“You know how you felt when you thought your wife died?” he asks and I stiffen. “How helpless you were? That you failed her? That’s how I felt when my wife was sentenced to be a breeder. I begged the Lords. I offered to trade places with her, but they wanted her. I vowed to devote my life to her kids. That I would save them.” He slams his fists down on his desk. “And I failed at that too. Everett…I don’t deserve the forgiveness that she’s given me. And Charlotte…I had to try and save her from the future I knew Isabella had planned for her. She was hell-bent on making Haidyn pay for killing her husband. I had to choose?—”
“So you chose to save the one who wasn’t already broken,” I growl.
“I couldn’t fucking save everyone,” he shouts. “I’m only one man.” Taking a calming breath, his regretful eyes meet mine. “I gave her to you.”
I frown, not understanding.
“While Eve was at Gavin’s clinic recovering, she talked about a woman in Carnage. A woman who was caged and how her son would bring her food.”
I swallow nervously.
“I knew who she was talking about—you and your mother. Then she mentioned you on theIsabella. She said she hadn’t put two and two together at first, but that the man who saved her that night told her his name was Kash, and that was the same name of the boy—Kashton—who fed his mother.” He gives me a soft smile. “I knew she needed you.”
Taking a step back, I speak. “It was you. You arranged for Haidyn and me to pick up the Lord that night from the cathedral.”
“I did.” He nods. “The Lord was a sacrifice.”
My brows pull down. “What do you mean?”
He sighs, running a hand through his hair. “Eve was in deep with Adam. I didn’t know he was going to give her ‘jobs.’ I never stopped to think how far she would go. I had to step in. I had to stop her.” His eyes plead with me to see his side. “Adam was going to get caught, and in doing so, they were going to catch Eve as well. I committed a crime and framed the Lord for it. He was sentenced to a confessional that I knew Eve would assist. I put her in your path. You had seen her. You had found her. I knew it was only going to be a matter of time before you made your presence known. But then everything with Haidyn and Isabella happened. When Sin was in my office and got the phone call for his assignment, I made the deal with Adam to save Eve. Just in case you didn’t come through like I planned.”
I nod in understanding. “If you controlled him, you controlled her. But I came to you…to marry her, and you acted like it was impossible.”
“I wanted to see how far you’d go.” He smiles. “Eve deserves a Lord who is willing to risk it all.”
I run a hand down my face. “And her assignment with Dollhouse? Is that why the Lords had you help me?”
He crosses his arms over his chest. “I set that up.”
“What do you mean?”
“The Lords never gave her an assignment, Kash,” he admits.
I just stare at him.
“Think about it,” he goes on. “Her assignment was a hallucination. It didn’t make her prove her loyalty to anyone or anything.”
Practically the same thing that Eve said to me the night we got married. She didn’t think her assignment meant anything other than that the Lords wanted her to go crazy. “You put her through hell.” My teeth grind. Son of a bitch.
“You said she could handle it,” he counters.
“So what now? The Lords are going to force her to do another assignment?” I growl. She can’t go through something like that again. My wife is strong, but she’s been beaten down too many times. I’ve promised her a better life.
“No,” Bill assures me. “She’s been through enough. Eve gets to live a real life with someone who loves her.” He smiles. “She gets to have the family she’s always dreamed of.”
Adam said he got his information from Bill. “How long have you known that Garrett was taking her eggs?” He fucking knew she could be a mom one day. Maybe not carry them, but have kids, nonetheless.
“Laura had a big mouth. I knew she had an in with your fathers. They had her husband, and they wanted her help with Eve. LeAnne, Isabella, they were all in their fucking pockets. If a woman wanted to be anything in our world, they started with the Spade brothers.”
“Answer the question,” I demand.
Looking away, he licks his lips. “I had a hunch” is all he says.
I run a hand down my face. “What about the Lords? Eve was working for them at the cathedral. How did that come about if Garrett kept her hidden all those years?”
“Also my doing.” He nods. “Eve needed to appear busy. Devoted to the society. If she was working for them, then maybe they wouldn’t look into her life and see she was helping Adam. So I had Isabella set it up with LeAnne for Eve to help out at the cathedral.”
The doors to the study open behind me. “Bill, honey? I’m sorry to interrupt?—”
