"Well, girl," she said, sighing when she moved to sit next to me in a chair, doing so with a bit of resignation in her voice. "What are we to do?" she asked, shaking her head. When I said nothing, she nodded. "Try to heal, I guess," she went on. "I think it is going to take a long time."
I went back to Vermont with her and her husband that was short and stocky, who could always be found in the kitchen, cooking grand meals every night of the week because he loved it, because it was his true passion in life, not just the desk job he kept to pay the bills.
It was in Vermont that I was shoved into therapy.
It was in Vermont that my therapist suggested I take some kickboxing classes to learn to vent my feelings.
It was in Vermont that the impossible started to happen.
I began to heal.
Not quickly, not all at once.
But little bits over the years.
But maybe not in the way Aunt Tully had hoped for.
I'd been a difficult teen.
Angry and prone to explosive outbursts, or depressions that would send me to my room for weeks at a time, I was a prime example to them of why they chose not to have children of their own.
I disrupted their lives.
And try as they might to love me through my pain, they could never plug up the wounds that kept bleeding rage.
It was in their attic - my bedroom - that I hatched the idea.
Of making good on my promise.
Of revenge.
Of making them pay.
Aunt Tully and Uncle George were still in Vermont somewhere, likely enjoying the peace that having me move out afforded them.
We kept in touch.
Some holidays I would even venture up.
But there was always a dark cloud hanging over it all.
I think it was easier for them to forget when I wasn't around.
About her brother and his exploding heart.
About her sister-in-law and her pain pills
About her niece and her brutalization, and choice not to live beyond it.
About her nephew who had been part of the abuse.
About the angry kid they inherited, that they couldn't fix.
"Ya said there were five of them," Adler cut through my thoughts, making my head turn on the pillow to find him doing the same, watching me with dark eyes.
"Yeah," I agreed, brows drawing together.
His arm lifted, slid across my body, found my forearm, turned it, and traced a finger over the bullet tattoos there.
"Ya are hunting them down."
It had been a long journey just to find them, hadn't been something I even had the skills to do for a long time. Not until I started working for Geoff.
It was then I dropped myself down in a tattoo shop, got the outline of the bullets, and made myself a promise.
I would make good on the vow I'd made all those years before.
They deserved to pay for what they did.
They stole three innocent lives from this world.
They needed to pay with their own.
It took dozens of trips back to the Bronx, digging into gang business, making me someone to be suspicious of, this girl snooping around where she didn't belong.
Gang members changed every time you blinked.
Looking for people who had been there ten to fifteen years before was a feat.
I'd technically found the leader first.
Doing a bid for trafficking.
Not due out for two years at the time.
But the day he was free, he had a tail.
And then a bullet point-blank to his forehead, but not before I explained to him why he had to die.
That first one was the hardest.
Taking a life was a thing that seemed so abstract to normal people. Taking a life in cold revenge, even harder still to understand.
Once the hot part of anger banked, most people were able to move past it all.
But not me.
Every year only fed the ice inside, the desire to complete the mission before someone died of old age or an OD or whatever else might take them down.
They had to die by my hand.
And so four of them had.
"That was where ya went," Adler observed. "After we first met. Ya got yer big paycheck, and were stable enough to take off, track down number four, and take him out. That was why ya were getting that bullet shaded in that night."
"Yeah," I agreed, not sure why there was a bit of a pit in my stomach at admitting that. Especially considering the man in the bed with me was a former contract killer.
"Duchess?"
"Yeah?" I asked, stomach tightening, not used to his tone of voice.
"Ya are a fuckin' incredible woman," he surprised me by saying. He turned fully on his side, looking down at me. "Ya were incredible before, too, but more so now. And since ya don't share this with anyone, I don't think ya have ever heard it before. Fuckin' incredible." I felt my lips curve up at that, shaking my head at him. "Only you would think tracking down and killing people is incredible. Most people would call me crazy. Or Wicked. Evil."