Oh, now she was pissed. Her old trainer Getty had given her that guitar, telling her she needed to find some balance in her life. Next to her training, it was the only reminder she had of him. And now, like so much else in her life, it was broken.
“That’s it!” Fury spread through her veins as she stomped over to the fighting pair. Ronin had pushed Dagan against the wall and was choking him. Dagan, for his part, was choking Ronin back. The two were acting like a pair of rabid dogs, and she’d had enough.
Lina lifted her foot and kicked the backside of Ronin’s knee. Hard. He howled and dropped to the floor. Dagan had time to do no more than blink in surprise before she delivered the same kick to the side of his knee. He followed Ronin down, and they both stared up at her, twin expressions of shock on their faces.
“I can tell you two are brothers, because you’re both major assholes.”
Without waiting for a response, she stomped over one of the barstools set up by her pass-through window and snatched up the leather jacket she’d tossed there last night.
“I’m going out. When I get back, I expect the both of you to be gone.”
She wrenched her jacket on and was already halfway out the door before Ronin spoke up, his voice choked with pain. “Lina, wait! I have to tell you somethi—”
“Ronin, you’re my brother, and gods help me, I love you,” she said, turning back to face him. “So take it with absolute sincerity when I say these two words to you. Fuck off!”
Lina slammed the door shut behind her, taking great comfort in its resounding bang.
Chapter Twelve
Central Park in the summertime was one of Lina’s favorite sights. The leaves were a fresh, vibrant green. From her spot on the iron Pine Bank Arch, she had a perfect view of the kaleidoscope of shades blanketing the park. The early morning mist added an alluring aura of mystique to the surrounding space, and a light breeze ruffled her hair, turning back the lapels of her jacket. She loved coming here whenever she needed to relax—or think. Right now, she was the only soul in sight, quite a refreshing experience when one lived in a city this size.
Something had changed. Something inside her. For the first time since Sara’s death, Lina felt…something.
Alive.
There was no mistaking where it had come from. Dagan. He made her want to move on from the past. Made her long for happiness again.
No doubt about it, they were two lost souls, two people so focused on the things they’d been through that they couldn’t see what was right in front of them. But together, they might be able to help each other out of it.
The words they’d shared last night haunted her, because for the first time she realized what she’d allowed herself to become.
Nothing.
A hollowed-out shell of the person she once was. She’d used her daughter’s death as an excuse to stop living. To stop trying.
She’d given up on life, choosing instead to simply go through the motions. And maybe she’d even wished for death. That would certainly explain her unorthodox choice to become a mercenary. Because the sooner she died, the sooner she joined her daughter in the afterlife. Which meant one thing…
You, Lina, are a total cop-out.
The realization stunned her more than she cared to admit. All these years she thought she’d been strong, when really it had been the exact opposite. She’d allowed herself not to feel, to become nothing more than a fighting machine. Because she had been too weak to accept the pain of her loss.
Oh, Sara. I miss you so much.
A stray tear meandered down her cheek, and she absently swiped it away. She’d been wrong not to honor Sara’s memory by speaking of her, by remembering her. Today she would remedy that by marching right over to Ronin’s apartment and telling him and Dagan about Sara. She’d tell them everything.
Well, almost everything.
There were some things she could never share. Things that, if they knew, would disgust them so completely they’d never want to see her again.
No, those things were best kept locked inside a vault inside her head, where only she could ever find them.
Those things were unforgiveable.
“You look sad,” said a low, familiar voice.
Lina’s fingers tightened on the railing. Shocked, she shifted her gaze toward the man who stepped up on her right-hand side. “Thorne.”
His smile didn’t quite reach his eyes. “I’ve missed you.”
“What are you doing here? How did you find me?”
Thorne shrugged.
Rising suspicion made her frown and take a step back. “Have you been following me?”
“I come here often. I live nearby,” he said, nodding his head to the right.