Page 66 of Destroy (Deadly Hearts 2)

She blinks once and then turns back to face the front of the car for the first time since we set off. “I see,” she says tightly. She pulls her hand out of Declan’s and fists both of them in her lap.

“I refused, obviously,” I say, sitting forward again. “And he took offense. Said it was you or me. I chose me. I ditched the Ferrari, took as much cash as I could fit into this bag…” I pat the big black holdall next to me on the seat, "and went underground.”

“Why did he want me gone?” she asks after a weighted pause.

“He has been trying to find a foothold over the sea,” I explain. “You pretty much dropped into his lap. He figured taking you out would let him slide into your operation in Manchester and take it over, then the rest and then the city.”

“Thinks quite highly of himself, doesn’t he?” she asks with a trace of humor, which eases my anxiety a bit over telling her. My stomach is still in knots. I’m not as cold as Declan. Don’t get me wrong, I will gut you like a fish if the need arises, but in the times where the adrenaline isn’t pounding through me, I suffer with anxiety and panic attacks. It has everything to with the abuse our da handed out on a daily basis. Declan took the brunt of it, defending me as my older brother, albeit by two minutes. He made sure Caoimhe was protected and dealt with the sexual abuse instead of her. I tried to…once. I thought I was going to die. I have no idea how Declan managed to take on so much and not curl up and end it some days.

I turn my head, tears pricking my eyes as the horror of our childhood rises up and I try to steady my breathing.

“Cillian,” Ruby says softly, bringing me back slightly. “You gave up everything for me? Why? Why didn’t you just tell me, and we could have left sooner?”

I shake my head. “When Connor gets an idea in his head, he won’t shake it until it’s done. You are still in danger. Just not from me. Never from me.”

I hear the click of her seatbelt and then she clambers into the back of the car with me. I scoot over, shoving the bag on the floor so she can curl up next to me. She takes me in her arms and rests her head on my shoulder.

In that moment, without any words between us, I know I love her. She has put me first and the only other person to do that my entire life was Declan. She isn’t stressing that she is on the Irish mob’s hit list. She is worried about the effect this is having on me.

“You’re sweet,” I murmur, turning my head towards her so that I can kiss her forehead. “Don’t worry about me. I’ll survive. Always do.”

“But you ruined your whole life just to protect me,” she points out and cups my face.

“Not many people would do that.”

“Ahem,” Declan mutters from the front.

She giggles. “I said ‘not many’,” she chides him. “I know you would burn the world down to save me.”

“Fucking right, I would,” he murmurs.

“So would I,” I say, not that I’m trying to compete. I just want her to know. The small time that I’ve known her, she has gotten under my skin in a way that no woman ever has.

She rests her head on my shoulder and we sit in silence for about an hour, then her phone rings and disturbs the peace we had fallen into.

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