Page 97 of Soft Tissue Damage
I did tell her, didn’t I?
Wait, did I not fucking tell her?
Elena and I talked for a long time about who I am. Can I have really missed out the most important part? We talked about my killings and her killings, but we didn’t discuss my work, which is what I was afraid of telling her in the first place. It was the number one thing keeping me up at night for weeks.
I rub my brow with my fingers. “Oh, my fucking Christ. I forgot you didn’t know. I had so much to confess that it was missed.”
“Confess what? Cullan, what are you talking about?”
I take both of her hands in mine and look deep into her eyes. “Elena, I don’t like poker. In fact, I hate it.”
Her blue eyes are very big and very worried. “Then why did you go to so many poker games?”
“I didn’t. I lied.”
“What were you doing all those nights when I was babysitting Rosie? You didn’t become the Red Mask Killer until weeks after I met you.” Her voice is high and shrill with fear.
“For years,decades, I’ve hidden what I really do, and then I met you and suddenly I was completely off the leash I’d tied around my own neck. I indulged every dark part of my soul. I’ve done so many unhinged things that when it was time for me to confess everything, I forgot the very firstthing I should have told you. The crimes that I’ve been committing for years.”
“What crimes?” she insists, gripping my shoulders and looking really scared now.
“I break into houses. People hire me to steal from other criminals.”
Elena flops onto her back and gazes at the moon. “Is that all? I thought you were going to confess you’re a spy or a demon or something.”
I grin at Elena. Is this the magic of meeting your person, that suddenly every fear that you were impossible to love is gone?
I scoop her into my arms and hold her tight. “I love you so much. Do you know that? So fucking much.”
Elena smiles and twines her arms around my neck. “I love you, too. Can we go home now? Vivienne and Tyrant have been wonderful, but I want it to be just the three of us again.”
“Oh, hell yes. Let’s go home, darlin’.”
Hand in hand, we walk out of Tyrant’s maze and into our new life.
On the drive home, I tell Elena that she doesn’t need to worry about anyone finding her aunts’ bodies. If all goes to plan, the police will eventually open a missing persons case, which will immediately go cold, and the pair will eventually be declared legally dead. That miserable part of Elena’s life will be closed forever.
I don’t mention the other thing that preoccupied mewhile I was away. It’s too early for that, and I don’t want to get Elena’s hopes up only to crush them.
Less than an hour after leaving Tyrant’s maze, I’m nestled on the sofa with Elena and my daughter in my arms, smiling and kissing them both as Elena tells me everything the two of them have been doing while I was gone. Rosie follows the conversation and adds in excited words every now and then like “birds” and “Tyra” and “Huck.”
“It sounds like you had a wonderful time. I wish I’d been there, but I know that there will be many wonderful times ahead of us.” My hand seeks and cups her belly, cradling the tiny lift within her.
Elena looks up at me with a gasp. “I finally feel it.”
I glance at my hand, confused because she’s too early to be showing. “What do you feel?”
“Like I’m pregnant. Like I’m having your baby. It hasn’t seemed real while we were parted. How is this my life? I can’t believe I get to be this happy.”
Tears gather on her lashes, and the tip of her nose turns pink. She looks so cute that I cradle her against me, kissing her silky hair over and over.
Elena looks from Rosie to my hand on her belly and to my face. In a choked voice, she says, “This is what I’ve always wanted. We’re not normal and good, but I tried to be normal and good for so long, and it only brought me pain. You and Rosie and our little one are my family.”
“That we are. Not normal and good, but strange, loving, and wicked.” I kiss her lips over and over, and caress her belly. “And all mine.”
EPILOGUE
Elena
