His Twisted Heart by Ellie R Hunter
Chapter Forty-Three
Victoria
The van finally comes to a stop, and when the prospect opens the door, Mom and I are met with Grandpa leaning in to help us out. Dad and the twins are cramped along one side, and try to make room for us to pass. Mom and I are scooped up into his arms and I cling to him, thankful last night’s events weren’t my last day.
I managed to get a little sleep on the drive here, the lull of the van helping me to drift off, knowing I was safe and going home, but I’m still so tired I could cry.
When Grandpa moves on to hugging Mason and Myles, I head inside with Mom who wanders off, hugging Alannah and Bonnie, leaving me to stand in the middle of the bar, not knowing exactly what to do. Brothers filter in, and I can see from their faces they’re joyous at bringing us home in one piece, but as soon as I lock eyes with Luca across the bar, I’m done for.
“I’m all in. I want you to be mine,” he signs.
It’s all I’ve ever wanted to hear from him. For so long, I wanted to be the sole object of his affection, but tonight, I’m too tired to dance around in circles with him.
“Can we do this tomorrow?” I sign back.
He shakes his head. “I love you, Tor. Please, I need to be with you tonight.”
Dumb-fucking-founded—that’s exactly what I am. And as I stand motionless, I can’t form a single coherent thought. He loves me, and he told me in front of everyone. Not that many people here can understand what he’s saying. But nonetheless, he said it, and he said it openly.
Walking over to me, he cups the back of my head and mouths, “I love you,” before pulling me against him.
A tear escapes, rolling down my cheek. Swiping it away, I see him say, “No more tears.”
Resting my head against his chest, we stand there, him just holding me. I kinda wonder what everyone is making of this right now, but I don’t have it in me to look.
Eventually, I pull back enough to see his face, and unwrap my arms from around him.
“I’ll stay with you tonight, but we still need to talk.”
He takes hold of my hand and leads me up to his room.
Once inside, he locks the door behind us and lets go of my hand to head into the bathroom. Turning on the shower, he jerks his head for me to get inside, so I undress and step under the warm spray, where he joins me moments later.
The hot water cascades over my shoulders, and they finally begin to relax. Luca’s skin brushes against mine as he leans around me to grab the soap.
He doesn’t attempt to talk. Instead, he lathers up his hands and washes me, taking great care around the marks on my wrists. His brows crease together at the raw redness, but he concentrates on what he’s doing and doesn’t meet my eyes.
I take over and wash my hair as he cleans himself, and then he’s stepping out and grabbing the biggest towel off the hanger for me. Wrapping one around his waist, he passes me a second, smaller towel for my hair. I have no dryer here, so it’s going to be all on end by the morning.
Luca opens his drawer and pulls out one of his bigger T-shirts and tosses it my way. When I’m dry, I slip on his shirt and sit on the bed, leaving my hair wrapped in the towel as I watch him dry himself and slip into a pair of sweats, sans boxers. Sitting on the bed opposite of me, we just sit there and stare at each other.
There’s much to be said, but after the last few hours, I don’t want to say anything to ruin the moment.
Nevertheless, it has to be done.
“Sara’s gone, and she isn’t coming back,” he signs, getting the ball rolling.
“I know. She came to see me before she left town.”
“She did?”
I explain, “She wanted to make sure I loved you, because if I didn’t, she was going to stay and fight for you. I told her I did love you, and that given the opportunity, I’d be with you. She didn’t say anything else and left.” Taking a deep breath, I ask, “Do you have any feelings for her now?”
I’m not stupid. You can’t just be rid of feelings for someone. I don’t even know why I asked.
“No. I was stuck in the past. I couldn’t let go of what I thought I wanted, and it wasn’t until she came back that I could see so fucking clearly, what I thought I wanted, and what I actually needed, were two completely different things.”
I must not look convinced.
“Tor,” he almost pleads. “When I was with her, I didn’t feel anything. But when I’m with you, I feel everything. Not only do you see me, you still for some reason like what you see, and want to be in the darkness with me.”
My chest tightens, and the urge to climb onto his lap intensifies. He’s saying all the things I want and need so desperately to hear, but the doubt is still lurking in every corner of my heart.
“After everything we’ve been through, after everything you’ve said and done to me… It’s just so much hurt you’ve caused…” Trailing off, I stare down at my hands—my communicators.
His warm finger tips my chin up until we’re eye to eye, and for the first time ever, his green eyes hold no anger, no violence, no vacant stares because he’s not listening to a word you say. There’s something I’ve never seen from him before. It’s a pleading for me to believe him. He needs me to say I believe very word.
