Ethan watched her sleep without complaint, though.
I had no idea what he was thinking right now, and it was best to give him time to work out whatever it was he had on his mind. Finally, once I had finished everything he had given me, he looked at me…lost.
“I don’t know what to do,” he whispered.
“What do you want to do?” I asked.
“Keep you both safe,” he replied and glanced back at Gigi. “The original plan was to have my parents clear the field, then when Fiorello called you to tell you they were losing, we’d bring the family to Italy on vacation to avoid attracting more damage to the city. They’d feel confident of striking us then, with you on the inside. But then we’d counterattack with my parents' help and I, along with your brothers, would deal with the last of them. From there, you’d kill them both.”
“But your parents were better than we expected. And Fiorello came to Chicago instead of calling me to Italy, and I killed him here.” It all happened much faster than we had planned. “The plan needs to be adjusted; instead of them coming to me, I’ll go to them—”
“No.”
I frowned. “No?”
He nodded, still watching Gigi. “I thought of what you want to do. It’s not going to work. You’re injured. You don’t know what they think of you now. There is at least a 50% chance you will die before getting in.”
“And a 50% chance I’ll make it.”
“I do not want a coin flip,” he snapped, looking up to me. His green eyes were worried. “We planned everything thing for years, and you still ended up with a bullet you. I still ended up hovering over you, watching blood pour out of you…no. We need to do better.”
“We always knew there was a risk to one of us—”
“No, Calliope,” he said again, clasping his fist. “Besides, you’re right. They will try to get hold of Gigi. I don’t trust her with anyone else. She can’t hide with anyone else. It’s better that you go into hiding with her. The manor also needs—”
“Hiding?” I tried to laugh at that but couldn’t. It wasn’t funny. “That’s why you don’t know what to do? Because you know there is no way in hell that I’ll agree to hide in your family’s house.”
He inhaled deeply. “Exactly. So, help me. Don’t be stubborn. Just agree—”
“No.”
“Calliope—”
“No!” I snapped, doing my best not to scream in his face and wake Gigi. Maybe it was the meds, no, it had to be the meds, and all the memories of my past spinning in my head every time I closed my eyes, that made my eyes water in anger. “Ethan, twenty-eight years. I have suffered for twenty-eight years, in ways I don’t think you could ever understand. Ever. And I survived because I knew I was going to get to this point one day. I believed it with every fiber of my being that it wouldn’t be angels, or God, or some magical prince who would save me. But me. I would save and free myself. I did not come this far for you to tell me to go home. I refuse. Even if you cut off all my limbs and blind me, it’s not possible. I have to do this. Nothing will stop me.”
“I understand you, Calliope, but at what cost?” he asked, and I wanted to smack him.
“Don’t say that,” I said, shaking my head. “You don’t understand this. You could never understand this. Do you know what it’s like to be asked to use your virginity to seduce a man to kill him at seventeen? I thought he was a regular teacher. No, he liked to groom vulnerable young girls until they fell in love with him and then have them commit suicide for him to prove their love. He was my first. My second was a man Siena brought in to teach me how to be a vixen. That was my life. Every part of me was a tool to kill…an instrument for her revenge. Now I am at the door of mine, and you want me to stay away? No, you do not understand at all.”
Completely unfazed, he looked to me. “Isn’t your final act of revenge surviving? Of all of those horrors, isn’t the final act your victory. If you want, I will bring Siena to your feet when it is over. You already got Fiorello—”
“Get out of my face,” I whispered because if I didn’t, I would scream, and if I screamed, I would throw a punch, and if I threw a punch, I’d pull my stitches, and Gigi would witness me murdering her father. “Thank you for breakfast. Please go and figure out a better plan.”
Without a word, he rose from his chair and left the room. When he left, I leaned back against the pillows. Grinding my teeth, I breathed through my nose. I glanced at Gigi, which calmed me down…but I was—
“Are the two geniuses at odds?”
I was not in the mood. But when I looked back to the door, Melody stood smug, eating the same grapes I had snacked on yesterday. She was dressed in all black, and her hair pulled back into a braid. She stepped into the room and walked to the same seat that Ethan had just vacated. Causally, she kicked her boots onto the side of my bed and popped another grape into her mouth. “I thought you two were of one mind? What happened?”
When people wished to piss me off, my way to fight was to smile and pretend as if nothing at all could touch me. For some reason, I didn’t feel at all, like doing that right now. So I turned dead faced. “You. You fucking happened.”
Her eyebrow raised. “Me?”
“I’ve been hurt hundreds of times before. Bullets, knives, poison—”
“Good for you. So, have I. Get to the point.”
“—and Ethan never saw the extent of it.” I went on as if she hadn’t interrupted me. “He’s never seen me weak before because I haven’t let him. For a good reason. His family keeps fucking up, and he keeps fixing it. It’s exhausting for him. I never wanted to be another problem he needed to fix.”