Page 49 of Oblivion
“I’m okay,” I gritted out and took a step back, swaying on my feet like a newborn calf.
“You don’t look okay,” she murmured, and I fucking hated how perfect, how kind, how nice, she seemed. She was everything I never would be, and I hated myself even more for wishing to be someone I was not.
Someone who wasn’t broken from the inside out.
Someone kind enough to approach a stranger and offer my help.
I was a selfish cunt who only ever thought of herself and her own needs, and this pretty angel in front of me should not be standing this close to the darkness.
“Darling.” She grinned. “You can either let me help you or I can have one of the guys carry you for me. The choice is yours.”
Damn. Maybe she wasn’t so nice after all.
“Why are you even here?” I narrowed my eyes at her. I rarely ever trusted other people, and in those rare situations where I did, I had to have a damn good reason for doing so. Or at least that’s what I liked to think.
People were rarely kind, at least not to me. I couldn’t exactly blame them. The sheer association with me could bring only pain and misery, and I understood when others evaded my company. I understood, but that didn’t mean that it didn’t hurt like hell.
Just look at what happened to the Club. They took me in, treated me like one of their own, and look what that got them? How many died? How many of them lost their siblings, spouses, mothers and fathers, and all because of me and my fucked-up family.
My free hand flexed at my side, the anger I was feeling slowly seeping through my bones, all the way to my fingers. It was a living, breathing thing, ready to attack anyone who dared to talk to me at that moment. But if I even looked at Alessia wrongly, Nico would have my heart in five seconds and he wouldn’t care if others saw it or not.
“Nico will be pissed off if he sees you with me,” I mumbled, thankful that I didn’t drink myself into a stupor. The last time I passed out from alcohol intake was almost a month ago, shortly after Storm ended up in the hospital.
I promised myself I wouldn’t try to drown my sorrows with vices that I wouldn’t be able to escape. Well, joke’s on me, I guess, because I definitely broke that promise as well.
“Nico doesn’t tell me what to do.” She smiled. “And I've wanted to meet you ever since he told me about you stealing his car and giving him the chase of his life.”
I frowned. “You did?”
“Yep, yep.” She laughed. “He wants to protect me, I get that, but he doesn’t get to tell me what to do or who to hang out with. I am his wife, not his prisoner, and if he can’t remember that, then he can go fuck himself.”
I looked at her, really, really looked at her—her dark hair, brilliant, fierce eyes, and I understood why he fell for her.
“I heard you gave him hell when he kidnapped you.”
“Hey,” she pointed at me with her index finger, “I was hungry, sleepy, and they pissed me off at work. He apparently expected a damsel in distress, and he got me.”
“For what it’s worth, I’m glad he got you,” I said, smiling for the first time since we came to this party. “But if you don’t mind,” I rounded the chair and sat down, “I need to sit down.”
Her dress shuffled behind her, and within a second, she was next to me, pulling the other chair closer to mine.
“How much did you have to drink?” Her right eyebrow was arched, and I felt like a kid caught in the middle of a heinous act by her mother.
“Uh…” I looked away from her. “A few?”
“A few?” she exclaimed. “A few is two or three, and you look and smell like you drank a distillery.”
I rolled my eyes and rubbed at my temples with my index fingers. “I had ten, okay?”
“Jesus fucking Christ, woman.” She started looking around. As soon as she saw a waiter, she flagged him down. He all but ran toward her, no doubt knowing who the wedding was for and whose bride she was. “Darling, could you bring us one large, still water? With ice, please.”
He swiftly nodded and rushed away from us.
“You’re going to drink it and then,” she laughed, “we’re going to drag my darling husband to that little room over there.” She pointed toward the door on the other side of the room. “And we are going to talk.”
“Talk?” My eyes almost bulged out of my head. I needed to talk to Nico, not to her. “Uh—”
“He doesn’t hide anything from me, and a little bird told me that you might need our help.”
