They Protected My Murderer, So I Walked Away from Them All Chapter 09

They Protected My Murderer, So I Walked Away from Them All Chapter 09

I wasn’t surprised to see Damian standing on the curb.

The first snow of the year was dusting the asphalt.

I went back up, wrapped a scarf around my neck, and walked down.

He was skin and bone. He looked worse than the day I woke from the three–year coma.

His hair was a mess, and his eyes were completely dead.

I stepped into the cold, my breath fogging in the air.

The second he saw me, his eyes rimmed with red.

“Rory-”

“It’s Aurora,” I said.

The name died in his throat.

His hands shook as he pulled the chain over his head, holding out the charred medal.

“It’s Christopher. For the road.”

I didn’t move my hands from my pockets.

“I don’t need it, Damian.”

His arm fell.

“Aurora… please come home. I can’t survive this.”

Tears caught in his lashes.

“Please.”

Sean’s voice echoed in my head: You’re soft.

Damian had looked like this the ninth time he confessed to me.

I shot him down eight times.

The ninth time, he stood in the rain with bloodshot eyes, begging me not to walk away.

That was the moment I cracked and gave in.

Soft.

Not today.

I took a step back, putting distance between our boots.

“You know I’m not going back. You’re too smart not to know why I burned that car.”

My voice stayed level.

“I cut off my own blood. Why would I keep you? If you have any respect left, get out of this city.”

His face went gray.

“Rory-”

“Aurora.”

He reached out, catching my wool sleeve.

There was no strength in his fingers.

I pulled away. The fabric slid right out of his fingers.

“Don’t do this, Damian. You have Bianca. You have a kid on the way. Give it time, and you’ll forget me. Just

like I forgot you.”

I adjusted my collar.

“It freezes out here. Go home.”

I turned and walked through the glass doors.

He didn’t leave.

Every morning I parted the blinds, he was down on the corner, carved into the snow like a statue.

Four days later, Nico and Valerie showed up.

I wasn’t scared of them, just tired of the noise.

“I already gave Damian my answer. I’m not going back.”

Nico looked at the snow, his hands jammed into his coat.

“Aurora… Damian told us everything. About the wreck three years ago.”

He swallowed dryly.

“Dad and Mom didn’t know Bianca hit you on purpose. None of us knew.”

I blinked once, letting the truth hit nothing.

“And what does that change, Nico?”

Valerie stepped up, eyes red with guilt.

“We’re sorry. She nearly killed you, and we protected her. She’s paying for it now. Damian handled her.”

My chest stayed flat.

“Good to know. If that’s all, catch your flight.”

Nico stopped before the car door, looking back.

“Aurora… Mom and Dad are losing it. Just… call them once.”

I didn’t flinch.

“Tell them I’m breathing. That’s all they get. As far as the Gambinos go, bury me with that car.”

Nico’s jaw worked, but he said nothing.

He got into the town car and closed the door.

I looked at Damian standing by the lamp post.

“When are you leaving?”

He looked up at me.

His eyes were hollow, empty pits.

Before I could speak again, he stepped back into the gray slush.

“Goodbye, Aurora.”

His voice was barely a whisper.

I watched his black coat fade into the falling snow.

“Goodbye, Damian.”

That was the last time I saw him alive.

Two weeks later, my desk phone buzzed during a data run. It was Nico.

“Damian’s funeral is on Tuesday.”

My fingers froze over the keyboard.

“Understood,” I said.

Nico waited a beat. “Are you coming?”

“No. I’m in the middle of a run.”

I hung up, looked back at the monitors, and kept typing.

That evening, my cell lit up with a blocked number from the States.

Bianca’s scream ripped through the speaker.

“There’s ice in your veins, Aurora. He blew his head off, and you couldn’t even stand by his casket.”

Her voice cracked into ragged hysterics.

“He took your name into the grave! He never loved me! He only loved you!”

She kept crying, asking why–why, after everything she gave him, did he never look at her?

I couldn’t tell her.

I never figured him out.

A man who would die over losing me, but couldn’t keep another woman out of his sheets.

I cut the call.

The cold outside drilled straight into the marrow.

I walked home through the drift, pulled up my phone, and booked a flight across the Atlantic.

A week later, the private cemetery on the ridge was empty.

His headstone was raw gray granite, carved with two words:

DAMIAN RUSSO

I laid a single white rose against the base.

The winter wind swept over the stone, cold and clean, like a final breath let go.

(The End)