Page 213 of Making Choices

The odds of success are steeply stacked, but they are not insurmountable just yet.

Tonight, I allow myself respite from the battle.

Tomorrow, I rise to the challenge... and either incinerate in the impending inferno or emerge from the firestorm with my duchess’ heart permanently in my possession.

42

LILY

“I appreciate you lettin’ me know.” Slash mutters into his phone, then he disconnects the call. His fingers are nimble as he touches the screen. Lifting the device to his ear, he quietly states, “Need you all at mine as soon as possible.”

From my position in his bed, I cannot see his face. After Slash bathed me last night and tended to my wounds, I curled into a ball and tried to shut out the memories that the Trinity ritual allowed to escape from the locked safe in the dark recesses of my brain. It was impossible. My body ached. My mind ceaselessly restless. Then Slash brought Doc in to see me and the sedative he jabbed in my arm put me into a nightmare-less slumber.

The sound of Slash’s ringtone roused me hours later.

Reality immediately slapped me in the face.

The prison. Zeke. The cathedral. Slash. The scythe. Blood. The masked men. Memories.

As the reminders pound through me with the relentlessness of a herd of spooked horses, I remain under the covers with my knees tucked to my chest. My jaw aches from the pressure of keeping my mouth shut. I’m trying to fight the urge to scream because I know that the moment I start, I might never stop. Unbidden, the trembling in my bottom lip increases. I screw my eyes shut and will it away.

I can’t break.

I can’t break.

I can’t break.

Three simple words.

One impossible mission.

Time passes by with the speed of a glacier. Slash comes and goes from the bedroom. Each time, he lifts the covers to check me, and I pretend that I’m still comatose. I’m not sure if he buys my act, but he doesn’t call me out on it if he doesn’t. Shortly after he leaves me for the fourth time, Nadia climbs onto the mattress behind me. She drapes her arm over my waist and rocks me gently. My hair grows damp from her tears. All the while, I remain frozen like a statue with one objective circumnavigating my skull.

I can’t break.

The sound of a dozen Harleys or more drawing near snaps me out of my stupor.

“No!” I shriek. “No.”

I’m shaky as I push myself upright. Nadia sits next to me, her tear-streaked gaze locked on mine as she tries to work out what I want. The explanation pounds in my head, yet I can’t give voice to it.

“No.”

“Baby,” Slash whispers as he rushes into the bedroom. He reaches out to touch me. I shy away from his hand and his expression fills with hurt. “Tell me what you need.”

Swallowing once, twice, three, four times, I work saliva into my dry mouth, then I croak, “No... visitors.”

“I won’t let them up here.” My husband’s promise means everything to me, even though I can see he doesn’t believe that. If I could, I’d tell him that I’m grateful for everything he did to protect me last night—it’s just that my ability to speak has been stolen by the return of the trauma I’ve refused to acknowledge. “Everyone will stay downstairs.”

“A fuckin’ news crew has pulled up outside the gates,” Toker announces when he storms into the bedroom. He cringes when he looks at me. I take in his bloodshot eyes, yet his distress doesn’t reach me beneath the numbness I’m fighting to keep as a shield. “Fuck, Cherub. I’m so sorry.”

I am so sick of hearing those words.

They do nothing to fix me.

They don’t get Zeke released from prison.

They don’t heal the harm my damage is causing Slash.

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