Page 49 of Dead By Dusk

“You said… No, youpromisedwe both make it out of here alive,” Carmen grits out, and I can’t bear to look at her knowing how she must feel or what she must be thinking.

“I did mean it. I thought it was the only way for us all to be safe. I was hoping to return before anyone noticed, but I was stopped,” I say, trailing off and sneaking a peek at Ronan who doesn’t look surprised at all as he places his hand on the small ofmy back. Relief floods my system at the small show of support, even as my heart breaks every time I look at the woman in front of me. I know at this moment she probably feels as if I haven’t meant a word I’ve said to her in the past twenty-four hours, but the reality is that I’ve meanteverysingle word and knew that escaping wasn’t living.

It was just surviving.

“Then why did you say goodbye?” she questions, frantically shoving the letter into my chest, and my hands clutch the paper, attempting to grab onto her hand as well but she pulls away too quickly. “Just in case I didn’t succeed. I felt you deserved to know that I didn’t mean to break my promise. I wanted you to know that—”

“It doesn’t matter,” she cuts my explanation short as she backs away, wrapping her arms around herself, and as she turns around to leave, I hear her say one last thing that sends a chilling numbness through my entire body.

“Your apology means nothing to someone who’s already dead.”

I don’t remember what happened after that. Not leaving the room, or walking downstairs. Nor do I remember getting settled on the couch, and Ronan draping a blanket over my body. I remember nothing other than the nausea settling in my stomach as dread pulls me into a fitful slumber.

24

Button: Silene

“Okay, so tell me,” I laugh as he pulls me in between his legs from the kitchen stool where he’s sitting, a smile on his face.

“Pray tell thee, what shall you want to know?” I ask as he moves his hold from my waist and grabs my hands, kissing the backs of them while gazing at me intently. He doesn’t drop them when he speaks, just lets his lips outline the words he says against my hands and, in a way, it feels grounding. It’s a comforting notion, to feel the question just as much as I feel the ground beneath my feet—a gentle reminder that I’m here and not lost in the past.

“I know you don’t particularly like talking about it…” he starts, cautiously, and my smile falters. My laughter dies as I try to pull away, but he pulls my body back against his own. “Si, my love. Nothing is ever going to change the way I feelabout you. For the past two years, it’s only been you, and for as long as you’ll have me, nothing will change that.”

“Always?” My voice trembles with uncertainty as I place my hands on his cheeks, searching for any proof of a lie that I knew I would never find.

“Always. No matter how tainted you feel your soul may be, I will be here—loving you—unconditionally. I will be here to remind you thatyou aregood. I’ll do whatever it takes to prove that to you.” One of his hands covers my own, and in his eyes I see everything that can be ours if I just give this part of me over to him.

“And what if I one day stop loving you, or push you away?” I question, and he smiles softly, gripping my waist before backing me up so he can stand in front of me and lead me to the living room couch. He swiftly grabs a blanket, placing it over my legs that I have tucked to my side, and once he’s sure I’m comfortable, he sits on the ground in front of me. His hand grips one of my covered knees and the other takes hold of my hand.

“Even then.” He tries to hold my focus, but I just look away, ashamed. I can’t keep my past hidden forever. At some point, I have to choose a different path for myself than this solitude I’ve created, and who else to change for than the man in front of me who has been so patient? I can think of no one more worthy of helping me lighten the heaviness I’ve carried alone for all of these years.

“Okay, yeah…I just, I need you to not say anything. If I don’t get it all out, then I’m not sure what I’ll do, but it probably isn’t pretty. I don’t even remember the last time that I cried,” I admit with a nervous chuckle, but he doesn’t throw a pity laugh my way.

He just squeezes my hand one more time and whispers, “I promise.” And in those two words, I find a strength that I havenever been able to find before. One that’s always been too far away for me to grasp.

My heart—the great traitor that it is—stutters. My palms begin sweating, something that doesn’t usually happen. My chest constricts for a mind numbing second halting my ability to breathe. I force myself to look at him one more time, and when I see that his sapphire eyes never left my face, it feels like I can breathe again.

