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“You know how Alastair is. He’s gotten into it with Vinny a couple times. His information isn’t helping the FBI, and the copycat killed again. The gossip columns are going to catch up soon. We won’t be able to hide anymore.”
“Should I be prepared?”
“I’d be ready for more gossip around the club. If news breaks that it’s following the patterns that the CGS used to have, then it’ll be a national scandal.”
“You’re twitchy,” Vinny says, drawing me from my thoughts. Everything about Emeric and Serenity drifts away in my head, and I blink and stare into the near dark of our bedroom again. Vinny clears his throat, and for a while I thought he was asleep. “I can’t seem to sleep tonight either, Trauma.”
I search for him in the dark, finding his face turned towards me and shift closer. My mind spirals when I lean over and kiss him, sinking into the comfort only Vinny can provide. It helps to soothe the storm in my head.
But he’s too attuned to my body, and breaks the kiss after a moment. “Your mind is drifting, Jo.”
Shrugging, I roll over until I’m on top of him. Vinny is warm, the hard planes of his body familiar beneath mine. I kiss him again, swiping my tongue over the seam of his lips, before I respond. “What are we doing?”
He’s quiet for a moment, and I can feel his fingers threading through my hair. “Do you mean with Sterling?”
“And Alastair,” I say quietly. “We’ve spent more time without him than with him, even when he was just sitting in prison waiting.”
“Hmm.” His lips trail along my jaw, and I drop my head forward, curtaining us behind my tangled hair. His hot breath hits my skin when he speaks. “You knew our time would be short. He’s a prisoner-”
“He’s on the run,” I remind him.
“Perhaps. He’s missing. It’s been over two months now.”
I close my eyes. Our club is still afloat, even if the talk I had with Emeric made it sound like he’s not having a great time. Things back in Colorado are tense, but we’re still managingto pay all of our employees and the two interim managers, plus afford to stay out here for an undetermined time here in Florida. Sure, it’s Emeric’s property so we don’t technically have to pay for the house, but we are budgeting for everything else.
It feels like I’m becoming a different person. Someone who’s grieving again over the loss of a lover, even if I never got to touch Alastair since returning to Florida.
I realized that a few days after he disappeared. All those times speaking in the penitentiary, there was always something between us. People, walls, glass. We didn’t touch. The closest we got was speaking through the glass divider via phone.
“You’re crying.”
My eyes open when Vinny pulls back, adjusting us until we’re sitting up and I’m cuddled against him. His fingers swipe beneath my eyes, and I hadn’t even realized it was happening. “Oh-”
“It’s okay to hurt for those we miss, darling,” he tells me, and I sink back into him. “Even for those we shouldn’t love at all.”
Alastair.“If he dies, the last time he touched me would be in that cellar. I thought he was killing me. I thought…”
I don’t know what to think anymore. I always assumed Alastair was the person hurting me. The facts fit the crime. But now that my mother is back and acting batshit crazy, I don’t know if that’s the truth. Is it better for my killer to be someone who should love me no matter what, or the person who learned to love me despite my faults?
“What if he dies?” I ask, reaching for Vinny’s hand in the dark. “Do you think there’s anything left of him? Of the person who used to love us?”
“Maybe there’s bits of the one who loved you,” he tells me, his lips pressing to my knuckles in the dark. The bathroom light is dim in the corner of the room, giving me just enough tosee the lines of his face when he looks up again but it’s almost too dark to see. “But he hurt you once, and it’s not something I can accept. His capacity to love extends to you, but he’s no longer the same person who once loved me too. We promised to care for you together, as equals, not as your personal Angel of Death.”
“That’s silly,” I say, but I don’t buy it. When Alastair looked at Vinny in the penitentiary, he looked resigned to his fate. His eyes didn’t burn with the same desire they did when he looked my way.
“No it’s not,” he says, his thumb brushing over my knuckles, mirroring the kiss. “My worldview changed when you almost died. Everything I do is to give you the life you deserve, darling. The part of me who loved Alastair cannot love the both of you after what he’s done.”
I scoff, sitting up straighter and pulling my hand away. “What if he didn’t? What if the fault is more my mother’s than his?”
“Would you say he’s blameless then?” Vinny presses. “Can you look him in the eyes and believe he would never harm you again?”
There’s no way I can answer that. I'm sure that all the unresolved problems that linger between us would rise up eventually. I don’t know who Alastair became after going to prison but I’m sure he’s changed from the boy I once knew. “If fate would allow it, I could look past the madness to the person within. Did you see his eyes when I showed him my scars in the prison? He looked regretful.”
“He never got to see his damage firsthand after the fact,” Vinny argues back. “Fifteen years is plenty of time to regret his choices, or it could all be for show for the detectives to try and prove he’s remorseful.”
“He could actually be remorseful,” I groan. “Why can’t you see that?”
“Because he must answer for what he’s done, Jo,” Vinny says, shifting around until both his hands cup my face. His fingers massage over the piercings in calming circles. “The best way Alastair could show devotion to me is by loving you. The only way to make up for what he did is to dedicate his life to yours.”