Chapter 96

Christian nods, smirking a little. “Frankie and Nico are fine, except…well, they’re going to want to kill me too,” he murmurs. “But they’re fine.”

“Do they know…what you did?”

“They’ll have figured it out by now, probably,” he says, a bit dry, looking over at me with a sad little smile. “Everyone will have.”

I bite my lip, anxious again. “So, you weren’t supposed to do it?” I ask, soft.

“No, Iris, I wasn’t supposed to do it,” he says on a sigh. “I was expressly ordered not to, in fact. I believe my dad’s exact words were to…” he growls a little here, his fingers tightening again on the steering wheel, “forget you ever existed, and let Bonetti do whatever he wanted with your corpse.”

My eyes go wide with shock at the violence behind that statement, and just precisely how willing Romano was to let Bonetti have me. “Is there really that much at stake?” I whisper.

But I know the answer before Christian exhales and turns his steady gaze to me. “It’s war now, Iris. And in doing what I did today…we’ve lost Marino. He’ll go to Bonetti, and Pesci, and my dad will…fucking disown me for it.”

“Are you…are you serious?” I whisper.

“I’m not, actually,” he says, dry, glancing at me. “My father isn’t in the business of disowning his sons. No, he’ll just fucking kill me.”

And by the way Christian’s jaw tightens as he turns back to the windshield, I understand that it’s not hyperbole. That what Christian did today – for me – has drawn a very real line in the sand between him and his father. Caused a rift, even, that Christian…may not survive.

God, I think, looking anxiously down at my hands. Maybe he should have left me to die. I’m…I’m not worth losing your family over.

“Don’t do that, Iris,” Christian whispers. But the car is quiet enough that I hear him. I look up at him with wide eyes.

“Do what?”

“You’re worth it,” he says, his eyes on the road. “Every bit of it, Iris. You’re…the only really good thing in my life. So. You’re worth it.”

A blush finds my cheeks, but I can’t find it within myself to smile. Because even if he believes that now…with what he’s given up? And what he’s risked, for me? God…I just…I can’t believe it.

But I don’t counter him, knowing it’s not going to do any good. There’s nothing we can do about it now, after all. I mean, what could we do? Even if Christian brought me back and handed me over to Bonetti, he left that house just littered with bodies.

Christian – he really set his world on fire today, didn’t he? Made his allegiances known.

And his primary allegiance, I’m shocked to realize is…to me.

We drive for a long time in silence then, with both of us working through our individual thoughts. There’s not a moment of it that’s awkward, though – with Christian, it’s always easy, always calm. After a little bit he puts on some calm, easy music. He insists that it’s to help him think, but I tease him that it’s so he doesn’t have to listen to me chewing through my mountain of junkfood and snacks. He doesn’t deny it, and I burst out laughing, and he laughs with me.

I do finish my snacks and then sleep finds me, pulling hard at my eyelids. I’m exhausted, but I have trouble slipping into it, terrified that I’m going to wake up in that horrible box again – that this is all a dream.

But Christian reaches a hand out, and rests it lightly on my thigh – nothing sexual, just him letting me know that he’s here. And as long as his hand is there – as long as I have that connection to him, to this world in which I’m in the car and he’s at my side – I know that I’m safe. I fall hard into sleep then, and I know I’m out for hours. I wake up at some point, hazy, and am surprised to find Christian leading me to another car – a switch, apparently, to lose any further tail on us – but as soon as I sit down again sleep claims me.

When I wake up hours later, I blink in surprise to see the sun setting, the sky all around us a pretty pink and purple instead of the stunning blue it was when I last opened my eyes.

“You like the beach, right?” Christian asks, his voice surprisingly cheerful. I blink in surprise, looking at him again.

“What?” I ask, breathy.

“The beach,” he says, glancing my way and then lifting his chin towards the windshield. I turn towards it in the fading light of the day and am surprised to see the ocean spread out before me, visible between the lines of reedy marshland through which we’re driving.

“What?” I gasp, sitting up straighter and marveling a little. “When…when the hell did we get to the coast?”

“About half an hour ago,” he says, I think genuinely happier now to see me surprised.

“I love the beach,” I whisper, still staring, but when I glance back at Christian I see him unable to keep the happy, slightly smug smile from his lips. And then I grin too. “Wait, though,” I say, sinking back into my chair and crossing my arms. “You know I love the beach.”

“How would I know that?” he says, too innocently.

“Um,” I return, rolling my eyes at him, “from the thousand trips we took as kids and the way I freaked out every time we got there. And the dozens of emails I sent you – which I know you read –“

His grin widens, but he doesn’t deny it.

“In which,” I continue, smiling myself too, “I told you all about how I went on beach trips, and everything I did, and how much I loved it!”

“How you said that if you were ever going to get a tattoo,” he murmurs, remembering what I wrote in one stupid email to him one day, “you wanted it to be a dolphin, but you were afraid that everyone would tease you because it’s such a basic thing to get a tattoo of.”

I groan, laughing and covering my face with my hands, shaking my head. Because obviously I wouldn’t have told him that if I’d genuinely thought he was reading my emails! “I just…really like dolphins,” I murmur against my palms.

He laughs aloud now, nodding to me.

“I was thinking of you when I bought this place,” he murmurs, and I drop my hands from my face, shocked, as we slow down and turn down a road that I wouldn’t have even noticed was there. “The listing said that you can see the dolphins at dawn and dusk sometimes. That they…migrate, or something.”

He shrugs like he can’t quite remember as we continue down the little road, which has so many twigs reaching into it and scraping lightly at the sides of the car that it’s very clear no one’s been down it in quite some time.

I gape at him for a moment and then turn my head forward as light appears. And then my jaw absolutely drops as we pull out of the scrubby little forest towards a private beach, where the waves lap lightly at the sandy shore.

Just before the beach, though, is the true marvel – a sweet little beach bungalow, nestled close to the waves but tucked deep enough amongst the pines to be cool and shady. I stare at it, loving immediately its quaint wooden details, the little brick chimney that peeks cheerfully from the top.

“You…you own this place?” I whisper.

Christian nods as he pulls the car into a spot just to the left of the front steps. “The only place I ever kept off the books,” he says, turning the car off and turning to me. The light is mostly gone now, and I stare at him – my mouth still hanging open – in the pretty blue and purple light of twilight that fills the car.

“So, no one knows we’re here?”

“No one on earth knows this place exists, Iris,” he says quietly. “No one will ever find us here.”

I continue to stare at him for a long moment before turning my shocked gaze back to the sweet little beach cottage – our refuge, where we can actually be safe.

Safe and…alone.

Completely…alone.

“Well,” I say, closing my mouth and swallowing heavily, my stomach twisting with new anxiety. “I guess we should…go inside.”

Christian just smirks at me for a moment before opening his car door, climbing out.