His men killed everyone.
“How?”
“How did they die?” he asks.
“Yeah.” I don’t even know why I am asking this. It’s sick. I shouldn’t want to hear, but there is some sick need to know.
“Skye.”
“Just tell me.”
“I blew up the building.”
At this point, my eyes must pop out of my head, and my heart is pounding so hard I swear I can hear it.
“I—don’t—I didn’t—Are they dead because of me?” I don’t even know what to say. I’m stuttering and speechless and shaking all over.
“Stop.” One of his hands drops off the steering wheel and touches my hand. “This isn’t on you. You saved us.” His finger caresses my tattoo. At the movement, the air in my lungs rushes out of my mouth. It feels intimate and familiar. Like he’s done this before. I feel safe all of a sudden.
As he strokes my skin, my breathing regulates. I’m grounded. He grounds me. This man is able to calm me.
No one calms me.
Well, that’s not true. No one has calmed me in a long time. Not for years. Not since—
“Skye.” I turn to face him, ripped from my thoughts. “We’re here.”
The car rolls to a stop, and then he’s opening the door and pulling away his hand.
“I need you to follow me.”
“Can you walk?” I ask him, still not sure how hurt he is.
“Of course, I can walk.” He smirks, and the way his lip tips up makes me think everything will be okay.
I nod and open my own door, then walk around the front of the car and head off with him.
The house we pulled up to is massive. It’s not at all what I suspected. It looks like an old estate, and in the distance, I can hear the water crashing against the beach.
“Is this yours?”
“It is.”
“Is it safe?”
“Are you asking if Felix will try to blow this place up?”
“I am.”
“He won’t. No one knows about this place. They don’t know the location. The only people who know I own this estate are Gideon and Cyrus Reed.”
“The banker.”
“The banker,” he confirms.
“Is that safe for him to know?”
“I can trust Cyrus with my life.” There is conviction in his words, and I drop it.
As soon as we are walking up to the house, another car pulls up, and instantly, I step beside Tobias.
“It’s fine. Cyrus sent his doctor.”
And then he falls.
36
Tobias
I lose my balance, but I’m quick to catch myself. I don’t like showing weakness, but it seems only fitting that this woman sees it again. How many years had passed since I’d met her? Since I was so insignificant in her life that she never recognized me. But now, with the blood loss, I no longer care. This whole time I’ve been angry. But now, with the world spinning around me, I turn to her.
“You don’t even know me. Why bother to care if I live or die? Why are you even helping me when you don’t remember?”
“What are you talking about?” she asks, confusion on her face.
In my state of delusion, I let something come out of my mouth that I didn’t want to share. I need to be better, or I need to just tell her. I think I’ll go with the latter.
Although I’m weakened, I still manage to walk into my house with no assistance. Skye hovers, but she knows me well enough to know I don’t want her help. Once we are inside, I lead the doctor into the living room.
“Are you sure you want me to look at you here?”
“Yes,” I grunt as I look down and see why he asks. There is a trail of blood in the foyer.
Someone will eventually clean it up, and to be honest, I don’t have the strength to walk farther into the house. I’m stubborn, but I’ve also lost a shit ton of blood.
When my shirt is lifted, I see Skye grimace. Unlike me, she is not used to seeing blood. Over the years, I have grown tolerant of the sight. I don’t even notice it. The smell no longer affects me. For a time it did, though. There was a time twenty years ago when the smell would bring me to my knees. But as time passed, the memory faded. Take Skye, for example. It’s obvious her memory has dulled.
Any resentment I might have had over that notion has also disappeared. A part of me thinks that’s the easier way of coping, better than the vengeance that lingers in my heart. Maybe once this is all said and done, I’ll be able to move on; maybe I’ll even find peace. But is there absolution for a person like me?
Doubtful.
“Please remove your shirt completely,” the doctor says.
This time when I do, and when the doctor pulls away Skye’s blazer that has been pressed into the wound to stop the blood, I watch her face. It has gone pale, and her skin has a sheen of sweat beading on her temples.
“Skye, look at me.” She’s staring at the wound.
I reach out, grab her wrist. I start to circle . . . “Inhale.” Her eyes shoot up at that word. They are wide. Shocked. Why? I rub a circle again. “Exhale.”
“How?” she whispers to herself, and I’m not sure what she’s talking about, but her skin is pale like she saw a ghost.
“Did I ever finish my story?” I say as the doctor injects me with a syringe and then is pouring a disinfectant over the wound.
Her gaze lifts up from where she was watching me touch her. “You didn’t.”
As the liquid cleans me, I let out a hiss, looking up at the doctor.
“You were very lucky,” he says to me. “It’s a through and through. The bullet mainly caught external tissue. You will be fine. However, you need time to regain the blood loss.”
I turn back to Skye. It’s time for her to know everything.
“Please tell me.” She places her other hand where I’m rubbing her tattoo. “The best and worst day.”
“The best and worst day,” I agree before I close my eyes and remember the way the sunlight beamed in through the window that morning. The way I jumped up when my father said he had a surprise for me. “It was my birthday,” I tell her. “March second.” Her mouth opens in shock. “I know. Let me continue.” She nods her head. “My father and I had just recently moved to New York. He was working on a deal, a big one. One that would change everything.”
Skye is now holding my hand. Her breath is coming out heavy. The doctor is stitching my ribs, and a burning feeling shoots up my chest.
“He told me that day, he wanted to take me out. The whole day was my choice. I didn’t know what to do first. A new town. A new beginning, another birthday, but this time it would be different.”
“Where did you go?”
“The first place he took me was a trail. We walked and talked. It was a bit chilly, but I didn’t care. I just liked to spend time with him. He told me that we would be here for a while. That this would be our new home. That the job he had been working on was becoming very lucrative. I was young. I didn’t know what that meant. He said he had basically taken out the competition. But again, at that age, I didn’t know. I thought my dad owned a business, and he did. It just wasn’t the business I assumed.”