“I guess it started when I was little. My parents were very bad people, heavily involved in the mafia. I was their only child and naturally, my father had wanted a son. Sons are more valuable for the lifestyle and inheritances, so I was nothing to them for a very long time. It was so lonely,” I begin, attempting to keep my voice steady, but I can’t help the way it dips and wavers with truths that have remained unspoken for so long. Can’t deny the anxiety that begs and pleads with me to look away from him.

“Sometimes, I don’t think people understand how lonely it can be as a kid. To be someone who doesn’t matter. Whose wants and needs and thoughts are disregarded if it doesn’t align with what’s convenient. I wasn’t allowed to have anything unless my father would benefit from it. I was constantly fighting for even an ounce of his attention, but I wanted it so bad. Ronan, you don’t understand. Back then, I would havegivenanything. I would havedoneanything for his attention, and he knew it. He used it against me and raised me to just be another one of his workers. I was only eight years old when he started teaching me about the business side of things, but by the time I was fourteen…” My voice cracks, and I find myself pulling my hand out of his to run it through my mess of dark curls, making an active effort to try and get them to conceal my face as much as possible. Trying to hide the shame and grief I still carry from the past.

“Silene, you don’t have to continue, I think I understand.” Ronan, bless his heart, tries to give me an exit from the truth, but I know I have to get it out now. If I don’t, I may always find myself running from a version of myself that was carefully curated and callously manipulated into being something worthy when I already was.

“He used me as bait when I was only fourteen years old because I told my mother I wanted him to love me more, and she said that was how to make it happen. She said that if I wanted him to love me, then I needed to be willing to give anything. So I did.” I pause, taking a deep breath, still hiding any physical reaction, but I know he hears my pain in my voice, and I’m terrified at the possible disgust I might find if I allow myself to look at him.

“I didn’t really understand what was happening at the time, but when I turned sixteen, I knew what I was being forced to do in order to gain his favor was wrong. I was just a kid, and they were grown men. I should never have had to do any of it, but it was too late to go back. I wanted to be able to protect myself in case it got worse, so I asked for fighting lessons. I thought…I thought it would make it easier to do the things that he was asking of me, but it just became more and more frequent.”

“Jesus, Silene. I can’t even—” he interrupts, but a harsh, unfeeling laugh rips from my throat and breaks through whatever he was going to say.

“He called me his little button. I was his executioner, Ronan. I killed a man for the first time when I was only sixteen. For a year, I did this because I wanted his love, but then I realized what he was forcing me to do wasn’t love. He was just tolerating me because he could benefit from my obsession with the idea of him finally caring for me.” A tear falls from my eye. Only one, and I wipe it away as soon as it forms, hating everything that I’m feeling at this moment. It’s sooverwhelming, even without all the details. The reliving of a time in which I was willingly exploited because my own mother told me it was the only way I would be useful and I trusted her to not let me get hurt.

“I killed him a week after my seventeenth birthday,” I whisper.“It was my only way out. I waited until he slept, but he woke seconds before I did it. Woke to the bite of cold metal pressed against his neck and when he did, there was no fear. Only a challenge, a dare. Like he knew I wasn’t strong enough to kill the only two people I had ever wanted to love me…I’m not sure how much pain he or my mother were in or how long it lasted. I just knew I needed their deaths to be quiet. I took as much money as I could and paid for a ferry to the mainland before purchasing a charter flight here. I was on my own, living off the money I stole and underground fights for six years. I didn’t trust anyone and that was okay. I didn’t need to. I had myself, and after years of begging for someone else to care, that was enough for me.”

No more tears fall, and while my fear of what I’ll find when I look at him still feels like too much for me to face, I do it anyway. All the disgust or disappointment I thought I would find? It doesn’t exist. There’s not a trace of it. Instead, there’s sadness, fury, and something that looks like pride and love. It takes my breath away.

“And then I met you, and the rest is history,” I say, and one of those sad smiles appears again as his empty hand takes hold of my other knee before he’s kneeling in front of me.

“You are so strong, my love. And I am so proud of you for taking charge of your own life in whatever way you needed to. I’m so grateful that you saw the situation for what it was, no matter how long it took. You were only a kid. You didn’t deserve that, but I’m so thankful you found your own way in life, and that you made the best of what you were given. I’m thankfulyou found your way to me. I am honored to know you felt I was worthy enough to let in. I know it couldn’t have been easy.”

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