Page 48 of Venom and Bind

“I know.” He pressed his head against mine. “We can finally breathe again.”

My eyes glistened, and I tried to swallow the lump in my throat. I didn’t know what I felt. Relieved, suspicious, happy. After all those nights I couldn’t sleep, or when I did, I had all those horrible nightmares… after always looking over my shoulder and worrying when Ryzen would strike next… I buried my face in the crook of Cian’s neck, inhaling his scent. I always felt safe in his arms, like nothing bad could happen to me so long as he was around. He stroked my hair, his body relaxing under mine. “Thank you, Cian, for being my rock. For protecting me. You are the other half of my soul, and I can’t wait to plan our future together,” I murmured and pressed my lips against his.

“You unlocked a part of my soul that I never knew existed, little star.” His lips grazed mine, soft but possessive. “You are the light in my darkness… and now we can move forward with our lives.”

My heart felt like it might explode from all the love I had for him. He was right. Now it was time to move forward and put this horrible nightmare behind us.

So why did I feel like something wasn’t right?

Chapter Seventeen

Nova

I gripped the arms of the leather chair in Dr. Loomis’ office, my entire body tense. He looked at me with raised eyebrows, and I exhaled with force.

“I thought you would be happy, Nova. You seem a little tense.” He jotted something down in his notepad, and I wanted to reach over and yank the paper out of his lap.

Yeah, you would think I would be happy, wouldn’t you? After being tortured and tormented for almost a year, I’d finally gotten what I had wanted: Ryzen Goodacre dead. But I wasn’t happy. I was… angry.

It had been four days since Cian and I had watched the ME perform Ryzen’s autopsy. Ugh, those images were seared into my brain, no matter how hard I tried to forget them. Everything had been going wonderfully. Work was great; Cian and I were getting closer to getting married. And I hadn’t felt the need to look over my shoulder every five seconds when I was out in public. A part of me couldn’t believe that it was over, and the other part of me was eternally grateful that it was. Cian said I would feel much better once the DNA results came back and confirmed it was him, but that was weeks away.

“I’m… bitter, Dr. Loomis. With a capital B.” That was really what it came down to, wasn’t it?

“I see. It’s normal to feel several complex emotions as you process Ryzen’s death. But I’m curious as to why you specifically stated bitterness.”

I scoffed and relaxed my grip on the armrests. “I know I should feel happy, relieved, at peace, but… it feels like he got away with what he did with me; he got an easy way out.”

Dr. Loomis puckered his lips and scribbled more into his notepad. “I wouldn’t say being shot in the head and then set on fire was an easy way out.”

Oh, really? If only he knew all the nights I had lain awake planning exactly how I would torture Ryzen for what he had done to me. And trust me, a bullet to the head wasn’t even on the top of my list.

Of course, I wouldn’t tell Dr. Loomis that.

“Yes, I guess you wouldn’t really see it from my point of view.” I sighed and stared up at the ceiling to keep my tears at bay. “I guess I wanted him to suffer for what he did to me, to Cian, to Valik… to everyone he’d hurt. I wanted to see the look on his face when they found him guilty and locked him away for the rest of his life. I was owed that. I wanted nothing more than vengeance, and Cian convinced me to give that up. So, I let myself believe I would be happy with him in prison. And now… that was taken away from me. It feels like he still won.”

The question really was, who had taken that away from me? We still didn’t know. But shooting someone in the head and then setting them on fire seemed like something Kaviathin was capable of.

“It’s completely normal to crave revenge, vengeance. There is nothing wrong with wanting that. But what you really need now is peace.” Dr. Loomis set his paper down. Ugh, finally he could stop with all the notes. I wondered what he had written about me after all these sessions. Probably that I was a lunatic.

“You’re saying this is the only closure I’m going to get and that I need to suck it up?” I tilted my head at him and tried my best to smile.

“Yes and no. This is the closure you need. Now you can move on and have a peaceful life like you always wanted.” He reached over and handed me a tissue.

I dabbed my eyes and chuckled. There were some days I felt absolutely crazy for having all these intense emotions running through me. But I guessed that was exactly why I was coming to Dr. Loomis in the first place.

It was time to move forward.

But first, there was someone I had to speak to.

Valik looked in the rearview mirror at me, a crease in the middle of his forehead. “Cian is going to lose his shit when he finds out about this.”

I swallowed the ball of nervous energy in my throat, checking my phone for the fiftieth time since I had sent that text an hour ago.

We need to talk. Spazzianos. 3:00 p.m.

Kaviathin hadn’t responded, but I knew he wouldn’t. The question was, would he show up?

“Let me worry about Cian, Valik. Just pull into the parking lot and drop me off.”

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