understand—
“No.”
I stand up and wrench his hand away. Fury chokes me now, fury all tied up with despair. Sweat pricks at my hairline. I’m trapped here, and his words are as much of a prison as the walls. I can’t get out. Can’t get away from him, not if every person in his gorgeous, infuriating castle is also his eyes and ears. My own breath is a shaken rasp.
Leo moves to stand.
I shove him.
I put my hands on his chest, one of them right over the bullet wound, and shove. I shouldn’t be strong enough to move him but he doesn’t catch himself before his back makes contact with the chair.
I don’t care. Let him feel it.
He makes me want him, with his body and his eyes and every cruel thing he does. He can’t make me accept this.
“Fuck you,” I say into his face, his perfect face, expression caught between surprise and an emotion I won’t let myself name. “I hate you.”
When I leave him behind, he doesn’t follow me.
CHAPTER NINE
Leo
The morning comes. I don’t know if I’ve slept. I fucking wanted to. Mainly out of spite. But spite isn’t a particularly good lullaby, and my bed feels ridiculously oversized without her. Without Haley, who has slept there all of twice.
In the emptiness I climb out of bed, run my hands through my hair, and start the oldest and steadiest part of my routine—testing the pain.
It’s different now, post-shooting. Before Ronan walked into my house and let me drag out my own execution until it failed, this test was a single, simple question: where am I on the wheel? At the bottom, when it’s only nagging? On the way up, when it has my spine in a vise and nothing is comfortable? On the way down, when it’s taking a fucking eternity to let up?
On days when it’s at the peak from the first moment of consciousness, at the very top of that wretched torture device I can’t help but imagine, I don’t get out of bed. Not until it releases me.
Now there’s damaged flesh to consider. Stitches tugging at the places where they dig into my skin. The use of my right arm is almost back to normal. I stretch it slowly, painfully, over my head and repeat the process on the other side. Today the wound has settled to a dull ache. It’s impossible that one hard push from Haley left a bruise. I can still feel her handprint there.
There are too many people in the house. I can sense them there while I shower and dress. Putting a shirt on is still an exercise in misery, but I do it nonetheless. My home was never a fully private space. It can’t be when you live with staff. But now it feels less so.
All those people, and the only one who matters is Haley.
Her absence from my bedroom confirms that she does, in fact, hate me. I stay longer than I should on the off chance that she reappears. Haley haunted my bedside at the hospital. Eva couldn’t get her to take a break.
She doesn’t come back.
I go downstairs without knocking on her door. Fine. It’s fine if she’s going to shut herself up in her room. Better than putting herself in danger because of a foolish hope that Caroline will suddenly develop a capacity for compassion. Or a soul.
My own soul is an ashen husk on the way to the dining room, where I eat food I don’t taste. It’s supposed to be a working breakfast. Gerard brings his phone and a portfolio with notes.
He keeps getting up. The third time he does it, I’ve had enough. “Is there something especially compelling in the hallway? I didn’t think an hourlong meeting was beyond you.”
“The team leaders have reports and questions.” He returns to his seat with an air of caution. “I can direct them to you, of course, but—”
“No,” I snap. “I don’t want to be bothered with that shit. Unless you and Lucian are incapable, in which case, tell me now.”
“We are not.” Gerard turns the page in his portfolio, his eyes still on me.
He watches until I stare back. “What?”
“You’re not thinking of going to the office, are you?”
“Well, yes, Gerard. My dearest wish is to get a bullet through the head on a crowded city sidewalk.”
He nods. “I wanted to be sure.”
“You can be fucking sure I’m not going back to the office until we’ve resolved things with Caroline.”
“All right, all right. I