She leaned down and hugged me, then headed back over to her car, where Xavier was waiting. A minute later, they were gone, off to deal with the rest of the fallout.
The attempted massacre of Ashland’s underworld leaders dominated the news for the next few days. Story after story filled the newspapers and airwaves about Salina Dubois and her twisted plan to get revenge for her father’s murder.
When those stories became old news, the survivors told their harrowing tales for the local media, Jonah McAllister chief among them. Even though he’d been working with Salina, had helped her arrange her deadly dinner, he still painted himself as just another victim. The smarmy lawyer gave an interview to anyone who came calling until you couldn’t turn on the TV or open the newspaper without seeing his smooth face. Smug bastard. He was worse than a cockroach, always finding a way to survive no matter whose boot heel he was being crushed under.
But slowly, life got back to normal—except for the fact that I didn’t hear a word from Owen.
He didn’t call or come by to see me, and I didn’t try to contact him. I knew he needed some time, some space, and I was determined to give it to him, no matter how much I just wanted to hold him in my arms and pretend like the last few days had never happened. Like I’d never heard of Salina Dubois or discovered just how much she’d meant to my lover.
Eva called me every day, but she didn’t have much to say either. She was trying to deal with Salina’s death and her part in it just like I was.
Finally, a week after I killed Salina, Owen dropped by the Pork Pit. My lover stepped into the restaurant, making the bell over the front door chime. It was five minutes before closing time, and the restaurant was deserted except for me and Sophia. The dwarf jerked her thumb over her shoulder at him.
“Privacy,” she rasped.
“Thanks, Sophia,” I murmured. “I’ll finish locking up. See you tomorrow.”
The dwarf gave me a hopeful smile, then pushed through the double doors and went into the back of the restaurant.
Owen waited until she left before squaring his shoulders and walking over to the counter. “Hi.”
“Hi, yourself.”
I smiled at him, trying to tell him that I understood, trying to tell him that I wanted to move forward. But he didn’t return my smile, and his eyes were dark and troubled in his rugged face. Not a trace remained of the giants’ attacks on him or the injuries he’d gotten when Salina had used her magic to throw him against the Ice bar. No, Owen looked just fine on the outside. Inside, though, I knew it was a different story—for both of us.
“I’d like to talk, if that’s okay with you,” he said.
I nodded. I locked the door and turned the sign there over to
Finally, Owen drew in a breath. “I’m sorry about how I acted the other night. When you . . . killed Salina . . . it affected me more than I thought it would.”
“I know, Owen. And I’m sorry about that. Sorrier than you will ever know.”
I didn’t apologize for killing her. I didn’t say that it simply had to be done, that Salina wouldn’t have ever stopped, that I’d probably saved Owen’s life—all our lives—by cutting the water elemental’s throat. He knew all that as well as I did. And if he didn’t, well, then we had an even bigger problem than I’d imagined.
“One of the things that bothers me the most is that you had Finn pull a gun on me,” Owen said, his violet eyes harsh and accusing. “You let him hold me at gunpoint while you killed Salina.”
I wasn’t surprised he was upset by that, by how I’d had Finn keep him out of the fight. Not only had I killed Salina, but I’d also taken away Owen’s choice in how things would go down. I would have been just as angry if our positions had been reversed.
“And what would you have done if I hadn’t? You would have tried to stop me, Owen. Hell, you told me to stop—more than once. I was trying to protect you, trying to keep you safe.”
I didn’t say the words, but they hung in the air between us, weighing everything down, weighing us down, with their many ugly implications.
Owen shook his head. “No, you just didn’t trust me enough to do what needed to be done where Salina was concerned. You didn’t trust me at all, Gin. Not with her. When we went to Blue Marsh, and you ran into Donovan again, I trusted you to make the right choice. I trusted in your love for me. I trusted you not to hurt me. I expected the same courtesies in return, but you didn’t give them to me with Salina.”
I didn’t say anything at first. I couldn’t, because his words were too true. I hadn’t trusted him with Salina because I hadn’t wanted to get my heart broken when he chose her over me. When you cared about someone, you gave them the power to hurt you, and I’d feared that Owen would throw away my concern just like Donovan had once done. Deep down, I knew it was irrational, that Owen was nothing like Donovan, but I’d still felt that paralyzing fear all the same.
“But I did trust you,” I replied. “Did I have doubts? Sure. Was I worried that Salina was coming between us? Absolutely. But I handled all that as best I could. Even when you went to see her alone, I came after you—and that’s when I heard you tell Salina that she could
To that, he didn’t say anything. He couldn’t, because my words were as true as his had been a moment ago. For once, I let my emotions show. Let him see my clenched jaw, the tightness in my face, the cold, harsh accusations in my eyes. I let him see my anger and my hurt and my disappointment—in him.
“I’ll admit that I was jealous of her,” I finally said in a soft voice. “She was everything that I’m not, and she was a part of your past that you couldn’t seem to let go of. That maybe you didn’t want to let go of.”
Owen sighed. “Salina and I were finished the moment she first hurt Eva, even if I didn’t realize it back then. But as soon as she came back to Ashland, I should have made it crystal clear to her that we were long over—and to you too. I thought I did that day at the Pork Pit. But that doesn’t change the fact that you killed her, Gin. Right in front of me. I asked you not to, and you killed her anyway.”
“I didn’t kill her for you. So I could have you or keep you.”
No, I killed Salina for Eva, for Kincaid, for Cooper—and for myself too and everything she represented to me. What I could have become if not for Fletcher. Maybe what I was anyway.
Owen’s face tightened. “I know that. Over these past few months, I’ve watched you do what you thought needed to be done, no matter how dangerous it was. Even when other people told you not to do something or tried to get you to stop, you went ahead and did what you thought was right anyway.”
“Is there something wrong with that?”
He shook his head. “I can’t say that there is. Not after I’ve seen how you’ve helped people. But I never thought you would tune me out the way you sometimes do Bria, Jo-Jo, and even Finn. I never thought I would ask you for something—something important—and you would just ignore me.”
I could have protested. I could have told him that he was wrong. That I listened to my family and friends, that I didn’t just tune them out, but he was partially right. Because in the end, someone had to make the hard decisions, had to do the dirty work, had to be the bad guy, and, like it or not, it seemed that quite often that someone was me.
I thought about telling him what I’d promised Eva, about how I’d promised his baby sister that I would protect Owen no matter what—even from himself, if it came down to that. But I kept my mouth shut. Owen had to accept what I’d done on his own and not just because I wanted him to. He had to forgive me on his own terms, in his own way, and not because I gave him an excuse to.
We didn’t speak for several minutes. Outside, folks went about their day, talking on their phones, getting into their cars, driving home, but inside the restaurant, it was like Owen and I were frozen in place, stuck in this one awful moment, and not sure where we went from here. I could almost see our future swinging back and forth like a clock pendulum.
