Page 13 of A Trap So Flawless (Titans and Tyrants #4)

Valentina

D arragh takes me through the gorgeous area of greenery, water, and trees to a street of nice buildings on the other side.

The buildings are all attached, like townhouses, with beautiful red and grey bricks and wrought-iron fencing between them and the sidewalk.

The doors are painted bright, fresh colours that remind me of sweet things.

Like hard candies or Easter eggs. Leaf green and robin egg blue.

An especially wide grey building with rows upon rows of large windows and steps leading up to its doors has fluttering banners outside that say MoLI – Museum of Literature Ireland.

It looks like a nice museum. I wonder if I’ll get the chance to go inside…

Yeah. Like I’m some happy-go-lucky tourist who gets to actually decide her itinerary.

I didn’t even decide the destination of my flight.

And I don’t have a clue where we’re going now, either. I hope it’s not much further. I don’t think my legs will hold out, no matter how much my pride might beg them to. I was already sore and exhausted. Getting finger-fucked like that has left my strength in tatters.

I can’t believe he did that.

No, I can believe he did that.

I can’t believe I let him.

All those people on the green. Everyone who might have noticed…

“We’re here.”

Darragh unlocks a bright red door. He lets it swing inwards, then stops it on its rebound with a big hand, holding it open and waiting for me to enter.

I have some cash left. I could book a hotel room. But that would only last for a night or two.

And I’m so exhausted. I just want to collapse into a bed somewhere, and somewhere soon.

Even if it’s his bed?

My stomach tightens at the question. Darragh is watching me with a keen predator’s stare. But there’s something else in his gaze. A searching quality that while it doesn’t exactly make him look vulnerable – because could he ever be? – it does make him look less certain.

He’s waiting to see what I do.

If I run, he’ll grab me, chase me, hunt me down. I’ll lose even more of my own power in the process.

I hold my head high and stride through the open doorway.

“Is this your place?” I ask, surprised by the interior design choices.

It’s an absolute delight in here. Cottagey without being kitschy.

Creamy floral wallpaper and glossy dark hardwood floors greet us in a cozy sitting room ahead.

Beyond, and up a few steps on a higher half-level, is a clean, bright kitchen with a door that leads into a lush yard with a garden.

“I’m renting it for now,” Darragh answers. The door closes behind him. I hear him turn the lock, and then the rattle of a chain as he does up the one at the top.

“I thought you’d be staying…”

“At my grandda’s?” He double checks the locks as I take off my shoes. My God, does it ever feel good to remove them. Between my mad dash to the airport, the flight, coming here… It must have been at least eight hours. I can’t wait to shower it all off of me.

“His nearest property is a townhouse on this very street,” Darragh goes on. “I’ve been spending some time there. But once Tommy got you on that plane, I made alternate arrangements for us.”

Us .

I shove away the oddly squeezing sort of comfort that word imparts, focusing instead on anger.

“Tommy. Is that who got to that booking agent lady at the airport? She was all good to go to book me in on the flight to London, then boom, new boarding pass, new gate.”

I still cannot believe I got on that plane without even realizing. I’ll have to blame it on the trauma and the stress, because I’m too ashamed to confront the fact I’d actually do something that stupid.

“Yeah. Tommy was my man in Montréal this week.” His head tilts sardonically. “I’m a little offended that, in your haste to leave the country, you didn’t choose Dublin as your destination.”

“I might have,” I shoot back instantly, “if you weren’t here.”

It’s the only mode of protection I have. This shield of rage. These barbed remarks. I stare him down, expecting anger in return, but all he does is smirk.

“I figured as much.” The smirk fades. His gaze coasts along my face. “But still. If you want to go to London, pet, I’ll take you.”

He turns abruptly away from me before I can fully analyze the rasping softness that just entered his voice.

“Come on,” he says more sternly now as he heads up a narrow set of stairs with a beautifully carved balustrade.

We pass multiple bedrooms as we ascend beyond the second floor and onto the third. The fourth and final floor has one massive primary bedroom with an attached bathroom. It looks pristine in here, the blue and green quilt perfectly smooth atop the bed, nothing on the bedside tables.

Either Darragh’s got a cleaning lady lined up, or he hasn’t actually been sleeping here.

