“I told you everything that I’d needed to tell you in my note. After leaving the hotel, I returned to school only to find that my family had been massacred by yours. Afraid for my own life, I’d run and created a new identity for myself.”
“And our child?” he asked.
“I had to protect her, so I’d changed my name and moved to the city.”
“When did you know?”
“Know what?”
“That you were pregnant with our child?”
I got up in that moment, then walked over to the window. It was so high that I couldn’t look out of it, but I felt better shielding my face from Cillian. There was no way he would ever be able to look at me and buy the lie I knew I needed to tell him.
“After it was all over.”
Seconds later, I was pushed headfirst into the exposed brick, and the stone was cold and hard against my cheek. “You’re such a goddamn liar!”
I winced at that, especially when he pressed my face even harder into the brick. At this rate, the side of my face would resemble the subway tile backsplash downstairs from this. “I’m not lying,” I managed to squeak out.
He roared in anger, then I went airborne as he picked me up and tossed me onto the bed. I tried to turn to roll off it, but he was on me, allowing me to do nothing more than crawl backward up it until my head hit the headboard.
“You knew it when we’d said our vows to each other that night. You’d promised me?—”
“You want to talk about promises,” I said as I stared incredulously at him. “You promised to love and protect me, of which you did neither.”
“I’d loved you from the moment I’d first laid eyes on you. And protect you? Everything I’d ever done was to protect you. From the late night rendezvous to us eloping. It was all done to fucking protectyou.”
“You lied to me.”
“I’ve never fucking lied to you,” he told me.
As the tears started to fall down my cheeks, I laughed sarcastically. “A lie by omission is still a lie. If you’d told me the truth about why you needed me out of there, I would’ve gottenmy mother and sister to safety as well. Instead, you allowed them to be left for dead.”
“Mydaughter?—”
“Ourdaughter, and she’s better off without the violence of your life in hers.”
He moved off me, and once back on his feet, he started to pace back and forth. I was still so scared, and as my elbow hit one of Ciara’s talking toys, the sound caused him to spin around to face me once more.
“I’m not leaving here without my daughter.”
“Cillian, please. If you’ve ever loved me as you claim?—”
“It is only because I had ever loved you that I’ll allow you to come with us. If I hadn’t loved you, I’d snap your neck like a fucking twig and leave you for dead.”
And he would. It’d be no different than what had happened seven years ago. I let out a sob, and when he spied Ciara’s suitcase, I watched in horror as he moved to the closet and began to pull things from the rod. He tossed them onto the bed, then the suitcase.
“Pack what she will need in this, and get yourself a few things too,” he said to me, then he pulled out his cell phone to make a call. “Have the plane fueled and ready to leave. Guests departing will be three.”
When he hung up and looked back over at me, I was staring dumbfoundedly at him from the same spot on the bed. “Where are you taking us?”
“Does that fucking matter?” he asked.
“Yes, it does to me.”
“Do you both have passports, or do I need to wait with you both while they’re expedited?”
Cillian was determined to leave with Ciara, and while he was still allowing me to go with them, I needed to admit defeat. Once we got wherever he planned to take us...
