Page 51 of Diamond in the Rough (The Diamond Trilogy 1)
“You seem pretty fucking normal.” I’m the one too broken to even tell a woman I’m fucking that I care about her. I want her alive. That’s the kindest sentiment I can offer. I’m basically a machine made to fight and lie and kill. There is no setting that allows me to love.
He takes a large swallow of scotch. “You have no idea.”
“So tell me. You want me to work for your company? Tell me something about you that I could use to put you in jail. That’s how you show you trust me. Mutually assured destruction.”
“The sad part is how much logical sense that makes to me.”
I take a sip. “I’m waiting.”
He sighs. “I’m guardian to a little girl who… God, I’ve never even spoken the words aloud. I killed her father. Poison. One of those orders from the US government that they’d deny until the end. Only, I didn’t know she was in the room. Didn’t know she’d take a sip.”
“Jesus.”
“She almost died.”
“And a judge thought you’d be a great dad?”
“Fuck no, but they were easy enough to bribe. I started taking care of her out of guilt, but now I care for her… because of herself. Who she is. Except she’ll hate me if she ever finds out what I did.”
“It’s actually impressive how fucked up that is.”
“Thanks,” he says, his voice dry.
I hold out my drink. “To mutually assured destruction.”
He matches my toast, and we both drink. He’s right about one thing. Our father really did a number on us. We destroy the things we love, and then it’s too late, far too late to fix them. When Holly finds out what I did, she’ll despise me, but it won’t matter then.
She’s already mine.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
Holly
The monster is back. Only this time, there’s no leash. He’s eating me, and I’m sobbing, begging for someone to help me. No one will help you. The words shimmer in the air, unspoken but understood. He gnaws on my body—skin, muscle, and bone. There won’t be anything left of me. The monster pauses and looks up, his eyes flashing green and gold, and I scream.
“Holly.”
I wake up screaming, the force of it sharp in my throat. The sound abruptly ends, and then I’m just shivering in the bed, Elijah’s arms on my shoulders from where he shook me.
“There you are,” he says with those same green-gold eyes.
“Sorry,” I whisper.
“Don’t apologize. You’ve just been through a trauma.”
A trauma. Yes, I suppose that’s what I’ve been through. A white van. A dark hood. Every woman’s worst nightmare. That’s what happened to me, but it was only the beginning. There was a prison in the basement of a church. Attempted escape. Injuries. Pain. Fear. The entire thing feels like a nightmare, but I can’t seem to wake up.
I sit up and settle the sheets around me, grateful for the small distraction. The window is cracked, letting in the faint sounds of the city at night. A car far away honks. Someone laughs. Music plays from some distant bistro.
“It’s hard to believe I’m really safe. That I’m really free.”
“You are. Adam will never touch you again.”
“I can’t stop thinking about Peter.”
“He’ll never touch you either.”
“Because he’s dead. We killed someone.”
He makes a rough sound. “I killed him. And the only thing I regret is not killing Adam, too. I shouldn’t have let you dissuade me. Now he’s a loose end we have to clean up.”
“How can I distance myself from what happened? I was there. I was in that cell, fighting him. I clawed his eyes. I keep remembering Peter’s weight on me, and he’ll never take another breath.”
“And he’ll never hurt anyone again. The world is a better place for it.”
“Who are we to make that call?”
“We are the people he hurt. We are the best people to make that call. You think some judge knows better than us? He would have hurt you if he could.” Elijah pulls his shirt over his head. In the dim light I can see the scars on his back, the whip marks and the burns. The bruises are too dark to see without light. “He hurt me, too. Remember? I didn’t only kill him for you.”
“But you would have stayed,” I remind him. “If it weren’t for me.”
“And probably died. I would have followed my mission to the grave if it weren’t for you.” He pulls me close to his body, wrapping me in his arms. The musk of him surrounds me. “So really, when you think about it, you saved my life.”
“Shut up.”
“I’m serious. I seem to recall that you wouldn’t let it go by a certain lake. You wouldn’t let me demur and not take credit for what I did. So you have to take credit, too. You saved me.”
“Stop.”
He dips his head and kisses me. It’s coaxing and soft. It tricks me into kissing him back before I realize what I’ve done. “You. Saved. Me.”
