Page 44

Her eyes are downcast, her cheeks wet with tears.

She won’t look at me.

For the first few seconds after she shared her trauma with me, I couldn’t think. I was filled with murderous rage at the monsters who did this to her, the men who fucking clipped her wings. I wanted to find them, hack them into tiny pieces until there’s nothing left of them.

But I forced myself to tamp down the violent urges because a stronger, much more powerful emotion coursed through my body.

Protectiveness—the need to make her feel better, to chase away the demons clouding her eyes.

Gently, I turn her toward me, my fingers shaking, my heart rioting inside my rib cage.

Swallow the rage, Charles. Feel the pain, which is only a fraction of her pain.

“Look at me,” I rasp, my voice sounding unused.

Taylor shakes her head, her tears falling onto her lap. They’re like bullets to my heart. I want to take them away—absorb all her agony and leave her unscathed.

I clasp her cheeks, my thumbs wiping the wetness as heartache spears into my chest. “Tay, you listen to me. It’s not your fault. I’m so fucking sorry this happened to you. You’re not broken. You…You’re fucking amazing. I’m not worthy to be in your presence. I—”

“You don’t need to say that to make me feel better,” she whispers, but she slowly lifts her head. The grief in her stormy gray eyes unmoors me.

Words aren’t enough. I don’t have the words to express everything inside me. Instead, I haul her to me and crush her in my embrace. I tighten my arms around her, needing to feel her warm body, her vitality, her strength.

I want her to know I don’t care about her past, I just want her future.

“You are a fighter. To have undergone everything you went through and still be standing before me, the most breathtaking woman I’ve ever seen… Trust me, Taylor. I beg you to believe me.”

Her lips wobble as she pulls back and stares at me and it’s then I notice she isn’t wearing her nose piercing, nor does she have her usual dark makeup on her face. She’s a mess of tears, her hair in disarray. But goddamn, she takes my breath away.

She’s the person I want to share my future with.

“You don’t think I’m damaged? So fucking messed up?” she whispers. “You don’t think I’m dirty?”

The anger packed deep at the base of my spine rears to life and I want to jump on a plane and find those bastards who hurt her and eliminate them from this planet. They did this to her. They violated her body and scarred her mind.

“You’re the strongest person I’ve ever met. I…I… Fuck! ” I crush her in my embrace again, my words still jumbled in my brain. I feel useless, like nothing I do or say will ever make her feel better, because how can it? How can simple words take away a horror no one should ever experience?

“Ch-Charles,” Taylor sobs into my chest, her lithe frame shaking in my arms. My eyes well with tears as I’m hit with a helplessness I’ve never felt before in my life.

“Let it out, minx. You’ve been holding it in for far too long. I’m here. I’ll never leave you.” I press kisses to her hair as she lets out her anguish, each cry a knife into my heart.

Sometime later—it could be minutes or hours, for time ceases to matter—I walk her back to her hotel room. Her fingers are clammy in my hand, my mind still in a daze, swirling with what she told me. Everything makes sense now—why she hates rich men in business suits, why she despises fake charm and smiles, why she wears loose outfits and hides herself behind dark makeup.

Then there’s her reaction to Ian the first day we met.

Fuck. My uncle.

I think back to my conversation with Elias and how Ian is part of The Association. How he was in New York City all those years ago when he swore to me he never came back to the States then.

Hotel Renegade. The hotel logo on the napkin.

It can’t be. There’s no way. Unease slithers inside me, joining the inferno of anger, grief, and turmoil. Charles, there were God knows how many hotels and lounges in the city, and this was years ago. Ian probably forgot he made a quick US trip. You travel a lot too; you don’t remember everything, right?

I cling onto my sanity, my mind desperate to believe Ian’s appearance in the city had nothing to do with what happened to Taylor.

My pulse pounds in my ears as I usher Taylor into the elevator. She’s quiet, her eyes bloodshot, her pale skin splotchy.

She’s still the most beautiful person I’ve ever seen.

But the question in the back of my mind won’t leave me alone. Where was she assaulted? I force myself to stay silent, because this isn’t the time to ask. Instead, I wrap my arm around her shoulder, giving her my strength and support. She leans on me and heaves out a laborious sigh.

