That word.
I thought of the precipice that loomed last week, when he’d stripped the shirt off his back so I’d have something cooler to wear home. The night he’d claimed me as his. The cliff drew closer now, but I couldn’t pinpoint what made me keep walking toward it. This man had killed innocent people. He’d slaughtered POWs with little remorse. At what point did I begin to look at Lucas Scott and see not a callous murderer, but a strategic antihero?
“You have ink everywhere,” he murmured, taking in my stained skin. His finger brushed my temple, where ink marred it.“There’s rubbing alcohol in the master bathroom if you want to get it off before you go home.”
“Thanks.” I didn’t stand. Instead, I stared, trying to uncover his secrets through those sea-blue eyes that said more than any other part of him.
He didn’t deflect.
“Why are you doing this?” I whispered.
“They hurt my sister.”
I wondered why he kept sayinghurtwhen he’d admitted she was killed. Did he not like the reminder of her death? Was the pain they caused her worse than the death she experienced? It couldn’t be the entire reason he’d given up everything, could it?
“There has to be more to it than that.”
“There really isn’t.”
I shouldn’t have done it, but I touched him. My thumb grazed his forehead as I wondered what thoughts hid just beyond my finger. “One day, I’ll understand you.”
Aquamarine disappeared behind expanding darkness. “I wish you wouldn’t try.”
“Why?”
“Because youwill not likewhat you discover.”
I frowned at the certainty in his answer.
“Listen.” He sat up and made me do the same. We sat cross-legged, facing each other, and he looked me straight in the eye. “That picture you’ve created in your head of that man who turns traitor for some noble reason? Sophia, he doesn’t exist. Remember how scared of me you were in the beginning? That was the correct reaction. That’s the man I am.”
I shook my head. “If you were anything like the man I thought you were, you’d’ve fucked me with a knife to my throat and given me no information.”
“I never said that’s what I wanted from this. You assumed.”
The frustration came to a head. “You didn’t ask for immunity. You don’t want to be saved. You only said you wanted a woman. What else was I supposed to think?”
His brows lifted. “Did it occur to you to askwhyI wanted a woman?”
“The answer seemed obvious.”
He sighed. “Never look at what’s obvious, Sophia. Look for the detailsbesidethe obvious. You’ll find a lot more information there.”
I fought the urge to roll my eyes. “Fine. Then whatdoyou want?”
“Nothing,” he said.
I stared hard into his eyes, wishing I could see into his brain and understand every puzzle piece he’d laid before me. “Nothing?”
He didn’t respond.
“So you’re only doing this because they hurt your sister,” I said.
He nodded.
“Howdid they hurt your sister, Lucas?”
Something happened then.