The bed is smaller than expected for a room so grand – probably a queen at most – but it has these four exquisite wooden posts, one at each corner of the bed, nearly touching the ceiling and giving it an imposing, almost fairytale quality.

A sage and cream-coloured rug lends warmth to the smooth hardwood, and there are big, dark green armchairs by a fireplace.

A glass door leads onto a tiny-but-charming balcony that overlooks the garden, and another door at the other end, nearer the bed, leads into the bathroom.

“It’s nice,” I say mildly, turning around in the space. “Doesn’t look like you’ve been sleeping here, though.”

He gives a brutal bark of a laugh.

“I haven’t been sleeping at all.”

I don’t want to feel such concern for him, but I do. I press my lips together and run my fingers gently along the stitching of the bed’s quilt, trying to distract myself from the desire to touch him with something close to tenderness. He doesn’t deserve it.

And neither do I.

But even so, even with my fingers focused on the quilt, my mouth moves of its own accord.

“How are you? How have… How have things been?”

He doesn’t answer for a moment. I risk a glance at him and find him studying me with something that almost looks like wariness. Like he’s not used to anyone asking how he’s doing, and having me of all people ask the question now has got alarm bells going off in his head.

“You just told me you were tired,” he reminds me at length. “You really want to ask me how my week has been right now?”

I shrug, because apparently, I do.

“Well, I sliced up the greasy bastard who killed my grandda,” he says, a violent, joyless grin contorting his face. “Does that count?”

“He was murdered? Your grandfather?”

I didn’t know that. I only knew his grandfather had died…

“Of course he was murdered,” Darragh scoffs. “Nothing but violence could have cut Callum Gowan down. He probably would have lived for fucking ever if Jim Shaw hadn’t caved the back of his head in then pushed him into The Liffey.”

I know just what he means. I always felt the same way about my own papà. That nothing could really touch him unless…

Unless it was a bullet sunk straight into his chest.

My hands are wet. I can feel the blood on them.

“I’m gonna puke,” I announce feebly.

“In the toilet, if you can manage it, pet,” Darragh drawls even as I sprint for the bathroom. “I haven’t given anyone else the key to come and clean the place yet.”

I do manage, thank you very fucking much.

I fall heavily to my knees in front of the toilet, wincing at the pain.

As I bend over the bowl, my hair tie chooses that exact moment to give out, and all my hair comes tumbling down around my sweaty face.

Feebly, I try to hold the nausea back just long enough to scrape my hair out of the way.

But suddenly, there’s no hair to scrape. My fingers brush rough knuckles instead. Darragh fists the thick strands, holding it all neatly at the back of my head.

Is this some small act of mercy? I wasn’t sure he was capable of such a thing. He certainly didn’t have mercy for me outside earlier.

Ride my hand.

Vomit comes rushing up my throat. I let it out, sweating, gripping the cool seat of the toilet as my stomach knots and empties over and over.

When I’m finished, I spit weakly into the toilet. Before I rise, I become briefly aware of Darragh’s other hand between my shoulder blades, like he’s been rubbing my back but I was too busy puking my guts up to notice.

But almost as soon as I feel his hand there, it falls away. Darragh reaches past me to close the toilet’s lid and flush. I rise on shaking legs and feel the swish of my hair against my neck as he lets go.

Even though he’s not touching it, he’s staring at my hair as I go wash my hands and face and rinse my mouth at the sink. As I pat my face dry with a small towel, he catches an especially brightly highlighted strand and rubs it between his fingers and thumb.

“I bought you hair dye,” he says.

I drop the towel on the counter.

“What?”

“Bought you all kinds of shit.” He reaches down, his arm brushing my hip as he pulls open the door of the cupboard beneath the counter.

Below, I see various bottles of cosmetics.

Shampoo, conditioner, toothpaste, facial cleanser.

There’s even a jar of my favourite fig and Sicilian lemon-scented moisturizer, the exact same one I have sitting on my bedside table in my room in Toronto.

It seems unlikely he could know I actually use this product.

Maybe he saw “Sicilian” on the label and thought of me.

And there, behind the jar, are boxes of hair dye.

I reach for one box and pull it out, examining the apple-cheeked, dark-haired model on the front.

