The killing.
The cash and burner phone.
The cabin.
The failed leads.
The Bratva.
By the time I finished, the dishwasher was rumbling quietly, the kitchen wiped clean.
“That’s all…a lot,” Gideon said finally.“But honestly?”He smirked.“I’m more interested in the story between you and Ariana.How you went from hating her to staring at her like you’d burn down the world if she stopped breathing.”
A smile tugged at my mouth before I could stop it.“She could have left me.But she stayed.”
“What do you mean?”
“You know the ravine on my property up in Maine?”
He nodded.
“One night, I got a motion alert.Went to check it out.I was…distracted.”
He glanced toward Ariana and laughed.“I wonder what had you distracted.”
“I slipped.Fell down the ravine.Hit my head.”I touched the healing cut on my brow.
“So that explains it,” he said with a smirk.
“Somehow I managed to crawl out.Cato must have gone to alert Ariana and led her to me.Instead of using the opportunity to run, she helped me back to the cabin.Stitched up my head.And then…”
Gideon leaned closer.“Yes?”
I shifted my eyes toward Ariana, then back to him, lowering my voice.
“Then I learned the truth.”
“What truth?”
“I thought she was like him,” I admitted.“Thought she was content being the trophy wife of a monster.That she didn’t care who he hurt as long as she benefitted.”I swallowed hard.“But she was a victim like Sarah was.Even worse.”
Gideon sobered immediately.
“She showed me,” I said quietly.“Showed me what he’d done to her.The bruises.The scars.”My grip tightened around the wineglass.“He tortured her, Gideon.Assaulted her.Controlled every aspect of her life.Paid off a doctor to falsify her mother’s medical records and drug her to make Ariana think she was losing her mind.She stayed because he held her mother’s care over her.”
“Jesus,” Gideon whispered, staring past me as he processed everything I just shared about what the man with a sparkling reputation had done to his wife behind closed doors.
But Gideon knew firsthand how men with the most sterling reputations are usually the ones capable of the worst atrocities.
“So what’s next?”he asked, shifting his hardened gaze back to mine.
“I find Victor.”My jaw flexed.“He disappeared after our…conversation.”
“When did you talk to him?”
“He called one of the Bratva soldiers he’d sent to Maine.I answered and may have threatened him.”
Gideon huffed a laugh.“See?Shoot first, ask questions later.”
