Their plane had just crashed. He looked unbothered except for the messy way his hair fell over his forehead. How was he so calm?
Because he knew it was going to crash.
“Away,” he said simply.
“You…you’re the one who hurt me. You tried to kill me a dozen times.” Her teeth were nearly chattering from shock, but she got the words out.
Real regret pinched his features. “I’m sorry I hurt you. It was never about you.”
“Wh-what?”
“It was never about you.”
She knew that. It was about the Masters’ Admiralty. She was just a stand-in for the society as a whole.
“It was about him.” Gus looked at Eric and his expression twisted.
No. No no no.
Gus looked back at her. “I hurt you because he loved you.” Gus reached up with the hand not currently trapping her free wrist and stroked her cheek. “I see why he loves you.”
“No.No.” She needed him to take the words back.
There were sounds coming from the other side of the door. Was someone there? Would someone come? Eric was beside her unconscious—she firmly believed that she felt his pulse pump under her fingertips for just a moment—and she was trapped in her seat. They were defenseless against Gus who seemed entirely unaffected by what had just happened.
“It was never about you, but you changed everything.”
Nikolett strained the arm currently strapped to her chest, trying to reach the buckle of her seat belt.
Gus saw what she was doing and casually reached down and undid it for her, though he didn’t let go of her wrist.
The door latch rattled.
“Nikolett, come with me.”
As a hostage?She almost asked the question, but she knew that wasn’t what he was asking, and she wouldn’t insult either of them by pretending it was.
“Gus wasn’t a l-lie.” She wanted to say more, but each word was hard to get out.
His eyes softened. “No, he wasn’t.” He looked away from her. “Not entirely.”
Nikolett had the strangest urge to comfort him, an urge only increased when he finally looked back to her, the flashing emergency lights, bangs on the door, and shouts fading away as they stared at one another.
“Come with me,” Gus urged, something painfully vulnerable in his expression.
As if he’d never before dared to ask anyone for anything, and now he was asking her to run away with him.
“No.”
He recoiled as if she’d slapped him. Nikolett yanked her wrist out of his hold and forced herself to stand, shifting to put herself between him and Eric.
Gus stayed on one knee, gazing up at her.
Then his expression hardened, and he too rose. He changed as he stood, shedding whatever soft vulnerability he’d shown. She didn’t know if the hard, cruel, dangerous man now on his feet was his truest version, the man she knew as Gus a veneer, or if it was Gus who was real, and what she saw now a protective shell.
He towered over her, leaning into her in a way that made it very clear how utterly helpless she was. If he wanted to take her by force, he could. She’d fight him, but even if she wasn’t wounded, she wouldn’t have been able to triumph in a physical confrontation.
Nikolett forced herself to hold perfectly still as he bent his head to hers and his lips slid along her cheek to her ear. “Enjoy what I have in store for you,” he whispered. He took a step back. “And him.”
