by Callie Hart
“Mmm.” I slip the key she just gave me into my pocket.
“Thank you for allowing him to stay with you in the interim. I hope he isn’t making a nuisance of himself?”
“He’s not seven years old, Ms. Blackheath. He’s an adult. We’re dating. He’s definitely not making a nuisance of himself.”
That seems to knock her calm exterior a little. “Yes. Well. I didn’t mean to sound obtuse. Forgive me. I suppose mothers always think of their sons as little boys, no matter how old they are.”
Or how tall they are. Or how many tattoos they get. Rooke looks every bit as dangerous as he is. She can’t have missed that.
“Anyway. I don’t want to keep you. I just wanted to return that key. It was very nice to meet you. Maybe soon, Rooke will bring you to the house and you can meet me and my husband in a formal fashion.” She gets to her feet. Brushes down her dress. “In the meantime, please ask him to call me. He missed our breakfast a few weeks ago, and I was beginning to wonder if he was still alive. I paid him a visit, but unfortunately he wasn’t home at the time. Please tell him that I hope the housekeeping I tended to on his behalf last week was not out of line.” Tipping her head to one side, she suddenly bears a more than startling resemblance to her son. He often wears the same, casual sideways tilt of the head. “It really was a pleasure,” she says.
Her heels sound like gunfire on the tile as she saunters off after Oscar.
******
“Housekeeping?” Rooke frowns at the key I hand over to him when I get home. He’s fresh out of the shower. Beads of water run down his back, over his shoulders, down his arms, over his chest. I put up a valiant fight, but in the end I can’t help myself. I feel like a teenager as I check him out. His tattoos are complex, interlinking, weaving all over his body. They’re mostly black, with a subtle touch of color here and there that accents the artwork. His body is out of this fucking world. He was smiling when I came in, a highly suggestive smirk on his face, but now he seems to be preoccupied.
“I had no idea she had a key,” he says quietly. His frame locks up unexpectedly, then, all expression sliding from his face. “Fuck.”
“What? What is it?”
“Housekeeping? No fucking way.”
“I’m afraid you’re going to have to tell me what you’re talking about.”
“Housekeeping. People like Jericho use a housekeeping service. The Barbieris, too. She set that fire at the house. She had those bodies moved.”
“What?”
He sits down heavily, pressing the heels of his hands into his eyes. “God. It all makes sense. It all makes such perfect sense. I can’t believe this. She must have done something about the car, too.”
“What car?”
“The one I stole and was driving across town. The one with Jared Viorelli’s—” He almost says something, then appears to think better of it. “Never mind. Fuck. My mother disposed of two bodies and committed arson. My world just shifted on its axis a little.”
“Does this mean we can stop worrying?”
“Yeah. Yeah, I guess it does.”
“Then take me upstairs. I’d like some attention from you now please.”
A shadow falls across his face. He’s been quiet ever since the bridge, and it’s been obvious why. He hasn’t needed to explain. It seems as though that might have changed now, though.
“Sasha…”
“Rooke, it’s okay. I don’t need to hear it. I don’t need the get-out-of-jail free card from you. Not now. Not ever.”
He cups my face in his hands, leaning down so that his forehead is pressed against mine. “But you should have one. You saw some shit on that bridge. I’d love to say that’s not who I am, but it would be a lie. That’s exactly who I am. The man who will kill without a second thought in order to protect you. Does that make me the guy who will lose his shit if someone is rude to you? Yes. Does that mean I might lay someone out for looking at you? Most definitely, yes. I am not an easy human being to be around, Sasha. This is the moment where you get to tell me that you’d like to walk away.”
Do I? I guess I have asked myself this question a number of times over the last seven days. Truth be told, I’ve thought about it endlessly, and I keep coming back to the same answer. No, I do not want to walk away from this. Watching Rooke beat a man to death was frightening, but he did it to protect me. I must have gone slightly mad over the past few weeks, because something that should have terrified me and made me want to run for the hills actually ended up making me feel safe and protected. How fucked up is that?
“Like I said. You can keep your card, thank you very much,” I whisper.
Rooke closes his eyes, blowing out a deep breath. “Thank fuck for that. I was trying to figure out how to stop myself from kidnapping you and it wasn’t looking good.”
The kitchen door opens and Jake appears, shoulders stiff, body braced, a cup of coffee in one hand and a bottle of painkillers in the other. He takes one look at us and pretends to scowl. “Jesus. How’s a guy meant to recuperate with this shit going on? You’re about to fuck again, aren’t you?”
