“It was all so much harder than I thought it would be. I volunteered to take over prisoner registration hoping I’d get some sense of her location. Before me, they didn’t keep good records of the prisoners, so locating her was nearly impossible. Still, I prepared. I got food. Gas. Everything we would need to escape to Canada.” He swallowed, but the motion looked painful, like the next words would gut him to say. “I found her last February. It turns out Jack Miller took a shine to her. He treats Defiant sympathizers worse than dogs, and he used her like a toy. She didn’t survive him.”
I stared at his profile, trying to process that. “She didn’t…survivehim?”
“He chokes women while he rapes them. To assert his dominance.”
I wished I hadn’t eaten that entire plate, as it badly wanted to make a reappearance.
“I might have killed Miller if he’d been anywhere near me when I discovered it, but I was in the brothel, and Anna… She calmed me down.”
“Anna?”
“She’s the madame of the House in this region.” He lifted his hand, where the gold band glinted on his pinky. “She gave me Sophie’s ring and helped me use my anger to my advantage. The Hunters didn’t know I’d discovered where Sophie was. They assumed I’d stay loyal to protect her, and they abused that assumption. It gave me the perfect opening to go deeper than I ever had. Given my rank, I had access to a lot of information. I learned everything I could, and every Friday night, I go to the House. Anna’s network gives me what the women are able to steal from the officers who use them.”
“And you bring it all to me,” I said. The puzzle pieces finally settled into place in my mind, forming an intricate, complex picture. He’d been a doctor in training, then a soldier following orders, then a brother protecting his sister, and now a vigilante seeking justice.
“My father deserved the death he got,” he said. “I deserve the death that’s destined for me. Sophie didn’t deserve any of this. The NAO can burn in hell.”
I scooted close enough to take his hand. “How long after you found out she died did you approach Harrison?”
“A couple of weeks, I think. I hoped he’d kill me on sight. And then I hoped he’d send an assassin to murder me. Instead, he sent you.”
“He sent me.”
He huffed out a small, bitter laugh, still staring down at the ground as if avoiding my gaze would make it all easier to say. “Another Defiant Sophia. The fucking irony.”
That first meeting in March, he’d been furious and cold as the sharp edge of a knife, licking his wounds by lashing out at the woman he thought would kill him—a woman torturing him with his sister’s name. He’d come to me in pieces, shredded apart by circumstances beyond his control, broken by years of coercive abuse and fear.
We’d both arrived at this house prepared to relinquish our lives, perhaps even hoping for the end.
Instead, we’d found sanctuary.
I reached for him, and he gave no resistance. He let me pull him toward me, surrendering easily to my pleas to come closer.
“Kiss me,” I whispered, and he did.
His mouth molded to mine, urgent and gentle all at the same time. His hand dove into my wet curls, holding me in place while he drugged me with the kind of kisses I’d fantasized about since that night we’d slept together.
When I tugged, he obeyed, sliding up my body as I fell to the mattress. He cupped my jaw, deepening and slowing the kiss like it was some dessert he wanted to savor.
My heart slammed in my chest, pounding to the beat of his own, pressed right against my chest. The kiss was beautiful and terrible all at once, like a diamond ring on a bloodstained hand.
I was falling for a man who existed somewhere between the pursuit of revenge and a traitor’s death. Even he knew his days were numbered, and if I handed him my heart, he’d take it to his grave. Still, I found myself on my knees, giving it all to him willingly, and he snatched it with greedy hands. We both needed something to hold on to. The great tragedy was that the thing we’d found to grasp was like crystalline water leaking between our fingers.
Fleeting. Impossible to keep.
His eyes burned bright as he broke the kiss. “You almost died in my arms, do you know that? My hands were soaked in your blood. I spent days begging you to open your eyes, terrified you never would.”
Any woman would have melted at the expression on his face, all hot and possessive and needy. I pulled him back for another kiss.
I burned in the fire—pain in my leg, pleasure against my mouth. His lips dipped to my neck, and he murmured endearments against my skin as if he wanted to tattoo them there. As my eyes fell closed, his caresses slowed, grew more calming.
“You’re making me sleepy,” I muttered.
“That’s the point,” he replied, kissing the thin skin covering the veins of my wrist. “You need rest.”
“I needyou.”
“I’m right here.”
