I open my mouth to ask if he killed them, but a flickering memory of me on my knees, staring at that gun, rushes through my mind and shuts me up. Suddenly needing out of this tiny space, I scoot off the bar stool, facing Matteo and in profile to Kayden, my hands flattening on my hips to hide the way they stupidly shake. “Where’s the bathroom?”
“There’s one off the living room,” Matteo offers.
“Thanks,” I murmur, already moving to make my escape, but Kayden isn’t about to allow it.
He shackles my arm, rotating me to face him, his touch a branding I both welcome and fear. Proof I need space to get my head on straight. “I didn’t do this to you,” he says, proving he’s read my anger, and the blame I didn’t even realize I was placing until this moment.
“That’s not the answer I want,” I say, afraid he’s a killer. Afraid I am, too.
“You didn’t ask a question.”
“You know the question without me asking it.”
“Did I kill those men?” he asks.
“Yes. Did you kill those men?”
“They attacked Adriel when he tried to leave the scene of your attack, and he made sure he was the last man standing. So no. I didn’t kill them, but I’m also not sorry they’re dead. They would have killed any of us in a heartbeat.”
It’s as good of an answer as I could want, considering people are dead and I’m at the root of the reason. “Can I please go to the bathroom?”
A muscle in his jaw tics, telling me he wants to push me toward acceptance, but he doesn’t. He releases me, and I don’t give him time to change his mind, darting for the door without daring to look behind me. Entering the living room, I make fast tracks toward the stairwell, intending to head to the bedroom, where I will be free to pace and perhaps indulge in pounding the mattress a few times. I’m already on the bottom step when I think better of being trapped in a room with a bed, with Kayden surely to follow me sooner rather than later.
Detouring, I cross to the second stairwell and boldly climb to the next level of the house. Once I’m at the top, I am beyond pleased to discover a wall of windows, and a door leading to a covered outdoor space. Somehow, watching a storm while one rages inside me is positively perfect. I reach for the gray wood door handle and open it, cringing as a buzzer goes off, alerting Kayden that I’m not in the bathroom. I don’t turn back. I need every second I can get to be alone and think, without Kayden distracting me by being an overwhelming presence.
I exit onto the concrete patio that extends the length of the narrow house, the cold, wet air rushing over me, the door slamming behind me. It’s shutting me outside, but then, I’m already outside every reality fathomable. Shivering, I fold my arms in front of me and walk to the waist-high concrete wall, rain and a grayish shadow draping a magnificent view of hills and rooftops. Knowing I have only a few minutes alone, I consider the situation. It seems evident that my issue is control, or rather lack thereof. I’m letting Kayden dictate everything that happens to me, and though I could give myself a pass while I was in so much pain that I was incapable of moving, I can’t anymore. It’s time to make decisions for myself, starting with what happens next.
Behind me the door buzzes, and already the little bit of freedom I have is being taken away. I know now that he allowed my retreat to simply relocate our conversation to a place with privacy. I face him, and while adrenaline radiates through me, the control I so want radiates from him. “I wasn’t looking for a way to run, if that’s what you think,” I declare, backing up as he stalks toward me, tall and broad, his longish hair framing his handsome features set in hard lines.
I hit the wall as he stops a breath away from touching me, and it terrifies me how much I want him to touch me, how much I want a hero, and anger surges in me at my weakness. “If you were afraid I was running again,” I lash out, “there was nowhere to go.”
“Were you thinking about it?”
“You didn’t give me time to think about anything.”
“You didn’t say you needed to think. You said you wanted to talk to me. So let’s go inside where it’s warm and talk.”
“I like the cold,” I declare, darting around him into the open space, and only when I have several safe steps between us do I turn to face him, as he does me.
“You didn’t like it last night.”
“I like it now,” I say. “I like it a lot. It’s real, when not much else is.”
His eyes glint. “Why do I know that’s about me?”
“It’s about everything, including you. It’s about you feeling familiar when you say you aren’t. And me believing I’m Ella, but I’m not in the passport system. Now I’m Rae Eleana. She’s not real, and yet she’s me.”
“A name doesn’t define you. We talked about this.”
“A name is a part of the identity I’ve lost. Someone just snapped their fingers and I was gone.” Laughter bubbles from my lips, bitter, almost hysterical. “It might have been me. How brutal is that, when I’d do anything to have me back right now? So you see, I need the cold. The rain. I need things that are definable. That are real.”
His eyes flash, and before I even know he’s moved, I’m crushed against his chest, the fingers of one hand tangled in my hair, the other molding me to him. “How’s this for real?” he murmurs, his mouth claiming mine, his tongue sweeping past my teeth in a deep stroke I feel in every part of me. A moan escapes my lips, and I both hate him and crave him in this moment. He knows it, too, deepening the kiss, his tongue doing a slow, seductive dance against mine. I want to fight. I want to push him away, and the more I can’t, the angrier I become. He just keeps making me angry. Keeps caressing me with his seductive tongue, keeps making me want more. And when he does tear his mouth from mine, he softly declares, “That was real. I’m real. And you are not alone.”
“Until I am again. Matteo just set you free.”
He leans me against a beam, one hand pressed above my head, his leg nestled between mine. “And you think that means what?”
“I . . . You’re out.”