He was sweet as he studied the tears in my eyes. “Well, good. Because this isn’t the end.” He brushed a gentle kiss over my top lip. “But while I’m gone you’re going to go on,” he murmured, a slow smile spreading his own. “You’re going to be a teacher again. And you’ll date the soccer coach or the principal,” he laughed softly at my incredulous face, “and when I come back, I’ll make sure there’s always a table for you two at my best restaurants.” His arm circled around my waist as he pushed back my hair. “But five, ten years down the line, when I know the coast is clear and the bad blood is gone, I’m going to find you,” his mouth curved so adorably, “and I’m going to ask you out to dinner. And if you like me,” he grinned against my giggling lips, “we’ll go on more dates and maybe we can start doing some of the things we used to do,” he cracked that dirty little smile, “when we were a little less normal.”
I laughed, in a dream as I kissed along his cheek, his jaw. “So, I’ll be a teacher again.”
“Yes.”
“And I’ll be dating the principal?”
“Just don’t fall for him.”
“Then come back to me soon.”
Abram pulled away with a smile, his eyes taking me in for a bit. But his light expression slowly dampened as he held me closer. “I want to. It hasn’t even started and I’ve already fantasized about it being over so I can hold you again. For as long as I want. But once I get Jesse, another Toro will be after me. That’s just the truth.”
I shook my head. “Is it even worth it, Abram?” I breathed out. “You can just run the way Jesse Toro did from you. You can just live and he’ll never find you.”
“No. This is what I want,” Abram’s voice was gravel. I could feel its focused, heated desire. “Nothing else matters, Isla. The Monarch could crumble to the ground and I wouldn’t care because only two fires burn inside me now and one is for you, the other for Jesse. And I shouldn’t ever mention his name in the same breath as yours but the reality is that I feel as much passion for your joy as I do for his suffering. I won’t rest until he knows the pain of what he did to my brother and a million times more, which is why we say goodbye here. Because you’re going to live a life. You’re going to forget me and fall in love with your class, your students who are going to worship Miss Maran and the floor that she walks on, I know it.”
Gently, Abram gave me a last kiss.
“I don’t know what happens next for me, Isla. But while I’m gone, it’s going to help me to know that there’s only happiness left on your horizon.”
chapter twenty-two
It took a little while but I remembered what a crush was with Sean from across the hall.
I hadn’t “crushed” on anyone in what felt like ages. The concept was so sweet and lighthearted that it felt like I had no business anywhere near it. But it happened quickly with Sean, probably because of Rhode’s encouragement and the way that we met. It was on a Sunday morning that I’d woken to a splintering crash in the hallway, jumping out of bed and running out to see if everything was okay. What I found outside was a cute, shaggy-haired boy with a broken picture frame a bleeding cut on his finger. I’d been in my pajamas – a lace and silk chemise that Rhode had bought me during a two-for-one sale at Victoria’s Secret – and Sean had stared at me like I was the first pair of breasts he’d ever seen.
It was oddly endearing. Like a lot of things about him. He was in his twenties but the least “bro-ish” of the group, with a mop of dark hair that hid a devilishly handsome face and the most unique smirk I’d seen. The corners of his lips were impossibly sharp, stabbing into his cheeks like knives every time he flashed that Cheshire cat grin. He was around six-foot-two, long, lean and covered by baggy Volcom shirts. Like a grown-up version of the skater boys I dated in high school. He carried around an air of innocence, and on the night that he came over to thank me for bandaging his finger, we wound up having sex.
I was shocked by the severe build I discovered under his clothes. He had no body fat whatsoever, ripped and sinewy with dozens of long, fine scars that lashed across every shocking bulge of muscle. He obliged with the skateboard wipeout story behind each one, every tale in exchange for an article of my clothing. Once I was fully undressed, he stared at my bare curves with such unbridled awe that I considered that he’d never had sex before. “Shit, you’re so hot,” he breathed in shock, coming toward me so slowly, as if taking a mental picture of my nudity with every step forward.
