Cam’s laugh fills the air—crisp and focused, all her tears now gone. “She did what we should’ve done years ago. Exposed you to the world for exactly who you are.”
“There is no evidence of anything malicious that the EFW have ever done.”
She cocks her head. “Isn’t there?”
I inch closer to them, and Maddox nods to the Secret Service to let me walk next to Cam.
“Defense Contract Fraud: Billions Funneled to Shadowy Network.” I recite the news article title published half an hour ago on all major blogs. “Mass Surveillance Program Exposed: Secret Society Monitoring Citizens.” Another one. “Insider Claims Secret Group Funded Domestic Terror Attack in the Sylvestrian Ridge.” And another one. “They’re all over the news.”
“And thanks to the man you so willingly took under your wing for five long years,” Cam says, gesturing toward my brother, “the rebellion he started has likely turned most of your men against your cause by now. Not to mention your allies—the corrupt presidents you lured into your sorry-ass plan. What willtheythink when they see your entire agenda plastered everywhere the eye can see? They’ll back off. No one’s going to risk being by your side when you fall.”
“How did you—” He frowns. “It doesn’t even matter. None of this matters. The kinds of roots our organization has—”
Bang.
His leg bends under the pressure of my bullet, his scream bouncing against the warehouse walls. He curses, stooping to touch his bleeding wound as he moves all his weight on the other side. Cam turns her face to me, shock reading on her features before it turns to pure delight.
“That was for killing Magnus,” I say, my voice trembling. “The only man who dared to help me when I didn’t see a way out of your town. For taking my husband away from me on my wedding day. For taking my brother. For running my mother over with a car, and for killing Sterling’s mom.”
Bang.
“For killing my mother,” Cam whispers after shooting him in his other leg. “For leaving me without the person I loved most in this world when I was only five.” Her whole body trembles, and the sight hits me like a slap—I’ve never seen her like this. Iworry about her, and so does Maddox, who approaches her from behind.
“Cam…” he murmurs, gently bringing her chin toward him.
“I have to do this, Maddox. Please… ithasto be me.”
He holds her stare, his eyes soft and understanding before his jaw clenches under the weight of not knowing how this will affect her later. But he presses his lips to the top of her head and steps away, allowing her the freedom to choose what she wants to do.
I turn back to Rowan, my job here done. He watches me approach, a plea already in his eyes—for my forgiveness, no doubt. But I have no space in my broken heart to give him what he wants, not this time. The sight of him broken sends a jolt of anger surging through me—anger, for what he’s done, not pain. A lump forms in my throat, making it difficult to swallow, but I don’t yield. And every step I take feels heavy, as if I'm dragging the weight of my shattered heart along with me.
“You okay?” my brother asks.
I nod, not having the strength to say anything more. And maybe because he’s equally as upset about his friend as I am, he lets me be and hauls Rowan’s arm around his neck to pull him up. I walk with them to the car outside, my movements numb and mechanical, as the last bullet flies out in the warehouse behind.
twenty-seven
Rowan
One month later
It’s been weeks, and she refuses to talk about what happened. She refuses to let me touch her, to hear me out, to understand why I had to do what I did. Being in the hospital for so long was the hardest part, after they took me out of the warehouse. It meant she was in control of when I could see her, of how much I got to talk to her. I don’t blame her at all. She’s hurting… and without her love, so am I.
“Are you sure you’re up for it?” I ask her as she goes through the last of her boxes that I brought over from her apartment. The fact that she still hasn’t fully unpacked drives me mad. She’s not leaving me. I won’t allow it.
“Yes,” she says, without bothering to turn around. Her voice is curt, clipped, as if she doesn’t want to waste another breath on me. Pain tightens my face muscles, but my obsession with this woman has only grown stronger since last month. I didn’t think it could, but look at me now—standing in our bedroom with my hands in my pockets and running out of ideas about how I can bring her back to me.Home.
She finally finds a jewelry box in the chaos and opens it up to retrieve a necklace. Not the one I gifted her two weeks ago, but her own. Another blow—right in the fucking heart.
“Let me help you,” I say when I see her struggling to put it on.
To my surprise, she lets me. My fingers brush the skin on her neck for just a second before she flinches and moves away yet another time. She’s punishing me, and fuck me, she’s doing a phenomenal job.
“I can’t…” I close my eyes, my breath hissing out through my flared nostrils. When I open them again, she’s putting lipstick on, giving me the briefest of glances through the mirror. “I can’t go out there and face the world knowing you can’t even look at me.”
She straightens up, letting the lipstick fall into the small purse she has wrapped around her wrist. And when she turns around, it’s the first time she looks into my eyes.
“You’re going to have to, Rowan.”