“Saying sorry won’t make up for how I treated you—”
Shoving his hands down, I sign sharply, “It’d be a good start.”
His devilish smirk shows itself. “I am sorry. But what I’m trying to say is, I will spend every day showing you how sorry I am. Give me the chance to prove to you that I love you, and I will never hurt you again.”
It’s the second time he’s declared he loves me, and it blows me away just as much as it did down in the bar.
“I promise you, going forward, it’ll be different. I’m not hiding how I feel about you any longer, and what I feel for you is so much more than I’ve ever felt before.”
“I believe you mean it because you don’t say things you don’t mean, but how long will you feel this? Your hot and cold moods are notorious for messing with me. I can’t trust you’re all in as much as I would be.”
It’s hard to admit it to him, but it’s true.
Shuffling over to me, he cups my cheeks. I hold his intense gaze, and watch the internal war storming away in his eyes.
“You need proof?” he mouths. At my nod, he blurts out, “Marry me.”
For a minute, I swear I think he asked me to marry him.
“Say that again? I didn’t catch what you said.”
“Yes, you did,” he mouths. “Marry me, Tor. Let me prove how much I love and want you in my life.”
Gasping, I go to move off the bed, needing to pace, but he grabs my wrist and keeps me close to him.
Clearing my throat, I inhale slowly, and for the first time in a long time, I use my voice.
“Are you asking or telling me?”
His eyes widen, and I cringe, worrying if I spoke too loudly, or if I even made sense. It’s not like I don’t know how words sound, but I’ve refused to speak since I lost my hearing, and it’s almost foreign to me now.
But I need to be clear.
Smiling, he shuffles even closer to me. “Asking, of course,” he signs.
Speaking, I say, “Marriage is for a long time, Luca. It’s forever.”
“Yet it still won’t be enough for me.”
My heart’s melting with every word pouring from his mouth.
“Let’s get married.”
He’s serious. His stare never wavers, and I swallow hard.
“Okay.”
“Yeah?”
Beaming, I squeal, “Yes, I’ll marry you.”
His lips are on mine before I can blink. Leaning up on my knees, I thread my fingers through his hair to keep him against me. I get to have this man for the rest of my life. When I first propositioned him about our joint boredom in lockdown, I never thought it’d lead to this.
“First, we need to tell our families,” I say, pulling away from him.
“No. First, I need to hear you say you love me.”
“I love you, Luca Jackson. I love you so, so much.”
I wish I could hear him say the words, but I’ll settle for reading his lips.
“And you should also know that now you’re mine, I’ll protect and kill anyone who comes near you with violent intent in mind.”
I raise my brow seductively. “Such a caveman.”
“You should also know I killed the men responsible for you losing your hearing in Mercy.”
It takes a minute for that admission to sink in. He killed them?
“But you hated me then. Why would you have done that?”
He shrugs like it’s nothing, but I’m not letting him off that easy. “Tell me.”
“I was compelled.”
“Compelled? Why?”
“Because you were mine then, and just because I was an asshole to you, didn’t mean anyone else could be. Besides, they caused you permanent damage. I wasn’t going to let them get away with it.”
Shuffling closer to him, heat pools in my lower belly. “How did you kill them? I want every detail.”
Leaving enough room for him to sign, he tells me, “They were tied to chairs in an old rotting shed, and I shot them both in the head. One was sweating like a pig, and the other tried getting out of his restraints because he knew I wasn’t going to back down.”
I picture what he’s saying, and a shudder runs down my spine.
“I buried them far up the mountain in deep graves.”
“When?”
“After you kicked me out of the hospital.”
“But they were club members,” I point out needlessly.
“Only my dad and Gabe knew about it. It was Gabe who helped me bury them.”
“Your dad gave you permission to kill two patched in members for me?”
“I didn’t give him much choice, but yes. I wouldn’t have been able to put them in the ground if he said no.”
As I begin shifting through what he’s told me, he adds, “I also told Pope to prove how serious I am about you, who in turn will tell your dad and brothers. Apart from them, no one else knows. Does that change anything?”
“It changes everything.”
His face falls, misunderstanding what I said. Straddling him, I plant my lips on his. I’ve seen his darkness, hidden in the shadows within him, and it turns me the fuck on.
Breaking the kiss, I say, “I just remembered. You threatened to kill my brothers.”
Shuffling backward, he signs, “Only because I knew you’d never hurt yourself if you thought it’d put your family in harm’s way. It was the only threat I could think of to keep you alive.”
Now that he says it, it makes sense. Still, I whack him on the arm.
“Hey,” he mouths.
“That was sneaky.”
“It worked.”