He talked about how much he missed being inside her. How much he missed the feeling of her blood on his hands.
How he couldn’t wait to do it again. How he would know if she took anyone else while they were separated. That he’d have to cut her once more to make her new again and erase anyone who’d touched her.
I fought back the surge of vomit in my throat, covering my mouth with my hand as I handed Ryker the note. “We have to go,” I grunted, making my way toward the front of the house.
Darragh’s obsession with Irina was a circumstance we hadn’t planned for, thinking she was nothing more than a pawn for Murphy, and she’d no longer be a convenient target once she was under Bellandi protection at the estate.
This level of obsession was different.
This level of obsession was psychotic, driving even logical men to do things they would never normally do. Any man who worked for Tiernan Murphy was far from balanced in the first place.
I climbed into the driver’s seat, my foot hitting the gas the moment Ryker threw himself into the passenger seat. He was already on the phone, calling Enzo to have someone sent to Darragh’s house to scour it for more evidence.
I didn’t give the first shit in that moment, far more concerned with seeing Irina alive. With convincing her it would be okay.
The fear she must have felt knowing he was out there...that wasn’t something I’d planned for.
Fuck.
I drove as fast as I dared, ignoring any speed limits while Ryker clung to his oh shit handle. “Call Ivory now,” I ordered Ryker, glancing at the man out of the corner of my eye. He touched his cellphone screen, raising it to his ear as silence filled the SUV.
“No answer,” he said, swallowing as he ended the call. I rounded the corner to the house so quickly that the SUV felt like it might tip onto two wheels.
The guards barely managed to get the gate open before I barreled through, parking at the curb right in front of the house.
I was out of it in an instant, racing up the front steps. I shoved my thumb into the scanner to open the front door, hurrying into the mansion with all of my fear driving me forward. I skidded to a halt in the foyer, staring at Ivory where she stood on top of broken glass in the middle of the room.
I followed her eyes, tracking up and up and up until I saw what held her so transfixed: Irina, sitting on top of the railing at the edge of the gallery and staring down at us in shock.
Her arms trembled, weakening as she held on, and I knew she wouldn’t last much longer.
My heart battered my chest, like it might bruise my ribs with every emotion that suddenly poured through me. With everything that consumed me.
Because Irina and I both knew that, despite her nickname, she didn’t have the wings to survive that fall. She’d knowingly climbed up over the railing.
She’d wanted to die. To leave me. And with that knowledge, the wall inside me crumbled, shattering into a million pieces and letting in everything I’d spent months denying.
Her arm slipped, her fingers grappling for purchase as a moment of panic twisted her features. For one single, heart-stopping moment, I stood helplessly as Irina fought to live. Her fingers wrapped around the railing once more as my relief stole the breath from my lungs.
Something in her eyes gave me a moment of hope. A moment of wonder when I watched the old traces of my butterfly flutter across her face. As if she was still in there.
Waiting for me.
43
SCAR
“Don’t move, Butterfly,” I said, slowly stepping closer to the stairway.
“Don’t come any closer,” Irina said, shifting her weight on the railing. She squeezed her eyes closed, shaking her head as if she needed to chase away that moment of something more that had danced between us finally.
“We both know I’m coming up those steps. If you want to jump, then I’ll go with you,” I said, ignoring Ivory’s gasp behind me. I could picture her hands on her face and the tears in her eyes, but I couldn’t look at her and do what I needed to do.
I’d failed Irina, more monumentally than I’d ever failed anyone or anything in my life. I wouldn’t do it again.
“What?” Irina asked, her mouth gaping with shock. “Why would you do that?”
“I don’t want to live in a world that doesn’t have you in it,” I murmured, staring up at her face and watching the first tear trail down her cheek.
“Why would you care?” she asked, her face strained as she shifted her weight on the railing again. “You’ve never wanted me, anyway. You’ve made that very clear. So why do you care if I live or die?”
“You know that’s not true, cuore mio. I want you more than I’ve ever wanted anything,” I said, slowly ascending the stairs.
One step.
Then another.
Irina held my stare, distracted by the conversation between us and not seeming to realize just how close I would come before she could jump.
Just a little closer.
“You’ll never love me. No one ever will, especially not now,” she said, her voice strangled as she admitted what existed in the deepest corners of her mind. As she laid bare all the insecurities and the thoughts that twisted her up until she couldn’t function.
The ones that I’d done nothing but affirm with my actions, even if her thoughts couldn’t be farther from the truth.
Another step, and I crested the top of the stairs.
Irina’s gaze dropped to my foot where it touched the wood floor of the gallery. She stared at it for a moment, lifting her eyes back to mine.
Her mouth opened, her lips parting to make way for what I knew would be her final goodbye. “I love you,” she said, cracking my heart open in my chest. “You deserve so much more than you’ll let yourself have.”
Her fingers relaxed around the railing, sliding across the wrought iron as she tipped her body forward.
Irina let go.
44
IRINA
Everything shifted in slow motion. There was no fear. No panic or any of the grief I’d felt staring into Scar’s eyes.
In the moments before my death, there was only peace. The kind of peace I’d spent my entire life searching for. I wasn’t haunted by the thoughts swimming in my head, wasn’t tormented by the voice that said I would never be enough for anyone.
I was free.
I flew, spreading my arms out to the side and not feeling a moment of pain as my broken arm raised. Air surrounded me in a moment of suspension, my body weightless as I slowly tipped forward to face the ground.
Reality crashed into me, grabbing me around the waist while I hung in the air. The sudden grip forced the breath from my lungs, sending a shock of pain through me as the freedom of only a moment before was snatched from me.
I gasped, arms solidifying around my waist as I shoved at them. They pulled me back, gripping me tightly and moving so quickly that my legs knocked into the railing painfully
Everything hurt in this world.
I landed on top of something firm, my hands involuntarily shoving at the arms gripping my waist so tightly. “No!” I screamed, clawing at the skin beneath my nails.
The familiar sight of my nails against his scarred flesh gave me a moment of pause, a moment of regret. But the longing for that moment of freedom I’d felt, the peace that had waited for me, made me push forward.