Page 55 of Drowning in the Deep

“No, silly, not that,” I told him, shaking my head. As if. I wondered if he would ever propose to anyone. Probably not. Asking a woman to marry him would take a level of humility I wasn’t sure Daemon Petrov would ever have. “Back when you asked me to help kill my father, I told you no, or at the very least that I needed to think about it. Well, I’ve changed my mind.”

He raised an eyebrow but didn’t turn to look at me again. I could see him thinking over my statement, but he didn’t speak.

“In fact,” I continued, “I’m pretty sure I’d be happy to pull the trigger myself.” I pictured that in my head. Me, standing across from my father, looking him dead in the eye, and pulling the trigger that sent a bullet flying into his head. I saw the bullet enter between his eyes, the blood spraying a white wall behind him, the look of shock in his eyes as his mouth dropped open and his head snapped back.

Yeah, I could do that. I would happily do that. My only regret in shooting my father in the head would be that it wasn’t slow and painful enough, but it needed to be done quickly. He had a habit of leaving people to linger so that they could escape, and I wasn’t going to make that same mistake.

“Are you sure?” Daemon’s voice cut through my thoughts. “You told me before that you weren’t a killer, remember?”

I took a deep breath, recalling the conversation very well. “I know what I said,” I told him. “I wasn’t a killer back then. Technically, I’m still not. But this is different. He deserves to die. I know now that I will never be happy, that I will never be free, until Alexander La Rosa is dead and buried.” Again, Daemon turned to look at me, his eyes lingering a little longer this time. “I want my freedom, Daemon. And I want to make him pay.”

Daemon readjusted his arm so that his hand was in mine, and he squeezed it reassuringly. “I understand, Elisa. I felt the same way for many years. I knew I’d never be able to accomplish everything I wanted to in this life until my father was dead. The day that I killed him was one of the very best days of my life, and even though it’s brought on a lot of challenges, I’ve never felt more liberated than I do now.” He shook his head slowly as if he were reliving that moment again and again and feeling the satisfaction of knowing the man who’d tortured him was dead by his hand.

As Daemon was speaking, a memory tickled the back of my mind. While I was in the basement, my father had mentioned something about Daemon killing his father. At the time, I’d registered that it was important, that it was something I needed to tell Daemon once I saw him again—if I survived the entire ordeal. Now that I was out of my prison and safe, I fought to regain that memory, but it was hiding somewhere in the recesses of my mind. I grunted, biting down on my bottom lip, and feeling a stab of pain from doing so before I quickly released it.

“What’s the matter?” he asked. I thought I caught a hint of defensiveness in his voice as if he were ready to tell me all the reasons why it was okay that he’d killed his father.

I wasn’t about to argue with him on that one. “Oh, nothing. I was just thinking about something he said when I was in the basement. I can’t remember what it was. But it’ll come to me.”

His forehead furrowed as he turned to look at me, probably wondering if it was important. But since I couldn’t think of it, he let it go, and that was when I realized we’d exited the highway and were pulling to a stop in a quaint downtown area I didn’t recognize. Like everything else I’d noted out the window since we’d left the warehouse, this place looked different. The entire city looked different. Maybe that was because I was a different person now.

Reading over the sign above the shop we’d pulled to a stop in front of, I realized that we were sitting in front of a bakery. Turning back around, I looked at the clock and noted it was only 10:30 in the morning, so I asked Daemon, “Are you picking up donuts for the guys or something?” I’d never known my father to drive off to pick up breakfast pastries for his men, but maybe Daemon operated differently.

He grinned at me and shook his head. “No, I’m not suddenly having a hankering for an apple fritter. Don’t you know what today is, Elisa?”

Confusion washed over me. I didn’t have any idea what day it was. I thought I’d heard Janis mention it was Saturday when he was fixing me up, but at the moment, I wasn’t even sure what month it was.

Then, it dawned on me. “Fuck! It’s my birthday.” I slapped my forehead and immediately regretted it as pain splintered through my head and across my hand. I winced, and Daemon took my hand and pulled it to his lips before pressing a quick kiss against my forehead. “I can’t believe I forgot my own birthday.” But then, I had been slightly preoccupied.

“You have to have a cake for your birthday, right?” he asked me, still holding my hand.

I took a deep breath and let it out slowly. The man who never got a cake for his birthday, who never enjoyed his birthday because his father was an asshole who made Daemon fight him on his birthday, actually remembered the off-handed remark I’d made in that shitty property about it being my birthday soon. I couldn’t believe it. My eyes went back to the bakery. So that was what we were doing here. Everything clicked together. It was my birthday, I had to have a cake, so we were at a bakery.

“Seriously?” I asked him. “You went out this morning after the night you had, without even getting any sleep I imagine, so that you could pick up a birthday cake for me?”

My heart swelled with adoration for him. I held it back the best I could, though. If there was one thing I’d learned about Daemon it was that I couldn’t be too enthusiastic with my admiration for him, or like a spooked deer, he would bound off in the other direction, making the distance between us even further. Despite my best efforts, tears filled my eyes. I did my best to sniffle them away, but it was impossible. I’d never been so touched in my life.

Daemon cleared his throat. “What’s the matter? Did I do something wrong? I thought you’d like a cake for your birthday.”

Sniffling, I said, “No I love it. I think it’s great.” Again, without thinking, I pushed up out of the seat and pressed my lips to his. The pain from the split in my bottom lip screamed through my entire jaw, but I ignored it, the joy from his actions eclipsing any discomfort. Pulling away, I said, “Thank you so much for remembering,” and kissed him again, a little less aggressively this time.

Daemon’s eyes met mine. “You’re welcome. I’m glad you’re happy about it. I’m not so good at this kind of stuff.”

Reaching up, I smoothed my hand across his cheek. “You are. Daemon, thank you so much for everything. For saving me, for being with me, for remembering my birthday even when I didn’t. I can’t tell you how much all of this means to me.” I smiled up at him, tears still threatening to fall, hoping I hadn’t overstepped.

“It’s really not that big of a deal, Elisa,” he said with a nonchalant shrug.

I let him have that. If I didn’t, he would brush the whole thing off. I couldn’t keep pressing him, so I nodded and let it go, but I knew he was wrong.

It was a big deal. It was a huge deal. Finally, after all of this time, I was beginning to see who he really was. The rays of sunlight had begun to burst through the clouds, revealing the amazing man underneath the shell of hardness he insisted on keeping over his true self so that no one could see who he really was. But this man who remembered birthdays and put himself at risk to save the people he cared about, that was the Daemon I knew really existed beneath it all. This was who he would’ve been if he hadn’t been raised by wolves.

Which begged the question of who the hell would I have been under different circumstances?

I couldn’t think about that at the moment, though. Breaking away from me, he asked, “Any requests?”

“I’m sure I’ll love anything you pick out for me.” I grinned at him, almost giddy that he was going in for my birthday cake.

Daemon smiled back at me and went inside. I let out a sigh of contentment. Finally, things were starting to come together.

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