J. Robb - Immortal in Death

"I'm always available for blubbering." He came toward her with a steaming omelette and a cup. He sat down, stared into her swollen, exhausted eyes. "I adore you."

She flushed. It seemed he was the only one who could bring embarrassed color to her cheeks. "You're trying to distract me." She took the plate and a fork. "That kind of stuff always does, and I can never get my tongue around what I should say back." She sampled the eggs. "Maybe something like you're the best thing that ever happened to me."

"That'll do."

She lifted the cup, started to sip, then scowled. "This isn't coffee."

"It's tea, for a change. A soothing blend. I imagine you're overloaded on caffeine."

"Maybe." Because the eggs were fabulous and she didn't have the energy to argue, she took a sip. "It's nice. Okay, what's the story?"

"You've wondered why I keep Summerset, even when he's… less than solicitous to you."

She snorted. "You mean even though he hates my fucking guts. Your business."

"Our business," he corrected.

"Anyway, I don't want to hear about him right now."

"It's actually more about me, and an incident that you might find correlates with what you're feeling right now." He watched her drink again, calculated he had just enough time to tell the tale. "When I was very young, and still in Dublin on the street, I hooked up with a man and his daughter. The little girl was, well, an angel, gold and rose with the sweetest smile on either side of heaven. They ran confidence games, superbly. Short cons for the most part, bilking foolish marks and making a reasonable living. At that time, I was doing somewhat the same myself, but I liked variety, and enjoyed picking pockets and organizing floating games. My father was still alive when I met Summerset – though he didn't go by that name then – and his daughter, Marlena."

"So, he was a con," she said between bites. "I knew there was something shifty about him."

"He was quite brilliant. I learned a lot from him, and I like to think he from me. In any case, after one particularly enthusiastic beating from my dear old da, he happened to find me unconscious in an alley. He took me in. He took care of me. There was no money for a doctor, and I didn't have a medical card. What I did have was a few broken ribs, a concussion, and a fractured shoulder."

"I'm sorry." The image brought back others, ones that dried up the spit in her mouth. "Life sucks."

"It did. Summerset was a man of many talents. He had some medical training. He often used an MT disguise in his work. I wouldn't go so far as to say he saved my life. I was young and strong and used to it, but he certainly kept me from suffering needlessly."

"You owe him." Eve set the empty plate aside. "I understand. It's all right."

"No, that's not it. I owed him. I paid him back. There were times he owed me. After my father met his unmourned end, we became partners. Again, I wouldn't say he raised me, I took care of myself, but he gave me what might be considered a family. I loved Marlena."

"The daughter." She had to shake her head to clear it. "I'd forgotten. Hard to picture that dried up old fart as a father. Where is she?"

"She's dead. She was fourteen. I was sixteen. We'd been together, more or less, for about six years. One of my gambling projects was turning a tidy profit, and it came to the attention and the disapproval of a small, particularly violent syndicate. They felt I was cutting into their territory. I felt I was carving out my own. They threatened. I was arrogant enough to ignore them. Once or twice they tried to get their hands on me, to teach me respect, I imagine. But I was difficult to catch. And I was gaining power, even prestige. I was certainly making money. Enough that between us we were able to buy a small, very decent flat. And somewhere along the way, Marlena fell in love with me."

He paused, looking down at his own hands, remembering, regretting. "I cared for her a great deal, but not as a lover. She was beautiful, and unbelievably innocent, despite the life we led. I didn't think of her romantically, but as a man – because I was a man already – might think of a perfect piece of art: romantically. Never sexually. She had different ideas, and one night she came into my room and rather sweetly, and terrifyingly, offered herself to me. I was appalled, furious, and scared to the bones. Because I was a man, and therefore, tempted."

His lifted his gaze to Eve's again, and there was storm in them. "I was cruel to her, Eve, and sent her away shattered. She was a child, and I devastated her. I've never forgotten the look on her face. She trusted me, believed in me, and I, by doing what was right, betrayed her."

"The way I betrayed Mavis."

"The way you're thinking you did. But there's more. She left the house that night. Summerset and I didn't know she was gone until the next day, the next morning when the men who wanted me sent word that they had her. They sent back the clothes she'd been wearing, and there was blood on them. For the first time in my life, and the last, I saw Summerset unable to function. I would have given them anything they demanded, done anything. I would have traded myself for her without hesitation. Just as you, if you could, would trade places with Mavis now."

"Yes." Eve set the empty cup aside woozily. "I'd do anything."

"Sometimes anything comes too late. I contacted them, told them we would negotiate, begged them not to hurt her. But they had already hurt her. They had raped her and tortured her, this delightful fourteen-year-old girl who had found so much joy in life, and who was just beginning to feel what women feel. Within hours of that first contact, her body was dumped on my doorstep. They had used her as no more than a means to an end, to make a point to a competitor, an upstart. She wasn't even human to them, and there was nothing I could do to go back and change what had happened."

"It wasn't your fault." She reached out and took his hands. "I'm sorry. So sorry, but it wasn't your fault."

"No, it wasn't. It took me years to believe that, to understand and accept that. Summerset never blamed me, Eve. He could have. She was his life, and she had suffered and died because of me. But he never once blamed me."

She sighed, closed her eyes. She knew what he was telling her, by repeating a tale that had to be a nightmare for him to relive. Neither was she to blame. "You couldn't stop what happened. You could only control what happened after, the way I can only do everything I can to find the answers." Wearily, she opened her eyes again. "What did happen after, Roarke?"

"I hunted down the men who had done it, and I killed them, in as slow and as painful a method as I could devise." He smiled. "We each have our own way of finding solutions and justice, Eve."

"Vigilantism isn't justice."

"Not for you. But you'll find the solution and justice for Mavis. No one doubts it."

"I can't let her stand trial." Her head lolled; she snapped it back. "I have to find… I need to go…" She couldn't even lift her weighted arm to her head. "Damn it, Roarke, damn it, that was a tranq."

"Go to sleep," he murmured and gently unhooked her weapon harness and set it aside. "Lie back."

"Inducing chemicals on unknowing people is a violation of…" She slipped deeper, barely felt him unbutton her shirt.

"Arrest me in the morning," he suggested. He undressed her, then himself, before slipping into bed beside her. "Just sleep now."

She slept, but even there, dreams chased her.

She did not wake up cheerful. She did wake alone, which was probably a wise move on Roarke's part, but she didn't surface with a smile. There were no aftereffects from the tranq, which made him a very lucky man. She woke alert, refreshed, and pissed.