Page 11 of The Allure of Ruins

W hen I straightened up, my first thought was, Well, Chicago’s been great, but it’s time to go .

“Stop,” he said immediately.

It really was something how he could read my face like that. “I will not have you in danger, and if Gen is out, I?—”

“Come here,” he ordered, tugging me after him, walking us halfway down the block to duck under an awning that got us out of the falling snow.

Once there, he brushed me off, fiddled with his hat that I was wearing, and adjusted it so it was no longer sitting slouched and stylish toward the back of my head, but was now pulled down so it covered my ears.

Standing there, letting him arrange me to his satisfaction, I almost laughed.

“What?”

“I don’t…nothing.”

He cleared his throat. “I need you to listen now.”

I inhaled shakily, and the exhale was just as labored.

“Are you listening?”

I nodded fast.

“You are not going to run away. After living all this time with your real name, building a life, a reputation, a network of people who depend on you, as you do them, and working hard to fix the damage that this piece of shit and all your foster parents carved into your soul, you will not take this moment to give up because you’re worried about me. ”

“Yes, but?—”

“God,” he yelled, letting his head fall back. “Can you for once give me some goddamn credit?”

My eyes opened wide in surprise because…yeah. This was new.

“I’m not stupid. You always think you’re so much smarter than me, but fuck you, I’m the lawyer. I went to school a helluva lot longer than you.”

I waited a moment.

He crossed his arms.

A few people walked by, glanced over at us and then sped up. I was guessing that if we had been yelling, they would have known how to react, but the standing in silence was probably creeping them out.

After another moment, I said, “Are you done?”

He grunted.

“I am smarter than you in some areas, obviously none of those being the law. But why you’re being an ass about that is beyond me.”

He glared at me. “You’re better at Excel than me.”

I squinted at him. “I refuse to have an entire conversation about what you’re better at than me simply because I missed whatever convoluted point you were trying to make.”

“It was not convoluted.”

I crossed my arms.

“It wasn’t,” he muttered belligerently.

“Sometimes,” I began, “not all the time, but on occasion, you have the psychological maturity of a five-year-old.”

“What?” he groused at me. “Nuh-uh.”

I rolled my eyes.

“So what? Who cares?”

“Could we start walking again? I’m freezing.”

Grabbing my arm, he steered me into the falling snow that was coming down quite a bit harder. “All I was trying to say was that I can take care of myself and you. Think about it. Have I or have I not been doing that for the past five years now?”

He had. He’d hired me and then assumed I would leave the state’s attorney’s office with him. Along the way, all my many breakdowns had been met with unconditional support and understanding.

All that was amazing, but it did not negate the fact that due to his heroic nature, he sometimes rushed into the fray when it wasn’t necessary. A lot of the time, taking a step back and looking at the situation, it was easy to see what was needed.

“This, right now, is a different thing,” I pointed out. “This is actual physical jeopardy you could be in.”

“Could be. We don’t know yet.”

“But you have to admit, if I’m not standing right next to you, you probably won’t get hurt. You understand that, right?”

“Maybe don’t start imagining what could be the issue before you know.”

“I will not have Genrikh Antonov, or anyone who works for him, anywhere near you,” I said firmly, yanking my arm out of his grip. “That will not happen.”

Grabbing me again, he pushed up the sleeve of his coat that I was wearing, took hold of my hand with his gloved one, and resumed walking.

“Why?” I said after a few moments, not minding the handholding as much as being steered around by my arm like I was ten.

“So you don’t run away.”

“As if you’re not faster than me.”

He grunted smugly.

“I will wait and see what they say, but seriously, I can’t have Gen?—”

“I have to tell you, that name does not inspire any kind of fear.”

“If you knew him, it would.”

“Yeah, really big man abusing people younger than him who don’t have his same resources and are basically at his mercy.”

I cleared my throat. “If he’s out, I’m sure there’s new ones, but?—”

“I wish I had a Xanax or an edible to give you.”

I smiled then.

“We’ll both have a shot of bourbon at the pub.”

“No, we will not,” I assured him. “Bourbon is vile.”

“That’s sacrilege you’re speaking now.”

I shivered hard.

“We’re almost there,” he soothed me.

“It’s not that. I… I was so stupid.”

“When?”

“All the times I went back,” I said under my breath. “You have no idea how many times I was away cleanly and then returned.”

