Page 11 of A Trap So Flawless (Titans and Tyrants #4)
Valentina
A fter disembarking the plane, I consider trying to make another run for it. I watch some of my fellow passengers head for the connections area and wonder if I can get a second flight from here. But I don’t have that much cash left to burn through.
And let’s face it. I’m in his domain now.
I’m in the city that spawned Darragh Gowan.
If he could get me to Dublin against my own fucking will, there’s no way he’ll let me leave it.
He’s probably got contacts at this very airport.
Every time the eye of a staff member or security guard lands on me, I flinch as if it’s Darragh’s fingers trailing down the back of my neck.
I follow the flow of people towards the customs and arrivals area.
It’s almost comically bizarre, to stand in line with all these people living their mundane lives.
Going home or to school or arriving here for a vacation.
I spot the pink cardigan of the older woman who was sitting beside me on the plane.
She’s a bit ahead of me in the line. She makes it to the counter, speaks a few words with the agent there, then hobbles to the doors beyond.
Those doors lead outside. I can see brilliant, mid-morning sunshine spilling in.
It's almost my turn.
When I’m called forward, I robotically produce my passport. I blandly say that I’m a tourist when I’m asked about why I’m here. I kick myself afterwards. I should have said something stupid. Something that would prevent me from walking out those doors.
But then again, if I’m not allowed through the doors, I’d just get sent back to Canada. Back to Montréal, with its shot-up restaurants and its bleeding men and the tatters of my fucking life.
I wonder if Papà made it through his surgery.
I wonder if Darragh is already here.
It’s easier than it should be to get past the agent at the desk. Clutching the strap of my bag, I walk slowly towards the doors. My mouth tastes like someone’s stuck a penny beneath my tongue.
What do they call a penny in Dublin? Do they even have them? Or did they stop producing them, like Canada did?
I jolt, then swear to myself. I haven’t even converted any of my Canadian money to euros. I don’t see an ATM in this narrow stretch between the agents and the doors. Maybe there will be one outside… But then I’d have to use my credit card…
I exit the airport and can’t stop myself from tilting my chin up to feel the sun.
For the briefest of moments, I close my eyes and try to relax.
But the sunlight turns the insides of my eyelids red.
Red like wine splattered all over my dress.
Red like Papà’s blood seeping endlessly through my fingers.
I gasp and wrench my eyes open, dragging my gaze down from the sky.
But there’s still red. The dark, rust red of hair I’ve buried my fingers in. The sun gleams on it, painting each strand with loving spangles of copper. So bright.
But the eyes below are dark.
“Hello, pet,” Darragh murmurs. Something steely, something savage, shifts in his gaze, and his next words somehow both caress and cut me. “Or should I call you Mrs. Di Mauro now?”
I have a thousand biting replies on the tip of my tongue.
Not one of them makes it out of my mouth.
I’m really here.
And so is he.
I should be running. I should be screaming.
I should be spitting at him and scratching him, just like I did the last time I saw him.
The last time I saw him…
It feels like a lifetime ago. And yet he’s so fucking familiar. Those faded blue jeans. Tight T-shirt. Tattoos. Those hands that have held me. Saved me. Taken from me. Trapped me.
I want to slap him.
I want to bury my face in his chest.
I want to feel him inside me again. Even though I said that it could only happen once.
I want to pretend we never met. Pretend that I’m still just me and he’s still just him. Two entities existing around each other and never quite colliding.
My throat aches. I think I say something.
Maybe mouth his name.
But all I hear is a sob. My bag hits the ground.
My knees will be next. It’s going to hurt. They’re raw from kneeling among the glass at Sofia’s. I brace for the pain even if I know there’s nothing I can do to stop it.
His scent. His heat. It’s all around me. His hands are on my upper arms, squeezing through the fabric of my thin sweater. My legs are completely devoid of strength. They hang limp, suspended like a puppet with its strings cut.
A frisson of energy goes through Darragh.
I feel his fingers give a violent twitch around my arms. Through gathering tears, I see the muscles of his biceps and chest jump.
When I dare a look at his face, I realize it’s not just energy – it’s emotion.
Probably a bad one. Anger. Jealousy. Hatred.
He already despised my entire family, and that was before they trundled me off to marry somebody else.
Whatever that seething emotion is, it’s carved into his fucking face. His jaw is stone-hard, his eyes red-rimmed and hungry, scouring like they’re searching for something to use against me.