“You’re not even meant to be out of bed,” I remind him.
“Yeah, yeah. Save it for when I’ve had three of these and I don’t know my own name,” he says, holding up the pain meds.
I try not to laugh. “I’m glad he’s getting better,” I whisper into Rooke’s ear. There was a second, just after Rooke brought him back here, when things were not looking good. Jake’s temperature was through the roof. He was delirious, ghostly pale and couldn’t stop throwing up. That lasted for forty-eight worrying hours, and then we woke up the next morning and his fever had suddenly broken and he was asking for food.
Rooke, my raven king, wraps his arms around me and whispers back to me. “Me too. But he needs to hurry the fuck up and leave so I can fuck you on the table.” He pauses, then says, “Also, I have something I want to show you.”
I’ve heard this before from him. His show-and-tell sessions nearly always end up with me on my back and his head between my legs; to say I’m a fan of them is an understatement. “Is that so?”
He treats me to the same arrogant, cocky smile he gave me the very first time I saw him in the hallway at the museum. “Dirty girl,” he whispers. “This is different. I can show you right now if you like?”
“Okay. Sure.”
Carefully, Rooke raises his right hand, palm facing me. He looks me dead in the eye. He seems to be holding his breath. Painfully slowly he lowers his middle finger, and then his ring finger, until he’s only holding up his thumb, his index finger and his pinkie.
My breath catches in my throat.
“I learned this earlier this morning,” he whispers.
My eyes are stinging so badly that I know I’m going to cry. There’s no avoiding it. The last person to sign this to me was Christopher, right before he died. Carefully, I mirror the shape he’s made with his hand and I press my fingertips to his, index finger-to-index finger, pinkie-to-pinkie, thumb-to-thumb.
Rooke huffs heavily down his nose. He kisses me softly, his lips skating across mine, nudging me with the tip of his nose. “Glad you didn’t leave me hanging, Connor,” he whispers softly.
I try not to let the moment overtake me entirely, but it’s difficult. The love between us is fire and ice. It’s loss, and it’s redemption. It’s pain, and it’s comfort. It is everything. Having him actually tell me how he feels, especially the way he just did, is something I will remember forever, but in the end the truth is that I already knew. Some things are felt and seen long before they’re put into words, after all.
After so long, my heart is finally healing.
For the first time since I surfaced the frigid, cold waters of the East River five years ago, I feel like I can finally breathe again.
FAQ WITH THE AUTHOR!
1)Will there be more from Rooke & Sasha in the future?
I really hope so! I have a number of other projects in the works right now,
but I have absolutely LOVED writing about these guys. Reach out and let me know if you’re interested in what happens to them, and I will try and make it happen!
2)Does Rooke stop stealing cars?
Hmm. Well, who knows? He’s in love with his lady, but she didn’t ask him to quit… Would you have asked him to end his life of crime?
3)Will Sasha ever have any more children?
She definitely never planned on it. Recovering from the heartbreak of losing a child is impossible. Now that Rooke is in her life, though, it’s up in the air. She’s happier than she ever thought she could be again. Perhaps that might make her reassess her previous decision.
4)The Barbieri family has also featured in your Hell’s Kitchen series (co-written with Lili St Germain) and Chaos & Ruin series. Are you going to write something to tie all of the stories together in the future?
Good question! I would love, love, love to write something to tie everything all together. It really depends on the directions each storyline veers off into, though. Lili and I are writing the second instalment in the Hell’s Kitchen series right now, and let me tell you…these Barbieri boys are insane in the very best way.
5)What are you working on next?
As I just mentioned, I’m currently working on Tribeca with Lili, but I’m also working on another co-authored project with Jonny James, who just so happens to be the model on the cover of this book!! If you want to keep up to date with Road to Ruin, you can join my newsletter right here: http://eepurl.com/IzhzL
6)Did the Bleeding Hearts Book Club continue?
Sasha loved her romance novels. There’s no way she closed the club down. She definitely continued. I’m not sure if Rooke would have carried on attending. Although, he did find it kind of hot haha!
If you would like to join the real Bleeding Hearts Book Club, you can do so by clicking this link:
https://www.facebook.com/groups/360091281057383/
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Callie Hart is the international bestselling author of the Blood & Roses and Dead Man’s Ink series.
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