“Do they hurt?” I ask softly.
His voice is cold. “Does it matter?”
More than anything. “If you’re hurting, it matters to me.”
His eyes lock straight ahead of him. He’s looking at someplace above my head. No, he’s really looking into the past. So long ago. The scars are faded, but they’ll never go away.
“Did you ever see her again?” I ask softly. “Your grandmother?”
“She passed away while I was… A year after I left.”
The grief in his voice cuts like raw glass, that while he was enduring unspeakable things, his grandmother died. The jagged edges are sharp with resentment—that she had turned a blind eye to his father’s abuse, even that she had been unable to care for the wild boy he became. Resentment and love. Only love can hurt that deeply.
“Did you ever go back to her house?”
His eyes darken. “There’s nothing for me there.”
Her house, the land… it’s a beautiful place. Peaceful.
There’s no beauty for him? No peace?
“But—”
“Don’t ask me again.”
And the way he says it, it feels like a lash. As if there’s nothing for him there—or here, standing in front of him. As if my very presence here is an affront to him. No, less than that. An inconvenience. He’s punishing me for pushing him too hard, for making him feel too much.
The silence spins out, making the hair on the back of my neck rise. He doesn’t want me here. He doesn’t trust me. He won’t ever love me. My chest squeezes tight.
I step around him.
He grabs my arm. His eyes are still facing straight ahead. “Don’t mistake me for one of the girls at the club. I’m not going to tell you how I’m feeling or open my heart. There’s nothing left to open.”
My breath catches. “Then why don’t you let me go?”
His gaze flicks to me, as cold and cutting as a blade. His hand falls, and I immediately miss his bruising grip on my arm. Without another word, I walk up the stairs to the main floor, feeling his gaze on me the whole way.
Chapter Twenty-Two
Ivan spends most of the next day at the Grand. Luca guards me at the house, under strict instructions not to let me out of his sight. I might fuck with him just for fun, but I’m too distracted. Too nervous about what is happening tomorrow. Ivan is getting an update from Blue and the police department on the investigation, but no matter what, Ivan is going to Harmony Hills tomorrow morning. He’s still not letting me go with him.
It’s the place where I was born. Where I spent the first sixteen years of my life. I’d once been content with never going back, but now that feels impossible. Something is calling me there. And I feel like I could watch over Ivan, protect him—as crazy as that sounds.
He has dealt with a lot of violent assholes over his lifetime, but there’s still something different about the self-righteous, religious, violent assholes like Leader Allen.
And most of all, I’d be able to see my mother again.
Would she even want to see me? I already know she wouldn’t be proud of me. Maybe she’d feel like her sacrifice was a waste, when she sees what I’ve become. Maybe it’s best that I’m not going back, so she doesn’t have to find out.
“Moved,” Luca says.
I scrunch my nose at him. “Did not.”
“The pink one,” he says, sounding smug. “It moved when you touched it with the green one.”
I study the colorful pile of sticks, trying to see where I could have messed up. I’d been so careful. Damn his sharp eyes. “You’re lying,” I say, pointing the thin pink stick at him. “This was nowhere near the green one.”
He rolls his eyes. “You always say that.”