He stared at her.“Does that mean I might be on the chopping block one day?Because I’m a human?”
“What?No!Of course not!You’re pack, and my mate, and the father of my babies and,hello, Iloveyou!”
“Why is my life worth more than hers?”
“Because you are worth infinitely more to me.She was an evil, conniving, scheming woman married to an evil man, and she was determined to expose us to the world.I take lives to protect this pack, andonlyas a last resort.She was willing to take lives for money, and she didn’t give a fuck whose lives they were.Including children.”
He stared at her for a long moment.“Wait a minute.Youknewshe couldn’t keep it quiet.Youknewshe was a Catholic and?—”
“I assumed she’d go to confession, yeah.And my orders to her were to keep the secret, or kill herself instead of spilling the secret.I was explicitly clear about what would happen.Shehada choice.She could’ve even let the decision ride; she could’ve kept her mouth shut and done no further research and still resided in that limbo.I didn’t take her free will.I gave her inescapable consequences fornotchoosing the way that would protectusand her baby.Despite what I saw, I had hoped that her being a staunch Catholic meant she’d choose her life and the life of her unborn child over her plans and prejudices.”
“But you could have ordered her to forget the knowledge, like Peyton did with me and Aisling with all the Pack Alpha stuff.”
She slowly shook her head.“I couldn’t take the chance.What if she had a stash of data somewhere we didn’t know about, and she or someone else stumbled across it?What if that then jogged her memory?What if there are still assholes out there, maybe even rogue Primes, with the ability to peel that information out of her brain?What if she kept poking around and triggered those other Russian assholes, huh?You think they won’t hesitate to use a chainsaw on you or me?Think again.And,hello, they now have our address in Idaho.They were also pretty damned clear what would happen if they kept getting dragged into this.You want to actually watch that video this time instead of listening to it?No, there were too many variables, so I boiled it down to the basics—she had achoice.And she chose.”
“Jesusfuckinghell.”Ken slowly sank onto the bed.“And now Manuel’s uncle will come gunning for us.”
“Doubtful.”
“He knows Manuel went to the Idaho compound,” Ken said.“And he knew Manuel was on our trail here in Florida.”
Dewi shrugged.“If he believed Manuel and wasn’t letting him engage in a snipe hunt.Or if Abundio even knows who we are.How will he know we had anything to do with this?I mean, people will assume she was so grossed out by a guy old enough to be her great-grandfather getting her pregnant that she couldn’t handle the shame.Besides, Carl and Mateo were careful to make sure Manuel didn’t send specifics to Abundio about our location or identity.”
Ken stared at her.“Abundio obviously somehow tracked down Ray Dorland.Ray had no clue who Abundio was, because we told very few people,trustedpeople, about the Seguras, and none of them would’ve talked.Peyton Primed them.”
“The only thing I can think of is that Abundio had Russian connections of his own, asked around and showed pictures, and somehow that connected him back to Dorland.Maybe they were part of the abduction network.I don’t know, and frankly, I no longer care because I won’t go poking around any of that.”
She clasped her hands in her lap and stared at the floor.“Yes, I was wrong to not tell you everything.Yes, I was wrong to go to Mexico.Yes, this was a messy situation, but now it’s cleaned up.It’sdone.And I completely understand if you don’t trust me.I promise, I will never do anything like this again.Meaning I will not ice you out of a decision.”
He stood and slowly paced, not looking at her.“How do you think this makes me feel?”he asked.“That you basically lied to me—and let’s be honest that, in this case, it was a lie.It was a huge-ass omission and deception, so that gets slapped into the ‘lie’ column.Especially after all that talk about being open with me.Youliterallyhad just told me you’d be open with me.”
She nodded.“I know.”
“That’s all you can say?‘I know’?”
“I was wrong.I was out of line.I hurt you.I deceived you.I knew this would hurt you if you found out.I put the pack ahead of you and, regardless of my intentions, that was wrong in this case.And I will not ever repeat this act, this intention, this type of verbal gymnastics.No loopholes.”
She finally met his gaze.“But the compromise is that there will be times you absolutely will not want me to go do something, you will tell me no, and I will go to Peyton, and he will overrule you despite promising you he would always do what you ask.”
“So, you’re saying this ismyfault thatyoulied to me?Gaslight, much?”
“No!I’m saying that, in light of recent events, I was trying to reduce your stress.Ideally, you never would’ve known, and that was my fuck-up, too.”
He stood with his hands on his hips and stared at her.“So, this was a ‘my bad, I got caught’ and not a ‘my bad, this was fucked up from the start’?”
“Even if I hadn’t got caught, I never would’ve done this again.And eventually, after telling Peyton, I would’ve told you.”
He stared up at the ceiling, his lips pressed into a tight, thin line, his jaw tense.“Would you have pushed Peyton to let you go on the lab raid if I hadn’t already said no?”
“Maybe,” she admitted.
“Jesusfuck,” he muttered, his head dropping, shaking it.“Do you not have any sense of self-preservation?”
“I absolutely do.That’s why I wanted this done immediately.I wanted it done quickly, quietly, with as few people as possible, and with low risk.That’swhat I did, and her death cannot be tied to us.No elaborate kidnapping that would’ve dragged us deep into the shit with them.No fucked up Manchurian Candidate bullshit.Just in and out, less than an hour total from start to finish, not even twenty minutes of direct, anonymous contact with her.Explain how that’s a bad thing?”
“I don’t know how to feel about this, Dewi.”
“That’s fair and valid.And I deserve every bit of it.”
