Page 16 of What Doesn't Kill Us

Dare curses under his breath and stops pacing. He stands there, staring at me with his hands on his hips. “That’s fucking great. Are you sure he was dead?”

“Well, I didn’t request an autopsy, but he appeared rather deceased.”

“This is no time for jokes, Toni. There are a lot of ways for crafty old men to fake their own death in plain sight. So, unless you cut off his head and set him on fire, you can never be sure he’s truly dead.”

I frown, trying to think back to the time when we had Dickwad in our clutches. The information-extracting business was new to me, so I wasn’t there when it came time to dispose of his corpse. “I could ask. But I have a hard time believing they would not have ensured he was dead.”

“Find out. If that motherfucker isn’t verified as being deceased, we need to double down on our efforts to find him. And anyone even remotely connected to him.”

I take out my phone and type out a message to Lilith as I respond, “As far as I know, Lilith made sure he and anyone even remotely connected to him were eradicated from the earth, permanently. You know how she gets. You can’t talk to her.”

Dare rubs his hand over his face tiredly. “Oh, yes. I know. The wrath of Lilith Ferro echoes throughout the halls of the underworld. What’s funny is I’ve heard a few people say that her sister is even worse, and I get the impression they’re not talking about Agatha, so that’s a little confusing for me unless you’ve been up to some evil deeds I’m not privy to.”

My nose wrinkles, my lip curling in distaste. “I would find that hard to believe, though I still don’t remember a lot. I like to think some of the violence I’ve witnessed in the last few months would’ve triggered some kind of memory if that was truly my life.” My phone lights up in my hand, and I read the incoming text from Lilith. “Dickwad is deceased. Like shark bait deceased.”

He frowns again, his lips pressing together in annoyance for a moment before he says, “Well, there goes another lead to the truth.” He sighs deeply and stuffs his hands into the pockets of his slacks as his eyes meet mine. “So, what have you remembered about your old life?”

“Not a lot. Most of my memories have been about you. About us. I’m not even sure if they’re true, but I suppose that conversation will have to wait for another time.”

The corner of his mouth lifts slightly, his eyes softening as he removes his hands from his pockets and walks over to where I’m sitting in the chair. He stops in front of me, squatting down and grasping my hand gently in one of his and raising it to his lips. He presses a soft kiss on the inside of my wrist and then another to my palm, and I bite the inside of my cheek to keep myself from outwardly reacting, to giving in too quickly.

The intensity of his gaze sends a tiny tremor through my body, and he shifts, one of his knees resting on the floor as he leans in even closer to me. His other hand comes up, his fingers stroking the skin of my throat before skimming behind my head, his fingers delving into the hair at the nape of my neck. He tightens his hand into a fist, twisting until the pull on my hair borders on pain, and my mouth falls open on a gasp, forcing my body closer to him until his face is mere inches from mine.

His eyes search mine, and I’m not sure exactly what he’s looking for, but he seems to find it as he smiles at me. “There’s my good girl.”

I push closer to him, his words igniting a deep throb between my legs, making me feel desperate. Something about the cadence of his words, the gleam in his eyes, and the feeling of his hand fisted in my hair makes me feel a sense of belonging. Almost as if I’ve been here before, and I want to sink into it and allow myself his haven, even if I can’t understand where this feeling is coming from.

I skim my nose up his neck, placing a kiss on his pulse point before biting down hard enough to sting. He flinches but doesn’t pull away, so I bite down again, my tongue coming out to taste him as I pull him so close he almost falls over.

That deep ache in my chest attempts to override the throbbing in my pussy, and I feel the familiar sting of tears behind my eyes. I try to blink them away; the fact I’ve developed such an intense attachment to this man after spending more time away from him than with him is making me crazy. He must sense my unease because he releases my hair and wraps his arms around me, pulling me into his body. His head drops closer to me, his face against my neck, and he whispers, “It’s okay. I’ve got you.”

Emotion rolls over me like a tidal wave, and I can’t stop it, can’t push it down or force it away. “I don’t know what the fuck I’m doing anymore.”

He squeezes me tighter—so tight it feels like he’s trying to keep pieces of me from floating away or trying to fuse the already broken pieces back together again. “All we can ever do is the best we can with what we have. Nothing is perfect. No one is perfect. But we continue to do our best, anyway.”

I can’t stop the burning behind my eyes, so I half-heartedly attempt to break free. He adjusts his hold on me, shushing me a bit, and I feel his lips press softly against my neck, then my ear. I allow myself to relax into him, giving myself permission to let it all go, to feel every fucking cut, every bruise, every deep puncture wound in my psyche that remains a huge, gaping hole in my being. My first tears are silent, so I ask, “What if my best isn’t good enough?”

At first, he’s quiet, his arms around me so tight he almost steals my breath, and then his voice is rough with emotion as it cuts through the silence. “You’re enough. You’ll always be enough.”

I sob, clutching at him as the negative energy that’s been festering inside me crashes over me. All the anger and sadness, months of uncertainty and pain, it all kaleidoscopes behind my eyes like a slow-motion picture, and it tears me up, ripping me to shreds. I sob again painfully, my words a broken whisper, “What if I’m not strong enough?”

A humorless laugh breaks free from him, and somehow, he pulls me even closer, holds me even tighter. He repeats over and over, “You are. You are.”

So, I let him take me. I lean into him and allow him to hold me up.

And then I cry.

Chapter Seven

Dare

IwaituntilLilithcomes to get Toni before leaving.

I was aware from the information I’d gotten from everyone that, somehow, Toni had managed to not have any kind of breakdown over the past few months. Regardless of what triggered it in the warehouse, I’m relieved it happened, and I’m glad I was there to absorb at least a tiny fragment of what she’s feeling.

Everyone deals with trauma differently; there’s no right or wrong way to work through it. Even before all of this, we tried getting her therapy, but there wasn’t any way we could make that happen without setting off some red flags. And it’s rather difficult to provide therapy for memories that don’t exist for that person.

Since her memories are coming back now, they’re bound to adversely affect her, whether she wants to admit it. Lilith will talk to her about the need for psychotherapy, but I wouldn’t be surprised if she outright refused. There’s also the option of hypnotherapy to help unlock what’s still being repressed, but the last time that was mentioned, she was adamant that she didn’t want to do it. She trusted her brain to keep what she couldn’t handle out of her reach, and that was the end of the discussion.

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