Soon, we arrive on her floor, and I walk her to her room.

Before she told me what happened, my heart nearly burst with joy at her text messages from yesterday.

She missed me.

She kissed me in front of everyone. She took off her mask in the proverbial daylight for me.

And now, as I watch her shrivel into her frame, her eyes taking on a faraway look like she’s trapped in her past, I finally understand every outburst from her in the past and why she behaved the way she did.

No wonder she’s terrified of men, sex, and love. And yet, she still took a fucking leap with me.

Chaos bombards my mind—violence, awe, fury, admiration—I can’t process it all.

I can’t think.

Her door unlocks, and I step into the room with her. I sweep her into my arms and she lets out a gasp of surprise as I carry her to the bed, chucking off her shoes along the way. She looks exhausted, weary to her bones.

I tuck her into bed before wiping her face with a wet towel from the bathroom.

Leaning down, I kiss her forehead and whisper, “I’m proud of you, Taylor. For being you. For being here. For fighting each day. Thank you for giving me the honor of holding your pain with you.”

Her lips tremble and a stray tear slips out. I kiss it away, the scything ache deepening inside me. “Go to sleep. Don’t think. You’re a survivor, okay? You’re the badass ballerina we all know, and you’re not alone. Not anymore.”

“Th-Thank you,” she whispers, her gaze intent on mine, brimming with thoughts I couldn’t decipher. The seconds stretch on as she stares intently at me like she’s searching for something. I fight to maintain my composure, to not blow up in front of her because fuck, the fury is quickly taking over my body.

A sad smile appears on her lips, then she closes her eyes. “Good night, Charles. Thanks for flying out here to watch my last performance.”

She is shutting down. It’s not enough—I can’t heal her. My words are meaningless to her. She doesn’t believe me.

My chest is weighed down by an anvil, but I straighten up, my airway closing on me.

I need to get out of here—she doesn’t need to see the violence in my blood right now.

“Good night,” I murmur before exiting her room and closing the door quietly behind me.

My thoughts are in disarray as I beeline to the hotel bar on the first floor. I don’t notice the crowds or the noises. Everything is a blur and I’m drowning underwater.

“What do you want, sir?” the bartender asks in a thick Russian accent.

“The strongest vodka you have.” The anger I tamped down before burns through the restraints.

He sets down a glass and pours alcohol into it.

“Leave the bottle,” I command before chugging the drink down and wincing at the burn singeing my throat.

My hand trembles as I pour myself another shot, my body blistering with rage, her words in the car finally burrowing deep into my consciousness.

Those fucking bastards. Unwanted images of her being brutalized fill my mind, and I grip the glass tightly, my knuckles stark white. Fury I’ve never felt before rumbles through my veins—I feel like an atomic bomb, seconds away from going off.

I’m going to kill them. I’ll find every one of them and kill them. Then it still wouldn’t be enough.

My vision turns red as the alcohol hits my bloodstream. I want to maim, destroy, burn the world down. I’m going to kill them.

I slam the glass onto the bar top and it shatters into a thousand pieces.

A sudden hush descends on the room, and belatedly a sharp pain radiates from my palm. My eyes refocus and I realize a shard of glass has embedded itself into my hand and blood is flowing out of the wound.

“Sir, are you okay?” The bartender rushes over and hands me a stack of napkins.

I curl my fist around them and hiss at the pain. It’s a superficial cut. It hurts like a motherfucker, but I won’t die.

As I watch the river of crimson spread on the napkins, I’m hit with a sudden realization—this blood, this pain—it’s only the tiniest fraction of what Taylor has been dealing with all these years.

Alone. With no one by her side. Abandoned by two people she thought were in her inner circle. Doubted by authority figures.

What the fuck am I doing? I should be with her instead of being here.

Tossing a few hundreds on the table—they’ll figure out the currency conversion themselves—I stand up.

Ignoring the stares leveled my way, I stride toward the elevators as fast as my feet could take me.

An urgency fills my veins, a desperation to be near her, to be the one pressing the bandage on her wounds and kissing her stitches and scars, loving them, caring for them because no one did that for her.

A few minutes later, I knock on her door, my heart racing a mile a minute.

I hear her footsteps, followed by her voice. “Who is it?”

“Minx, it’s me. Open up.”