To Love A Monster のすべてのチャプター: チャプター 91 - チャプター 99

ValentinaI'm nursing a glass of red wine at the kitchen counter when I hear a key in the door and, a moment later, hear Nicholas talking to Hamish. I slip off the stool and turn to face him as he comes around the corner, and I gasp when I see him."What happened to you?"His jaw is bruised, and there's what my brain first processes as splatters of paint on his shirt and face. I rush to him. His hands come to my arms as I touch his slightly swollen jaw and realize that those blotches are not paint but blood. It doesn't seem to be his blood, though. I lift his hands and turn them over to look at the backs. He doesn't hide the bloodied, bruised knuckles from me."Are you okay?""I'm fine," he says and walks around me to the freezer, which is pretty much empty, so he tries the fridge, takes out a cold beer and holds it against his jaw."And Cielo?" I chance to ask."He'll have a black eye. Got off easy, the little prick.""Jesus, Nicholas."He looks over at the counter where I left my ph

NicholasI walk out of that church, not caring about the dozens of eyes on my back, not hearing their whispers and theories about the illegitimate son over the sound of the organ. I call Nigella as soon as I'm out the doors, not even caring about the rain as I make my way to the SUV."Nigella. What did they find?""He won't say over the phone. I sent you the location. Did you get that?""I have it. It's a half hour the wrong way from Boston. Can't they just send me the video?""No. It's deemed sensitive. He's giving us a heads up before he calls that idiot detective, and that's thanks to my charm.""Or my money.""Yeah, probably that.""Where are you?""I'm headed out to their building now. I'll be there in about twenty minutes.""Okay, I'll see you there."Between people driving like idiots in the rain and general traffic, it takes me forty-five minutes to get to the address Nigella texted. It's an obscure space housed in a squat building that looks like it should have been taken dow

NicholasCan she swim yet, bro? We'll finish this where it started.I read the texts over and over again and I know he's not here. He's not at the brownstone. Not anymore. This started in Sinistral. He's taking her back there. Back to the place I hate.I reverse out of the street, tires screeching as I swerve to merge into traffic. I shouldn't have left her alone. But how did he know where she was? And how did he get past Hamish?Those questions don't matter, not now.I blow through so many red and yellow lights, I can't count them. The road is slick with what has become a mix of freezing rain and wet, heavy snow, and it's worse in Sinistral. It's always worse in Sinistral.I pass the hotel on my way to the darker, lonelier streets of the wealthier neighborhood, the larger homes, some gated, spaced farther apart, offering too much privacy. If I call the police, tell them Cielo kidnapped Valentina, would they go to the Ricci house? Cielo is still a Ricci, and I am Nicholas Hendrick, th

ValentinaThe last face I see is Nicholas's. The last sound I hear is his. Even the cold doesn't bother me more than a few moments, not after the tearing, searing pain. But that physical agony, it's nothing to what I feel when I see Nicholas's face. When I hear him say my name over and over again. Because I know what it means.He's always rescuing me.He rescued me in this very pool once a long time ago. The night I fell in love with him.He would die for me.I would die for him, too.Did he know that before? Does he know it now?I wish I could say it. I wish I could look into his eyes just one more time. Feel his arms around me. Feel the safety of his embrace. That is the agony, that I cannot. That all I can do is watch from above, removed, my body lying still on those blood-stained stones, him trying to make me breathe. Him screaming for me to breathe. His tears falling on my face too late to warm me. Too late.-------------------------------NicholasIt takes four sets of arms to d