Page 32 of Sweet Vengeance
“Here, let me help.” I set the ice on the side table.
He closes his eye but doesn’t argue with me. I help Ollie lift his arms, then pull his T-shirt over his head. He’s a lot smaller than me. Doesn’t have the same muscle mass, naturally thinner. His whole torso is splotched with purple bruises—and not the sexy kind Tiernan and Dean put all overeach other with their mouths.
The steam is back, this time my body feeling like a pressure cooker seconds away from exploding.
“I’m going to fucking kill them.”
Ollie gasps, his eye jerking open. “What? No! You can’t do that…do you really…do that?” he asks, the last words spoken softer, almost unintelligible.
This is where things get tricky and why we don’t typically let people into our lives. Not our real lives, at least. We’re all so close because we’re the only people we can trust, but Ollie also deserves to know who will be sleeping in this room with him. It’s one thing if he doesn’t ask, but he did, and I don’t want to lie to him. “I do what I have to do.”
“That’s a bullshit answer,” he says, with more grit to his voice than he had a moment ago. This might be the first time I’ve heard him curse. “You don’t have to hurt people.”
“How do you know?”
“You always have a choice. You decided to be in this lifestyle, so you made the choice to do what you do.”
“Jesus.” I run a hand through my hair. I should walk out this door right now, walk away and never come back. “Don’t talk about shit you don’t understand. There was no choice. Not really. That’s not how this works. This is all I fucking know, Kitten. My choice was made for me when I was born to my father. This isn’t a fucking movie or a book. This is real life.” What the hell would I even do with myself if I didn’t do this?
And the honest truth is, I don’t want to. Do I love all the things I do? No. Do I know it makes me a bad person? That I’m going to hell for it? That I don’t deserve to be here with someone like him? I know all that, but this is also who I am. It’s who I want to be. I’ve made peace with that.
“You can change.”
I shrug because maybe I could but I’m not.
“Don’t kill them…the people who hurt me. Promise me you won’t kill them.”
This is the moment where I can either tell him I won’t and lie, or I can tell him that’s not a promise I can make and be kicked out. If I do that, though, who will protect him? Who will make sure he’s safe until we can get rid of the threat? “It was a figure of speech. I don’t even know who they are.”
“Promise me,” he says again. “I can’t… I don’t know how to live with that.”
“They would have killed you. The mercy you have for them isn’t something they wouldeverhave for you. They would have killed you and that old man both and not thought twice about it.”
He trembles, looks away, his good eye filling with tears. Maybe I could have found a softer way to tell him, but that’s not how I roll. He needs to understand that there’s a real possibility he’s in danger. Even if not from them, there are a lot of bad fucking people in this world.
“I’m not stupid. I know you think I am, but I’m not. I get that they would kill me, but that doesn’t mean I should be okay with killing them.”
I could tell him he’d be doing people a favor. That by keeping them alive, he’s risking them hurting others, but I don’t want to put that pain on him. Ollie is just too fuckinggood. How many people wouldn’t want those who harmed them to die?
“I promise. I won’t kill them.” It’s better this way, better that he doesn’t have this on his conscience. They will die, and he and others will be safe from them, and he can go on living his life.
“You shouldn’t tell me these things, you know. It’s dangerous.”
“What, now you want to protect me?” I chuckle, but like everything about him, there’s a sweetness to it. He hates what I do but wants me to be safe while doing it.
“I’m serious. What if I went to the authorities?”
I shrug. “You won’t.”
“How do you know? I’m going to be a lawyer, Cillian. It’s all I’ve ever wanted.”
“You won’t.” I’m not sure how I know that, but I do. And if I’m wrong, I know what would have to be done. Ollie would have to die, and I’d be the one to do it.
CHAPTER TWELVE
Ollie
Cillian kills people.
