Stolen Love (Beauty in the Stolen 3)

Every step I take tears a hole in my soul. It’s both the longest and shortest walk of my life, long because time has frozen and too short because it can never be enough. Another three seconds, and I’ll be at the door. Her eyes are the wrong color, but the message in them is right. Even as distress is painted over her face, her eyes offer me serenity. Her lips part. They’re painted a bright shade of plum, my favorite color on her.

I love you, she mouths.

I stop dead. God knows, I don’t deserve those words. I never did, but I’ll be damned if I don’t own them. Pain and joy are inseparable. It simultaneously hurts like a motherfucker and makes my chest swell. I feel like the adolescent I never got to be, falling in love for the first time. The sequence is wrong, falling in love after already loving her, but it’s right for us. I lusted after her from the word go and loved her from the minute she took a bullet out of my shoulder. Already then, I knew she was made for me. I knew she was mine. I made that vow to her the first time I owned her body. When I said she was mine, I promised to be hers, and I take my promises seriously. I take them to my grave.

I also promised her I’d never remove the necklace she gave me. I want her to know she can believe in me, always trust me, because I never break my word. It’s vital she knows this, because she’ll need to hold onto that knowledge when the months grow into years and the memory of our love wears thin. Time does what time does. It fades memories. When she wakes up one morning and has difficulty recalling my face, this knowledge will see her through. When she wonders if I still love her, she’ll only have to remember I’ve always been a man of my word.

Peters stops talking. He gives me a nudge, moving me forward. It’s now or never. Pretending to scratch an itch, I slip the top button of the jumpsuit through the buttonhole and brush the edge aside. The Nyaminyami tattoo sits in the center of my breastbone. It’s a crude piece of art made with a pin and the ink of a felt tip pen, objects I borrowed from Peters and used during his visit.

Her eyes flare, letting me know she’s seen what I wanted her to. The brown of her irises glisten like gemstones, but she’s brave. She holds in her tears and gives me a smile. It’s the smile I hold onto when the guard takes my arm and leads me through the door. When it shuts on her face, I tattoo the way she looked today, free and alive, in my heart.

Fuck me if it wasn’t all worth it.

Chapter 20

Cas

I will not stand by and watch Ian go to prison, not for my sake. I love that man too much. Mouthing the words isn’t enough. I want one more chance to tell him how I feel to his face. Right and wrong don’t matter, not to my heart. I deserve one more chance. As does he. If it weren’t for me, he wouldn’t be in handcuffs and shackles. If my heart weren’t weak, if I ran faster, if I made it to the helicopter, if Ian didn’t give away his identity by getting shot, if he never saw me… If, if, if… All because of me.

Fuck.

I kick the chair in my hotel room.

Double fuck.

That hurts like a bitch.

I hop around on one foot, tearing off the wig and throwing it against the wall.

Hairpins drop to the floor as I rip the net from my hair, hopping to the window. The street is busy. Vendors sell newspapers and fake brand products at the traffic light. A woman with a boy in hand stops to buy a Phantom ski mask. The boy fits it while the woman pays the vendor. The mask has holes cut out for the eyes and a triangular, plastic nozzle with ventilation holes for breathing that fits over the nose and mouth. It’s a cheap imitation and for sale everywhere. Some entrepreneur was clever enough to cash in on the hype sweeping through the county with the trial in session. Every kid who’s at an age of playing cops and robbers wants a mask. Even some adults are wearing them, mostly the Phantom fans gathering outside the courthouse every morning and afternoon to catch a glimpse of Ian as the police escort him to and from the building.

A few geeky guys with masks in their hands walk up the street from the direction of the court. Two girls follow, still wearing their masks. They’re both dressed in orange jumpsuits with the top buttons undone, showing ample cleavage. Ian has always had a big following, but never as many lovesick fangirls as now.