“So he took Saoirse,” Juliette murmured, mesmerized and horrified by the story.
Maraveet nodded. “He took videos of the things they were doing to her. Each day Killian would get a new one—”
“Killian?” Juliette felt her insides heave.
Maraveet didn’t answer the question. “Callum took them. He wouldn’t let us see, but Killian … Killian wouldn’t let it go. He wouldn’t stop. He knew there was something on those tapes regarding his mother and he wanted to see them.”
“No…!”
A sad little grin twisted Maraveet’s mouth. “We found them, hidden at the back of his father’s closet.” The smile slipped. A tinge of green spread up the curves of her face. “He wasn’t the same after that. The nightmares … his screams…” A shaky hand was pressed to her mouth like the memory had followed her into the kitchen. “I still sometimes hear them late at night. They were the sound a wild animal would make while being tortured and I couldn’t help him. The only person who could make him stop was Molly. She’d sit with him the entire night while he cried for his mother.”
Something wet dropped on the back of her hand, startling Juliette. She looked down and was surprised to find she was crying. Tears were streaming down her face and raining off her chin. Her coat was stained with droplets. She wiped the rest away with her sleeves.
Maraveet didn’t notice, too lost in the past.
“They dumped her outside those doors when they were done with her, right where that fountain now stands. She had fought them for a week before she’d given up, not that anyone can blame her. They had torn her apart in every way imaginable.”
An image of herself on the side of a dark road, being grabbed and shook by Killian rose up in her mind. She remembered the urgency in his voice, the panic in his eyes as he’d made her swear never to give up. It had made no sense to her then, but now she understood.
“Oh, Killian…”
His name whispered from her lips, a sound of her heart hurting for him. The pain reverberated through every corner of her being. It was only the fear of having to explain why she was crying that kept her from finding him, from pulling him into her arms and promising never to let him go through that again.
“What happened to his father?”
Maraveet rubbed a hand over her tired face. “Yegor killed him, too.” She exhaled heavily and let her hand drop. “The sniper was supposed to take out Killian, but Callum jumped in front of the bullet and died instantly in Killian’s arms.”
How was it possible for a person to have endured so much horror and heartache and not have gone completely insane? she wondered. How was Killian even functioning? To have seen that much at such a young age, it would have consumed her. She would have lost her mind.
“But at least he had you and Molly,” she said to the woman across the island.
Maraveet shook her head. “He had Molly. I couldn’t stay here anymore. This whole family felt cursed and I knew that if I stayed, either me or Killian would be next. So I took a job in Paris. I traveled. I stayed away, because getting close to anybody when you do the kind of work Killian and I do, will get you killed.”
It should have made sense. Maraveet’s logic was reasonable. She’d lost her parents in a gruesome manner as well, not as horribly as Killian, but traumatic nevertheless and she had every right to want to get away, yet it was wrong. It was so wrong. Juliette couldn’t even wrap her head around the very concept of what she was being told.
“You left him?”
Maraveet looked up. “What?”
Slivers of fire had begun to heat the ice left behind by Maraveet’s story. She could feel their gnawing as they worked to envelope her heart.
“You left him,” she repeated, no longer a question. “He had his mother brutally torn away from him and his father just died in his arms and you … his sister, left him. You just … you…” She couldn’t even speak through the hatred swelling up to close around her throat. “You abandoned him to this place full of all those demons and nightmares and never looked back. Hooray for you that you got to travel the world and forget, but Killian stayed here. He walked these halls, halls that had once been full of everything that had meant anything to him. It’s a wonder he didn’t lose his mind. I can’t believe how … selfish you are, how … horrible.”
Maraveet jerked back so fast she almost stumbled. Her face had gone white, making her eyes appear even brighter. But Juliette wasn’t finished.
“I’m sorry, but you are not a good person.”
With that, Juliette slid off the stool and marched from the room before she did something truly unforgiveable, like beat all the rage and sadness she felt boiling up inside her into the other woman’s face. Her spine tingled with the force of the tension working through the muscles. Her insides quivered between the urge to scream and break something or cry until the hurt stopped. Instead, she counted the crack-crack-crack of her heels snapping off the marble all the way to the front doors.
Someone had closed them to the swirling snow falling outside, but all she could think about was the fountain on the other side and the woman it immortalized. Her heart hurt all over again as she thought of Killian as a small boy, watching as the woman he loved was beaten and tortured. She thought of him waking up in the dead of night screaming for her. Then to have his father, the only person he had left, sacrifice himself to protect him and having to live with that … how could so much unfairness happen to one person? It was no wonder he was afraid to love anyone. How could he when those he loved were either killed or they left him? But she wouldn’t leave him. If he asked her to, she would stay with him forever.
“Miss.”
A handkerchief—an honest to God square piece of fabric with an embroidered M—was pressed into her palm. She stared at it in wonder for a full second before she wiped at her eyes.
“There’s nothing I can do, is there?” she whispered. “I can’t help him. I can’t fix what happened.”
Kind, black eyes peered down at her with more pity than she liked. “You have already done far more than you realize.”
It was hard to imagine how that was possible when she hadn’t done anything, when Killian was still hurting, but arguing about it wouldn’t do any good either.
“Perhaps you would like me to mend your coat,” Frank offered when they both simply stood there in the echoing silence of the foyer.
Juliette had forgotten all about the tear in the shoulder where the wool gaped to reveal the satin fabric underneath.
She shook her head. “It’s all right. I’ll sew it when I get home.” She sniffled and peered down at the mess she’d made of his handkerchief. Snot, tears, and smudged makeup had turned the once spotless bit of material into a disgusting sight. She grimaced sheepishly. “I’ll get this cleaned for you.”
The hint of a grin crinkled the corners of his eyes. “It’s not a problem, ma’am.”
She started to stuff the thing into her pocket when voices outside the door had her scrambling. She looked up at Frank with wide, panicked eyes.
“He can’t see me like this,” she blurted. “He’ll ask and I…”
“I understand, miss.”
Deftly, he caught her arm and guided her straight to a nearby washroom and stuffed her inside. He shut the door behind her.
On the other side, she heard Killian’s voice giving instructions, the scuffle of several feet as they drew closer. It was ridiculous, but her heart gave a jitter of dread, like she was doing something she shouldn’t be.