Page 65 of Poisoned Promise
“She’s… everything. Back when I met her, I was just an Enforcer. A good one, don’t get me wrong. I made my family proud. I had the perks of getting Toph assigned to me as I climbed the ranks, but I was still just another rung in an infinite ladder. One night, after I’d been kidnapped by Russians and interrogated to within an inch of my life, the Irish burst in. The Healy family. I didn’t know her name then but Dove saved my life. And then a fewmonths later, I saw her in a club. She didn’t recognize me at first but after a few drinks and permission to talk about work, she did. And we clicked.”
“Clicked?” Reese rolls his eyes. “You can click with any woman if you’ve drunk enough.”
“Not like that,” I snap slightly. “We talked for hours and when we fell into bed, it was like we’d been together for years. I hunted her down the next night, and the night after. We were soulmates— are soulmates. But I was an Enforcer and she was the daughter of an Irish Captain. Hardly an acceptable match. But we didn’t care. We’d spend entire nights talking; sometimes we’d run into each other on the job and pretend not to know one another. We’d go dancing and drinking, eat take-out, and fuck until the sun came up. But it was more than that. She saw me. She really saw me.”
“Saw you?” Confusion drips from Reese’s tone.
“You wouldn’t understand.” How do I explain what it’s like to bare your soul, no secrets, and have someone pick it up so tenderly and love every inch of it?
To confess secrets and fears, to cry over things that can’t change, to admit terrors and regrets in a world where things like that get you killed? Dove is one in a billion; our love was one in a billion.
And her death nearly destroyed me.
Never again.
“Well,” Reese sighs deeply. “Whatever it is, it better be worth the shit that will come down on us if Caterina finds out you betrayed her.”
I push my glass away and stand, then grab my coat from the bar. “She won’t find out,” I reply. “And if she does?” My tongue runs along my teeth. “Maybe I’ll stop taking a backseat for a change.”
The drive home gives me time to make my last few calls and set my entire plan into motion, so by the time I step off the elevator into my penthouse, tiredness clings to each blink and weighs down my steps.
Everywhere is dark. Above me, lights flicker on with a warm orange hue, triggered by my movements, and they follow me all the way to the bedroom where I peek in to check on Dove.
Her son is fast asleep, illuminated by moonlight and out cold, spread-eagled across the bed with half his leg under the blankets.
Dove’s bed is empty.
My heart jumps slightly and a pulse of alarm shoots through me from head to toe.
She has to be here.
There’s nowhere else she could be and yet seeing her bed empty is more alarming than I care to admit.
Closing the door softly, I continue down the hall to the kitchen but it’s also empty.
A couple of pots and pans litter the sink and the scent of something tomatoy lingers in the air.
The lounge is also empty and just as my worry starts to grow and my thumb hovers over Toph’s number in my phone, I find her.
She’s in my office, lounging on one of the sofas with a half-drunk bottle of Scotch on the table next to her and a crystal glass dangling from her fingertips.
Dove is beautiful.
So beautiful it makes my chest ache.
Coming home to her was a dream I clung to long after she ‘died’, telling myself over and over that if I worked hard enough then I’d somehow be able to change things and bring her back.
A drunken, foolish dream but it plagued me for months.
“Dove?”
She jolts where she’s lying and bolts upright, somehow managing not to spill a drop. “You,” she spits with more venom than I’m prepared for.
“Me?” I slowly shrug off my coat as I walk deeper into the office. “Did I do something?”
“You mean other thankidnappingme and keeping me fucking prisoner?!” Despite the slight slur to her words, her eyes are as sharp as needles and she climbs to her feet with surprising speed.
“It’s for your own good,” I reply. “I’m keeping you safe, Dove. You don’t know what it’s like out there. You’ve been out for a really long time.”
