew it wasn’t either of those things when Madame Richie’s laughter returned, resounding in my ears. Her cackles turned into a witchy crescendo of “congratulations” while I stared into my ice-blue eyes holding a glimmer they’d always lacked.
I guessed sparks came from passion.
Even ones that eventually destroyed you.
The mirror shattered with one strike of my hand. It pinged like untuned music notes as I walked out of the room.
