ravaged hearts

CHAPTER FOUR,

RAVAGED HEARTS | CHAPTER FOUR

  OF COURSE HE was here. Why wouldn't he be? It was funny what life did to you, Io liked to think, all the irony and the coincidences. For seven years she'd avoided him after he hurt and humiliated her. For seven years, she'd refused to listen to any news regarding him that wasn't purely business. Pretended nothing between them had ever existed except in the dead of the night, when she was alone with nothing but her own thoughts to keep her company.

  Even her name sounds weird on his lips. Io. Only her closest friends called her that, and he was removed from those ranks long ago. It felt completely unnatural. Wrong. She hated it, but it felt petty to ask him not to call her it.

  After all, they'd known each other for five years before they'd stop being friends. Their first meeting had been purely incidental, and in the years that followed before their fallout, they'd often laughed about it. The way they'd run into each other again and again. Fate.

  They lacked it where it mattered most, though. And Io had gotten over that.

  Childhood dreams were something she stopped being able to afford keeping up. A heart was so easily broken and shattered.

  He sought her out. What did that mean? Maybe he felt apologetic.

  Not even your friends knew where you'd gone. She hadn't told anyone. She was still planning on asking Sterling how he'd located her in the first place. Did Louis go and ask her friends? In Sai?

  That inspired some feelings in her that she didn't want revived.

  Did he even know what had happened all those years ago? Did he just think he failed her when he couldn't protect her from the attacks that had wounded her? Did he realise to what extent his betrayal had struck?

  He didn't even look for her afterwards. For seven years: nothing. Not a single word. And she knew they were often in the same cities, because he was one of those agents she'd always been told to look out for even when he wasn't enemy. And he had to know too, but he never made a single move to reconnect with her.

  Year after year, her hope had corroded until it might as well have never existed at all. Disappointment and acceptance had slowly replaced it.

  Somewhere down the line, she liked to think she had forgotten. But she hadn't. Every time she faced rejection, the memory stung her.

  She was a woman of five-and-twenty now. She should not, could not continue moping about things that had happened so long ago. She had grown up. She was not the same person she was before.

  "Io."

  This time, the voice was feminine. A person she actually owed an explanation to, who would not be pleased with what she had done. Constanza Castrillo, all energy and boisterous laughter. Who was honest and blunt and always had her back. One person she had abandoned in the past nine months. She felt guilty, truly, but she had no other choice.

  Io turned. Their eyes met. "Constanza."

  "Where did you go?" The dark-skinned brunette marched forward, gown rustling around her ankles. "Iolanthe Mi, you gave me a bloody heart attack! I thought you were dead! Nine months, Io, nine months! You don't just disappear without a word for nine months!"

  Io murmured, "And yet I did."

  "This isn't funny."

  It wasn't. Io knew that. But part of her found something ridiculous about this whole situation, so she shook her head and let out some abrupt laughter. "Bloody hell," she said, "bloody hell."