“Box dye?” I ask, plunking it down on the counter. “With all these highlights, this is probably just going to turn my hair green if I put it on top.”

“Green would be a vast improvement.”

I hate that his flatly uttered statement stings. I guess I’ve gotten too used to his declarations back in Canada. Declarations about how beautiful I am when I come.

Fuck you for being so fucking flawless.

“You think I look that bad as a blonde?” I snipe, slamming the cupboard door shut with my knee. I sound pathetic. I know I do.

“I think you could have no hair at all and still be a fucking masterpiece,” Darragh counters without hesitation. I catch his gaze in the mirror, and he looks pissed, like he’s resentful of that fact.

“Then what’s with the hair dye?”

He’s not looking at my hair now, but at my eyes in the mirror. But then he grimaces, grabs my shoulders, and spins me around to face him fully.

“Whenever you’re blonde,” he says quietly, one hand gripping my chin, the other remaining on my shoulder, “you seem to always be either engaged or getting married to other men. It’s rather infuriating.”

He’s right. Last time it was Dario. This most recent time, Sal.

“But you and me… When I think of us together, I think of darkness.” His hand slides from my chin to the back of my head, his fingers sinking into the strands. Tingles erupt along my scalp, prickling down my spine.

“Dark nights,” he goes on, his breath ghosting across my face.

“Dark water. Dark hair.” His mouth twitches.

“I’m not eloquent when I’m this fucking sleep-deprived.

But what it comes down to is that, when I see you with your hair like this, I see you in that photo, in that wedding dress, arm in arm with that Di Mauro fucker. And that photo just about-”

He cuts himself off, ripping his hands away from me.

“What photo?”

Without speaking, and without really even looking at it, he pulls a phone from his back pocket and swipes at the screen. Then he hands it to me.

“Didn’t know about the Di Mauro engagement until I saw this,” Darragh says. “Didn’t know about the wedding until it was already done.”

It takes me a moment to realize what I’m looking at.

What I’m looking at is me .

That’s my wedding dress, before the wine and the blood and the hacking of the seams behind the bar of Sofia’s . Sal is beside me, his face still intact. Papà is behind us both, chest whole, suit unsullied.

I can’t look at either of them. So I look at myself.

Blonde tresses, perfect makeup, heavy but beautiful dress.

The picture has been taken from a bit of a distance.

Maybe from across the street. I zoom in on my own face, and though the features are undoubtedly my own, I barely recognize myself.

Under the blush and bronzer, I look pale.

My face shows no signs of bridal bliss. Only numb resignation.

“Must be something about this fucking city,” Darragh mutters cryptically. “Dublin is the only place I’ve ever cried.”

I place the phone screen-down atop the counter. My tired brain is having trouble keeping up with Darragh’s rapid subject change. A moment ago we were talking about photos and hair dye and now he’s mentioning something about crying?

He must be back on the subject of Callum again.

I can’t imagine Darragh shedding tears. It’s like trying to picture him holding a kitten, or blowing up a balloon for a child’s birthday.

It literally just does not compute. But I don’t see why he’d lie about such a thing. And he did just bury his grandfather.

“At the funeral?” I ask, figuring that’s the only event that could have forced a tear from his heterochromatic eyes.

Those eyes show confusion now. “Grandda’s funeral? I wouldn’t know much about that. I didn’t go.”

“You didn’t go?” I echo in disbelief. “You flew all the way back here so fast, like a bat out of freaking hell, and you didn’t even attend the funeral?”

“What do you care whether I attended or not? What do you care if I flew back here right away?” he asks.

His tone tightens to a vicious point. “Weren’t you the one with all that ‘we can never see each other again’ bullshit in the deal you tried to make with me?

Whether it was for a funeral or for a fancy cruise through the goddamn Caribbean, what do you care why I left, when you were so eager to see the back of me? ”

Because you fucked me then left me bleeding and alone with nothing but a ring! You left me to get married off to Sal Di Mauro!

You left me.

All at once, I’m back at that masquerade. And I’m running.

Running through the crowds. Running after him.

But he’s already gone.

“It doesn’t matter,” I say. “I’m going to have a shower.”

I get inside the glass shower, fully clothed, and slam the door.