I was half-way to my feet when I realized it wasn’t Toni. Isadora bore down on me with a look of complete and utter disgust on her face. The sight of something so foreign on her face caught me off guard, and I found myself backing up a half step before I realized what I was doing.
“You’re an idiot. And an asshole!”
I almost looked around, sure that my baby sister couldn't be talking to me like that. Her voice was harsh, almost unrecognizable, and I suddenly realized that her eyes were glittering with tears.
Shit.
“What are you doing?” she demanded.
“Iz...”
“You know what, just don't.” She held up her hand. “Do you know what she’s doing in there? She’s leaving, Ash. Leaving. She's putting herself in danger because she can’t even stand to be around you.”
“Like hell she is!” The words popped out of me before I could stop them. I started to step past Isadora.
“You can’t stop her,” she said as she grabbed my arm.
“If I have to tie her to a fucking chair––”
“Like they did to me?” Isadora said, her voice flat.
I went still, shock freezing me. “No...” I had to clear my throat. “Iz, no. Not like that. I just...I want her safe. I need her safe.”
“And she wants her family safe. You can’t control everything, Ash. But because you can't seem to get that through your thick head, we're going to lose Toni.” She glanced back toward Toni’s closed door. “Look, I know you never got over Lily leaving you like she did. But Toni isn’t Lily. Nobody is.”
“Iz, don’t.” I shook my head. I didn't want to think about Lily.
“Look, I know she broke your heart, and that you hate not knowing what happened to her. I tried to find her for you, tried to find out why she'd...”
“She didn't love me.”
Isadora shook her head. “You don't know that. I found out that her things were moved out of her apartment by a moving company. No one's seen her since...”
“She wrote me a letter.”
My sister's eyes widened, then narrowed. “She what?”
I sighed and ran my hand through my hair. “A couple weeks after she left, I got a letter in the mail. No postmark, nothing I could use to try to find her. But after I read what she wrote, I didn't want to find her.” I worked to keep my voice flat, emotionless. “She said that she couldn't lie to me anymore, that she didn't love me. She never had. She was just using me.”
Isadora was silent for a moment, and then her expression hardened.
“So what?”
I blinked.
She continued, “You’ve judged every woman you’ve met based on Lily and what she did, and it’s unfair. You’re going to lose the best thing that's ever happened to you because some woman broke your heart years ago? You're not just an asshole. You're a stupid asshole.” She took a step towards me and poked me hard in the chest. “If you lose Toni because of Lily, you deserve to spend the rest of your life alone and miserable.”
Before I could recover, the door opened and Toni stood there. I sucked in a breath at the sight of the suitcase in her hand. Her gaze flicked past me to settle on Isadora and she nodded at my sister while ignoring me completely.
“I’ve got a cab on the way. I’ll call when I get settled.”
Isadora’s mouth wobbled before firming into a smile. “Okay.”
Toni started toward the steps and my head spun, desperate for something, anything, to keep her from going.
“Don’t go,” I said, the words coming out through stiff lips.
She didn’t even pause.
“Toni, wait.”
She kept right on walking.
Getting desperate, I moved toward the railing as she started down. “Dammit! Toni, please.”
I didn't remember exactly when the shroud of ice had settled around my heart, but I did remember when I decided to never allow myself love anybody again.
It had been one month to the day after I'd planned on proposing. I’d been trapped inside the office buildings of Phenecie-Lang while a miserable snowstorm had raged outside. Isadora had been safe at home with the staff and I'd been alone. As I’d stared out into the blowing wind, I’d decided that Lily leaving had been a good thing. Love, after all, made a person vulnerable. Better to protect myself. Isadora would be the only person I'd let myself love.
Now, with each step Toni took away from me, I could feel my heart breaking despite myself. It didn't matter that I tried to push her away or that I'd never said the words out loud.
I could almost hear the ice in my chest cracking, thawed by a warmth that had nothing to do with temperature. It was her. All her.
I couldn't go back to that again.
“I love you.”
She hesitated for a fraction of a second, and I grabbed at the chance.
“Please, Toni, I’ve fucked this up so many times and I know that. But please. Please, baby. Please don’t leave me. I love you.”
Chapter 10
Toni
I could feel hysterical laughter bubbling up in my throat, and fought to keep it back.
Was he fucking kidding me?
I love you.
I told myself to keep going. That was all I had to do. Keep walking. Down the steps. Out the door. Out of his life forever. Dazed, I took another step, then two more.
“I love you, Toni.”
He said it a third time. My hand tightened convulsively on the handle of my suitcase, and I sank down on the stairs, setting my suitcase on the one below me. My legs simply wouldn’t hold me anymore.
I closed my eyes. Don’t listen to him. Don’t listen.
Not a single stair in the whole Lang house would dare squeak, not a single floorboard either, but I still knew exactly when he came up to stand behind me.
“Don’t do this,” I whispered. I told him before that I didn't beg, but I was begging him now. Begging him not to hurt me again. “Every time I try to pull myself free, you do or say something that sucks me right back in. You keep hurting me or twisting me up and I’m tired of it. I'm so tired.” My voice cracked on the last word.
I sucked in a breath as he put his hand on my back. As he began to move it in soothing circles, I struggled not to lean into his touch, to take the comfort he was offering. I knew all too well that his comfort came with a price.
“I'm so sorry, baby,” he murmured. “I’m not a nice guy, Toni, but you’re the only person who makes me want to be better. Please, stay. We can talk this out. You were right. I shouldn’t be the only one making the decisions.”
Hesitantly, I looked up at him. Was it possible that he really understood the deeper issue here?
“We’ll call the FBI,” he promised.
“It’s already done.”
At the sound of another voice, both Ash and I looked up. Or, rather, down. Colton was at the bottom of the stairs, his eyes hooded and expression grim as he looked up at us.
Ash tensed.
Sensing the explosion, Colton took a couple steps up to bring him closer to us. “Toni was right. Your family's not the only one involved.” He ran his tongue across his teeth before he added, “I didn’t get a letter, but there was a picture of my dad shoved under the windshield wiper of the truck I drive for the plant sometimes.” He looked past us to where I knew Isadora was standing at the top of the stairs. “You don’t trust the cops, Ash, and I get that. I don’t always trust them either. But if we go running around like a bunch of kids playing junior detective, somebody will get hurt. I want my family safe. And even if you don't like me, that includes your sister.”