Page 36 of Ruthless Savior
I nearly drop the tray. "What do you mean, handled?"
"I mean you don't need to worry about it anymore. That doesn’t mean the situation with Rocco has changed," he clarifies. “You still need to stay here until he’s dealt with. But Neil is no longer a concern.”
My heart starts to race. "Did you pay it off?"
He doesn't answer immediately, and in the silence I notice something I missed before. There's something dark under hisfingernails, and I see flecks of something else similar on the torso of his white shirt. Something that looks like?—
"Oh my God," I whisper. "Is that blood?"
He looks down at his hands, and I see his jaw tighten. When he looks back up at me, his eyes are cold.
"What did you do?" The words come out as barely a whisper. My heart is beating rabbit-fast against my ribs, and I feel dizzy suddenly, feeling as if I’m looking at a different man.
He doesn't answer. Instead, he turns and walks toward what I assume is his study, leaving me standing on the stairs with my tray and a dozen questions I'm afraid to have answered.
The front door closes with a soft click, and I'm left alone in the silence, staring at the space where he disappeared and trying not to think about what that blood means.
But deep down, I already know.
10
LEILA
Iset the tray down on the nearest side table and follow him.
I shouldn't. Every rational part of my brain is screaming at me to go back upstairs, to pretend I never saw the blood. I have no idea what prying into this could change between us, or how he’ll react—the man I saw standing there in the front doorway is not the kind man who promised to take care of my mother and insisted I eat. But I can't. The image of his hands, the way his whole demeanor changed when I asked what he'd done—I need to know.
I find him in his study, standing with his back to me at the window that overlooks the back gardens, now covered for the winter and the pathways lined with snow. The room is dark except for a single lamp on his desk, and the light from the fireplace casting long shadows across the walls lined with books and expensive-looking art. He's poured himself a drink—what looks like whiskey in a crystal tumbler.
"You should go back upstairs, Leila."
His voice is quiet, but there's a warning in it. A finality that should make me turn around and leave. Instead, I step further into the room and close the door behind me.
"What did you do?" I ask again.
"Nothing you need to concern yourself with." His voice is hard, a command. The kind of command that expects to be obeyed.
"The blood on your hands suggests otherwise."
He turns then, and the look on his face makes my breath catch. There's something dangerous in his eyes, something cold and unforgiving.This is the man people are afraid of, I realize. This is the version of Ronan O'Malley that uses fear to get his way.
"You want to know?" he asks, his voice dropping to something almost conversational. Almost pleasant. Which somehow makes it infinitely more terrifying. "You really want to know what I did tonight?"
Something tells me that I don’t. That Ishouldn’t.But I swallow hard, and nod.
“I went looking for Neil Sawyer.” He takes a sip of his drink, watching my face. "It wasn’t too hard to find him. He was at Flanagan’s, actually. Like he hadn’t done anything he needed to hide from. Business as usual. He thought he was safe.” Ronan's smile is cold, predatory. "He wasn’t.”
My stomach drops. "What did you do to him?"
"I asked him some questions first." He sets his glass down and begins rolling up his sleeves further, and I can see scratches on his forearms, bruises forming on his knuckles. "About you. About what he told De Luca. About how much he got for selling you."
The casual way he's talking about this should horrify me. It does horrify me. But there's something else underneath the horror, something I don't want to examine too closely.
"And then?" I whisper.
"And then I made sure he understood that taking advantage of vulnerable women, selling them in my territory, has consequences."
His territory. The way he says it, flat and cold, like he’s a king who rules part of Boston, makes something strange flutter through my stomach. Something that’s answering to this darker, more violent part of him, thatlikesthat he hurt someone who hurt me. Something that likes his power, that wants to get closer to it.
