I’d Give Up The World For You - Chapter 212

“How can I? I don’t even know Daisy’s last name!” Juliet protested.

Again, she had a point. Rukelion wasn’t willing to concede though. “Stay away from us. Just send me the money and I’ll never bother you again.”

“Fine! I already know your banking details since I helped you set up the account. I’ll wire it to you. I hope you realize this is blackmail. That’s illegal. You can’t get away with this with anyone else.”

“There isn’t a reason for me to do it to anyone else. And you really think I care if it’s illegal? You’re the one who is always saying I’m a villain,” he said acidly.

Juliet sighed. “…I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have pigeonholed you like that. I know that what I did was wrong and I should have realized you were capable of making your own choices. I acknowledge that I ruined everything. Are you ever going to let it go?”

“I can’t even entertain the possibility until I have my life back.”

“I suppose that’s fair. But if you take this money we’re even, got it? You can’t threaten to kill me anymore.”

“Nothing could ever make us even!” Rukelion exclaimed furiously. “You owe me more than you could EVER repay so don’t you dare talk about making things even! I fully reserve my right to hate you and nothing will ever change that.

“We won’t be even but as long as you stay out of my way you can keep your lousy little life. I won’t come after you a second time unless you cross me first. I think that’s more than fair considering what you think of me.”

“I’m sorry,” Juliet whispered.

Rukelion pulled into the parking lot and took the phone off speaker as he exited the car. He spat, “Sorry doesn’t change anything. Just send me the money, Juliet, and I’ll be done with you. The least you can do is let me live the rest of my life in peace.”

He angrily jabbed his finger at the phone to end the call and nearly walked right into Daisy, who had been taking the trash out. “Uh…what was that about? Were you on the phone with Juliet Gallagher?”

He hadn’t been prepared to tell her what he was doing but now he was caught. He couldn’t lie but he couldn’t tell the full truth either.

“I didn’t want to see her in court,” Rukelion confessed. “She knows what she did is wrong and feels guilty about it so she’s willing to settle privately. She said she would wire me half of her earnings and that would be the end of it.”

“Half?! How on earth did you manage to get her to agree to that?” Daisy shrieked, her eyes nearly popping out of her head.

“…we have a very long and complicated history. She owes me.”

“What did she do to you?”

Rukelion sighed. “She ruined my life, that’s what. I don’t want to talk about it.”

She seemed to realize he was serious. “Oh. Okay. I’m sorry. I won’t ask again. I just…want to know what’s going on with you. I can’t help you if I don’t know. I didn’t mean to be nosy.”

Daisy had a slight expression of hurt on her face and his heart clenched. He hadn’t meant to hurt her feelings but he truly couldn’t explain why he hated Juliet so much without going into things she couldn’t remember.

He touched her cheek before planting a tender kiss on her lips. “Don’t worry about it. I’m fine.”

He wasn’t really but he didn’t want to stress her out. He doubted he would ever be able to come to terms with everything that happened. The best he could do was ignore it. Amy said suppressing wasn’t healthy but it had gotten him through most of his time both on the farm and in the royal army. It would get him through this too.

===

Daisy was worried about Leo. He didn’t seem to be making much progress in therapy, though she did her best to cheer him up whenever he came home seeming simultaneously more drained and more wired than before.

If anything he seemed to be getting worse. He spent more time quietly stuck inside his own head and she did her best to coax him out of it by keeping him distracted. Distractions had always worked for her when she was having a hard time with things.

She wished there was more she could do for him but she was at a loss. The only thing that might make him happy would be agreeing to be his girlfriend but did she really want to do that with someone so mentally ill? She didn’t see that ending well for either of them so she was afraid to upset the equilibrium they had reached.

Daisy wasn’t exactly an open book herself—he still didn’t know she had been a foster kid—but he kept things to himself way too much to be in a healthy relationship. She knew she did too. He wasn’t the only offender here.

Two broken souls might be able to offer each other some degree of comfort but they would never work in a real relationship. She knew that and it was what kept her from moving forward.

She wished things were different. He loved her but that love was deeply rooted in desperation. She used to want someone to need her but not like this.

As far as she had seen, Leo didn’t seem to have anything he wanted other than her. It was dangerous pinning all your hopes on another person. She didn’t want to let him down but knew she was already and felt bad about that. Then felt stupid for it because it was his fault not hers.

It wasn’t Daisy’s job to take care of him. She was her own person with her own life that he happened to barge his way into after what was supposed to be a one-night stand. The only reason she did was because she had come to care about him.

Of all the people in the world to care about why did it have to be someone so complicated? She knew almost nothing about him even though he was living with her.

Overhearing the tail end of his conversation with Juliet had made her realize exactly how much she didn’t know. He was angrier than she had ever heard him. It sounded like he blamed her for a lot more than basing a villain in her novel off of him.

Leo had said that apologizing didn’t change anything and that the least she could do was let him live the rest of his life in peace. That she knew what she did was wrong and that she owed him.

He hated her enough to not want to see her in court and she actually agreed to such a large private settlement. That lent credence to what he said. No innocent person would do that.

He also said Juliet ruined his life. That was quite a statement considering everything he had been through. The only thing Daisy could think of that he might be alluding to was his family’s murders but wouldn’t the culprit be in jail rather than walking free and writing novels?

Leo had essentially declared the subject closed by kissing her and saying he was fine but Daisy didn’t think it was closed at all. If he was going to stay here…if she was going to open her heart to him…she needed to know what was going on.

She didn’t want to set him off though. She would need to be careful about this.

The next time he was at school she looked up everything she could find on Juliet Gallagher. It wasn’t much. Her personal social media pages were private and her public ones only talked about an upcoming book release and the movie.

According to her Wikipedia page, she had been raised by a single mother after her parents divorced and that she had one sister. She had gone to Carnegie Mellon University and stayed in Pittsburgh rather than moving back to where her family lived in New Jersey after college.

Pittsburgh. Wasn’t that where Leo had lived before coming to Cincinnati? That couldn’t be a coincidence.

Unable to find further information on the author, Daisy figured her next best bet was reading the dumb book. She wanted to know exactly what she had written about Leo that was worth giving up half of her earnings for.

She didn’t want him to see so she went to the library and read it either outside of the house, when he wasn’t home, or when he was asleep. When she wasn’t reading it she was sure to hide it somewhere he wouldn’t find it to avoid having to explain herself.

Honestly, Daisy didn’t get it.. This book was primarily about a group of schoolkids setting out on a series of adventures after graduation while trying to ultimately defeat the Flame of Punishment, which was the character based on Leo.