“You’re crying,” he rasps. I feel the tears escaping, running down my cheeks. I press my lips together, refusing to let another pathetic sob come out. I already nearly collapsed in front of him. I don’t need to show any other weakness right now.
A cruel smirk tugs at one side of his mouth. “That terrible to be with me again, pet? That you have to weep at the sorry sight of me?”
A sorry sight. As if Darragh Gowan could be anything close to that. But he does look bad. Beautiful… But bad. He looks even more exhausted than when I saw him a week ago in Toronto. His face is gaunt and paler than I remember.
I wonder if he’s eating.
I wonder if he’s sleeping.
I am crying at the sight of him. But not because of fear or even anger at this point. It’s like I saw him, and my entire body just… let go. I looked at him, standing in a country I’ve never set foot in before, and some stupid, crazy part of me said, Home.
Another spasm rocks Darragh’s frame. He’s still got me by my upper arms. Our chests are brushing, but not fully touching. My treacherous body wants to sink into him. I wonder if he’s fighting a similar urge. The urge to draw me hard against him and hold me.
But Darragh Gowan isn’t one for hugs at the best of times.
And not a single fucking soul on Earth could say that this moment qualifies as the best of times.
I don’t answer his question. I don’t want to tell him that it is terrible to be with him. Not for the reasons he implied, but because this haunting desire I feel for him, this poisonous sense of homecoming, is so wrong.
Instead, a question of my own bubbles out, bursting between gasped breaths.
“What are you going to do to me?”
There’s a chance that he could kill me yet. He’s bloodthirsty and vengeful. I already knew this about him before I went and married someone else. And isn’t that what he always said? I won’t kill you tonight.
Maybe tonight is the night that will finally change.
“Why do you think I’m going to do something to you?” Darragh asks. He’s leaning closer to me now. I feel his voice against my mouth and shiver in his hold.
Because I married someone else. Because even though it’s irrational and unfair, I still feel like somehow I’ve betrayed you.
“Because I took off the ring.”
I’ve still got it, though. It’s in my bag.
I don’t tell him that part.
Unpredictable as ever, Darragh doesn’t exhibit displeasure at that pronouncement. He merely laughs. A quiet, merciless scrape of sound.
“Stubborn little Titone.”
I try to stop it, but a part of me preens with wicked pleasure at his response. He’s called me his little Titone before. When he says it now, it feels like the past eight days have never happened.
But they have happened. He’s trapped me twice. First with the engagement, and now with the flight. If I don’t make some sort of stand against him now, I’m worried that I never will.
I steel my voice, lift my chin, and say, “I thought you said that you were going to call me Mrs. Di Mauro now.”
Something writhes in the back of his gaze. Something hostile. Hateful.
“I will never,” he says with venom in his voice, “call you by the name of some Sicilian piece of shit who wasn’t even man enough to survive his own fucking wedding to you.
” His jaw ticks. “Tell me,” he says, the words going suddenly ragged, his fingers squeezing.
“Tell me he got hit because he threw his useless shit-sack of a body in front of yours.”
Now it’s my turn to laugh. The idea that Salvatore Di Mauro would have died protecting me is patently absurd.
“Because if he didn’t,” Darragh goes on darkly, “if he didn’t use his own skull as your personal fucking shield, then he deserved a far worse death than a bullet to the head.”
A bullet to the head. Sal’s broken face, bleeding and horrific, is burned into my brain. My body reacts as if I’m back there. I panic, pulling in Darragh’s hold.
“I have to go,” I gasp.
“Go where?” he demands, tightening his hold on me.
Go with him.
Go home to Toronto.
Go to some quiet corner of the world where no one knows my name and everyone is good.
But if everyone there is good…
They’d never let me in.
“I’m not supposed to be here!”
It’s not a real answer to his question, but it’s all my feverish mind can put into words. And technically, it’s true. I’m really not supposed to be here.
But clearly, Darragh disagrees.
“You’re supposed to be with me .” His mouth is at my temple, his lips hot urgency against my skin and hair. “So you can cry about it all you want, pet. Cry. Even though it fucking splits me open.”
He releases one of my arms and swings his hand, scythe-like, downwards. Hoisting up my bag, he pulls me away from the tourists and taxis towards another car.
“You can sob, and rage, and try to run,” he says when we reach it. “But you’re not stepping one foot outside this city so long as I’m still here.”