I looked back at the city. It wasn’t no. I didn’t understand why that made me feel lightheaded, like my hands were floating through the room, or why I smiled slightly at nothing.
12
Tara
The front door clicked shut and I was left alone in the apartment. Ewan had some meeting to attend—“Just a bunch of mafia douchebags snorting coke and measuring dicks”—and I opted to stay behind. I tried doing yoga, tried watching a movie on TV, tried pacing around the living room, but I couldn’t burn off the anxiety that rattled through my skin.
I kept thinking about that conversation. He wanted to marry me. He thought getting married was the best solution to our problem, and he wanted to do it for real.
And I hadn’t said no.
That part killed me. I didn’t know what I was thinking, even considering this insanity. There were a million other things I could do: call the cops, run to the Healys, steal money from Ewan and try to make it on my own, any number of things. Instead, I couldn’t seem to peel myself away from this place.
The thought of becoming that psycho’s wife should’ve made my skin crawl. Instead, it sent strange waves of excitement down my spine as I pictured waking up every morning with him in my bed, a delicious ache between my legs, his handsome lips up against my throat, the tickle of his beard, the hard scratch of his callused fingers on my soft skin. He was pleasure and pain, and I should’ve been afraid of him.
But I couldn’t quite manage it.
He killed my father. I couldn’t forget that. Even if my dad was a real piece of shit, and I was more and more convinced that he was, I still couldn’t just forgive Ewan for what he did to me. My life was torn away, and now I was lost at sea, alone and with nothing.
With only Ewan to keep me company.
I had to get out of that apartment. I threw on jeans and a sweatshirt, and shoved a hat down over my hair at the last minute. I added big sunglasses to the ensemble and headed downstairs. I looked like a celebrity trying to escape from the paparazzi, and in some ways, I was.
Except I was escaping from a violent and dangerous gang of Irish men that wanted to abduct me from the violent and dangerous gang of Italian men that already owned me.
What a fucking world.
I headed north and made a circuit around Rittenhouse Park until I found a bench near the central portion, in the wide open area where the buskers liked to play guitar, or juggle, or sing, or whatever their act was. I curled my legs up under me and watched pigeons flutter down in hopping circles, and families walk past pushing strollers, with little toddlers at their heels. Old couples sat holding hands, and a young girl with what had to be her boyfriend, both of them covered in tattoos, were stretched out on a blanket in the grass nearby.
I leaned my head back and tried to understand how I was such a crazy person.
Ewan killed my father. Ewan wanted to marry me. Life wasn’t supposed to work this way—you weren’t supposed to murder someone then marry their daughter. And yet from everything I’d seen so far, I believed that Ewan meant well, that he killed my father for a good reason.
If my dad was trafficking women, he deserved to die.
My hands clenched and unclenched into fists and I tried to steady my breathing. I felt a little spark of hate for myself for missing this, for not noticing what my father actually did for a living. I was so stupid, thinking he was an accountant, when in reality he facilitated sex trafficking. He was a slaver, a disgusting animal that imported human beings, imported women to be used as fuck dolls, and I lived in his house, ate his food, talked with him at night, listened to him complain about a long day at work—
God, it was disgusting.
And Ewan killed him. The world was probably a better place without my father in it, and yet he was still my dad. The confusion and the anger mingled in my chest and I shifted in my seat again. I had the urge to get up and run, to burn away whatever this feeling was that circled around my spine and held me tight. Marriage, death, murder—that man’s face in the toilet—everything I’d seen—Ewan’s lips against my throat—
“Excuse me, miss,” a man said, standing a few feet to my left. I hadn’t noticed him, but his voice pulled me back into the moment. Sunshine graced his face, a strong chin, light green eyes, dark red hair, and decent button-down tucked into chinos. “Do you mind if I sit?”
I gestured at the spot next to me. There were three, each separated by a black metal divider. I was at the far end, and he should’ve sat at the other end, but he took the middle, right next to me.
I squirmed, a little uncomfortable. He was handsome though, and he kicked his legs out with a sigh like he’d been on his feet all day. He wore expensive leather boots that looked well worn.
“Lovely today,” he said pleasantly. “I come here all the time and people watch.”
“It’s nice,” I said absently, and was about to stand up. I wasn’t in the mood to chat with a stranger.
“I watch closely, you know, Tara,” he said, smiling slightly, but not looking at me. His eyes roamed across the open square, and I felt my guts churn wildly.
Dark red hair. Light green eyes. This man had to be a Healy. I went to stand, but his hand shot out and grabbed my arm. Not tight, not painful, but firm enough that I’d have to wrench away if I wanted to escape.
“Stay,” he said. “Hear me out. I don’t mean you any harm.”
“Tell that to
