“You were an ass to me,” I reminded him.“Hot one minute, ice cold the next.It was like emotional whiplash living with you.Thankfully, I had years of experience with that sort of thing.”
“And I’m sorry for putting you through that.I just…” He looked up at the ceiling, seemingly trying to make sense of his jumbled thoughts.I’d never seen him so on edge.So uncertain.“I didn’t want to care about you.In my head, you were just as evil as Victor.”His Adam’s apple bobbed up and down in a hard swallow.“But then I saw your scars….”
He squeezed his eyes shut, his jaw tight, hands clenched into fists.The anguish in his expression felt so real.So raw.It couldn’t have been an act.
Could it?
“All along, my goal was to make Victor pay for what he did to Sarah.”He lifted his blazing eyes to mine.“But when I saw what he did to you?”He shook his head.“I’m sorry I didn’t realize the truth sooner.The signs were all there.I was just so blinded by my hatred that I ignored them.But I promised myself from that moment on, I’d do everything in my power to protect you.Instead, all I did was put you in harm’s way again.If I’d told you the truth, you never would have had a reason to turn on that phone.Never would have read that conversation.Never would have tried to escape.And because of me, you could have died.Those bastards who ran you off the road and?—”
“Wait.”I straightened, blinking repeatedly.“That wasn’t you?”
“Of course not,” he replied, indignant.
I searched his face for any indication he was lying.A flinch.An averted gaze.A twitch in his lips.I didn’t see one.
“Then who?—”
“When you turned on that phone, the Bratva were able to track it.Were able to trackyou.They sent a team.”
I kept my face blank, but inside, my thoughts spun.If he was telling the truth, then he hadn’t betrayed me like I’d thought.He was just as caught up in whatever this was as me.But I still didn’t know whether I could trust him.I’d trusted Victor at one point, too.
I learned the hard way it was a mistake.
I couldn’t afford to make the same mistake again.
“How did I end up here?How did you find me?”
“One of my men tracked a plane from Miami that landed in a small airfield somewhat close to my cabin.”
“And the team the Bratva sent?”
“Are no longer breathing.”
Even more dead men.Even more blood on his hands.But he didn’t seem to care.What did that say about him?
“Why is the Bratva after me?”
“I’m not sure the Bratvaisafter you.Not in that sense.They were paid to do a job.That’s all.”
My pulse quickened.“By whom?”
His green eyes locked on mine, steady and unflinching.“Your husband.”
ChapterSeven
Henry
Ariana’s face went pale the second the words left my mouth.
Victor Kane put a target on his wife’s back.
I hated telling her.Hated being the one to drive that final knife into her chest.It didn’t matter that she despised him.That he’d beaten her.Broken her.Stripped her down to nothing but fear and scars.
To learn the man who was supposed to love and protect her had paid to have her abducted still shattered something inside her.
“H-how do you know?”Her voice was strained, like she was holding herself together with fraying threads.
I leaned forward, my elbows on my knees, and exhaled a long breath.
