“I’ll stay the night,” Archie says. “No one should be coming or going until we know what that was. Dale, that includes you.”
Dale lifts her tear-streaked face from my shoulder, still dazed. “I’m not staying here.”
“Yes, you are,” Archie says firmly. “It’s safer here than anywhere else.”
Dale doesn’t argue. That, more than anything, terrifies me.
Hayden steps forward slowly, his expression unreadable, but his voice has lost the smoothness it always wears.
“Things have changed,” he says. “I believe your uncle is behind this threat.”
The words hit me like a slap.
I sit up straighter, my hand still holding Dale’s, but my eyes lock onto Hayden. “You believe my uncle is behind this?”
Hayden nods once.
I stare at him, cold and shaking. “You’ve been investigating him all along. That’s what this is about?”
His silence is answer enough.
My voice rises, fury climbing over the grief like a second spine. “What was I, then? Just a pawn? Something convenient to keep close while you stalk my family?”
I shoot up, running at him, ready to slap that calm look off of his face, but he halts me, grabbing my arms tightly with a shake.
“I didn’t claim you because of him,” Hayden growls, “and you’ll watch your tone. I’m being patient because you’re in pain, but it’s wearing thin, Darling, and you do not want to push me”.
He gives me a tug, pulling me towards the staircase and away from Dale and Archie.
“Of course not, but I was a convenient addition to your assignment, wasn’t I?” I snap.
He doesn’t deny it.
“You truly meant it when you called me your whore, didn’t you?” I bite the words into his face, hating the cold in his eyes and hating more how I still lean in, aching for his touch even as he withholds the truth I deserve. “Every time you were inside of me, calling me that, you meant it. I was just a means for information, wasn’t I?”
The weight of it lands in my chest like a stone dropped into deep water.
My whole life—my marriage, my grief, my trust—it was all a tool. Maybe even a threat he had to neutralize by pretending to love.
“I let you in,” I whisper, stunned by the betrayal as it settles in. “I let you in, and you were already dissecting me.”
“Martine, you’ll watch your—”
“I need to get out of this room,” I snap, lacking the ability to bend to him, no matter how desperately my body wants to crumble in his arms.
My knees are weak, but my voice is steady now. Deadly steady.
“If Ford is alive, I want you to find him and bring him to me. If my uncle’s involved, I want you to deal with him,” I gulp, struggling to find my words in the chaos of my feelings. My realizations. I run a hand through my hair and take in a deep breath, trying to find a semblance of calm. “But from now on, I want the truth. All of it. Not what you think I can handle. Not what you let me see. I want everything.”
Hayden nods once, but it’s Archie who speaks.
“Hayden, tell her,” he says quietly. “Tell her it’s about her.”
And the way he says it makes my blood run cold.
The chill crawls up my spine before I even realize I’m stepping toward him.
“What the fuck are you talking about?” I ask, the words cutting like glass. “What do you mean it’s about me? Is it because my uncle is involved?”