He shrugged. “What do I say when we talk to women and men who have been through similar situations?”

“No,” I rushed out. “It’s not the?—”

“Oh, the fuck it’s not,” he rumbled. “It’s the allure of ruins and you know it.”

“No, Colt, you?—”

He tightened his hold on me so I was tucked up against him.

“You knew the ruins couldn’t sustain you.

That life was no good, nothing there, but because it’s what you were used to, because you understood how to navigate the twists and turns, you went back since you knew it would be good and safe, even if only for a short amount of time. ”

“I was an idiot,” I declared.

“You were human,” he replied with a shrug. “Give yourself a break.”

We walked in silence for a few minutes.

“How did you go to school?”

“I got my GED, and then Gen paid for my first two years of school that I started at seventeen when I lived with him. Once I moved here, I transferred to DePaul University and got my BA in criminology. One of these days I should go back and get my master’s.”

“Why didn’t you get the combined BA and master’s?”

“Oh, I don’t know, maybe…money?”

“Lose the sarcasm,” he demanded.

“Then don’t ask stupid questions.”

“Fine. Go on.”

“I had the ten grand as you recall, but I had to get a job fast because eating was also a priority, and the whole roof-over-my-head thing was necessary as well.”

“Right.”

I laughed suddenly. “You used your GI Bill to pay for school and, well, your parents. I basically had a drug-dealer pimp of a boyfriend for a bit before I bailed.”

He did a slow pan to me, and I lost it.

“Are you drunk?”

That was funnier because he knew better.

I’d been drunk once in all the time he’d known me, and that was because we had been celebrating putting a monster in jail forever without parole.

The little boy had been so scared of his father, and had finally, after a year, come out of his shell and was trusting his new foster parents—who had since adopted him—when he had to testify.

Another witness had overdosed, and they needed Jeremy, the lone child who had survived the night Russel Blevins slaughtered his family.

The little boy had been six at the time, had been seven when called upon, and he was terrified to face his biological father.

I had gotten permission for the family dog, Heimdall, a Doberman pinscher, to go with Jeremy into court.

They had court dogs who sat with kids, but Jeremy didn’t want one of those, he wanted his own dog who slept beside him every night.

It had made all the difference in the world.

The little boy was not afraid of his father with Heimdall’s head in his lap.

The judge even complimented him on what a good boy his buddy was, and the smile on the little face did something to the jury.

I saw it in their expressions, their revulsion and hatred for his father.

They’d seen the carnage, seen too the horrific damage Blevins had inflicted on his family before the last time.

To see the cutest little boy with big brown eyes appearing so much better, leaning over to whisper to his dog…

If looks could kill, his father would have been dead where he sat.

When the boy walked out of the courthouse later, hand in hand with his new father, I saw how hard his new mother was trying not to cry.

Of course when I gave him a tissue, and he ran over to her and had her crouch down so he could dab at her eyes, that was it, we were all crying.

Colton had to keep glancing up at the sky for some reason.

“What is with you?”

“Remember the Blevins case?”

Instant scowl. “That case is burned into my brain, are you kidding?”

“That was the one and only time I’ve been drunk, so no, sir, I am not, at this moment, under the influence of anything. I just realized I’m too tired to ever run from Gen Antonov again. You’re right. I won’t go anywhere.”

His flashing smile then. “I’m proud of you,” he said, his voice husky with emotion. “That’s a very?—”

“We will, however, tell them that you need security.”

“I don’t need any goddamn—oh,” he gasped because I’d leaped at him.

Arms around his neck, my body pressed tight against his, holding on for dear life. “I have too much to lose here,” I said into his ear, “and you know, of course, that begins and ends with you.”

I could feel him shaking, heard his breath catching as one hand cupped my nape, the other pressed to the small of my back.

“You’re stuck with me now, though,” I told him. “There’s no going back.”

“No,” he rasped, inhaling me. “No going back.”

His voice was odd, crackly, like he was unsure about something. I was about to ask if he was all right.

“You always smell like oranges,” he croaked out. “What is that about?”

“It’s neroli oil,” I reminded him, easing back, gazing up into his eyes. “You always ask me that same question.”

“I do?”

“Yes,” I said, letting go of him.

I noticed he was still holding me, and normally, with anyone else, there would have been panic. But not with him. Never with him.