But the second he touched me, all suspicions of virginity vanquished. His energy was like that of a Tasmanian devil. He squeezed all over my breasts, my thighs, my ass – like a beast that had been starved for ages and fed on handfuls of my body. When he sunk into me, his arms crossed in an X behind my back, grabbing my ass and holding my hips up for his cock to pump into. His rhythm was quick, hard, filling the room with the echoes of his hot flesh slapping against mine. The sound was so loud, so carnal that I surprised myself by crying out his name as I got close. But with my sudden, raspy moan, he came ferociously, spewing a string of profanity with the last few thrusts inside me.
When he collapsed onto my chest, he looked into my eyes and apologized for not making me come. It was so boyish it made me laugh, and even harder when he frowned under his mess of hair and asked what was fu
nny. “Let me see how you look when you come,” he pleaded gently, reaching between my thighs. But I kissed his cheek and stopped him. Rhode would be home soon and I was sure that neither of us wanted to deal with the fanfare that would no doubt come with her discovering us together.
So he went home and the next day, I went to the library.
I wanted to ride this wave of embracing normal. I’d been doing well until that morning, when I woke up gasping from dreams of Abram. Cruel images my mind had conjured of us walking hand-in-hand, daisies along the sidewalk as he kissed me on the street. It had felt real enough to make me forget where I was, to open my eyes and wonder if he would come barreling through the door to see why I’d cried out. It hurt so badly and worse, made me ache for his touch. His comfort. The anguished need claimed my body for the entire morning, rendering me so useless I couldn’t think or eat. It scared the hell out of me.
So I entertained a possibly bad idea. I needed to remember that a life with Abram came at the cost of my safety, at my chance for any kind of normalcy. So I went to the New York Public Library and searched the archives for everything I could find about the Toros, reading through every documented incident of crime, murder and torture done in the name of that family. I read a dozen articles about victims who had their teeth pulled, their skin burned, their fingers cut off one by one. I read about a millionaire who was abducted and returned to his family mutilated, bleeding out between the legs. I spiraled into a dark place that had me daring enough to look at photos. One by one, they speared fear through my heart. Stealing, lying, cheating – the crimes that inspired these grisly murders were by far milder than killing a son of Dante Toro. I didn’t want to think of what they’d do to Abram if they found him first.
But at the same time, I didn’t want to think of what Abram would do if and when he found Jesse Toro.
Because whatever had been done to Gavin, Abram would do a million times worse. That was a certainty and the one that had inspired my day’s mission. I had long known of Abram’s physical capabilities, but now I knew what didn’t faze him mentally either. I had watched him look calm, bored after clubbing in a man’s face with his gun. I had detected the bloodthirsty lust in his voice when he spoke of Jesse Toro and I knew that when he killed him, it wouldn’t be swift. It wouldn’t be humane. When Abram finally killed Jesse, he would ensure suffering with not only strength but creativity. Like he said, he’d spent a great deal of time plotting this entire chain of events. I could only imagine how many nights he’d devoted to mapping out the torture and death of Jesse Toro.
So with that in mind, I reminded myself that I could want Abram as any woman who’d ever laid eyes on him would. But I would never have him without his morbid history and I would never hold his hand without touching cruel death. I would never be the woman Elle so idolized and therefore, I simply had to do it.
I had to let him go.
chapter twenty-three
Rhode had mentioned what beer she generally saw at the boys’ apartment across the hall, so I brought a six-pack there one evening, to surprise Sean. Yes, he was an adult-size reincarnation of all the crushes I had as a high schooler, but his bright side was being a normal guy who just liked to skateboard, and that simplicity appealed to me right now.
So in a sundress and red Converses, with my hair gathered into a ponytail, I rang the boys’ doorbell. I could already hear that it was a madhouse inside – a chorus of yelling, reggae and screechy sounds from what I assumed was a video game or zombie apocalypse. Precisely why I never wanted to visit.
“Shit, hey!” Travis laughed when he finally opened the door. “Sorry, I thought someone else got it.” He scratched his head and looked around. “Shit, I would’ve cleaned up if I knew you were coming by. You’ve never been in here, right? We’re not usually this messy.”