She stepped closer, slowly, as if approaching a wounded animal that she wasn’t sure she should touch. Her eyes burned with a mix of emotions I couldn’t decipher.
“I don’t understand you,” she whispered. “You keep saying you didn’t want to hurt me. You keep saying you were trying to protect me. But you—” Her throat bobbed. “You designed this ridiculous, manipulative game. You put me through hoops like a performing circus animal. You tested me instead of trusting me. You watched me. You studied me. You bought off my boyfriends? What the actual fuck is wrong with you?”
“Chrissy—”
“NO.” Her voice cracked on the word. “You don’t get to interrupt this part. You owe me this.”
I went completely and utterly still.
She swallowed hard, fighting tears, fighting herself, fighting me.
“I would have pursued something with you,” she said softly. “I would have chosen you. I would have said yes if you’d asked me out for coffee like a normal fucking person. If you’d told me the truth — if you’d just had the balls to be honest from the fucking beginning — I would have jumped in with both feet and figured things out as we went along.”
My heart stopped.
“And instead,” she whispered, voice breaking, “you played me. You killed two men to protect me… two men who never wouldhave had the chance to hurt me if you hadn’t set up this stupid game in the first place.”
The accusation landed like a fresh stab wound. I winced, but didn’t deny it. I couldn’t.
“Are you…” I rasped, forcing the question out even as it terrified me. “Are you going to call the cops about me killing Hayden and Brett?”
She stared at me, stunned silent for a beat. Then she shook her head slowly.
“No.”
The word hit me like a shockwave. I blinked, the morphine haze making it hard to process.
“Why the hell not?”
“Because you saved me,” she said quietly, eyes glistening. “And because… no matter what you put me through, no matter how angry I am at the lies, the manipulation, the betrayal, and all the ways you took advantage of me, I don’t want to see you go to prison. But I don’t see how you’re going to avoid it, either. Those bodies aren’t going to disappear on their own. People will ask questions if two men you hired for this sick, twisted bullshit Game just up and fall off the face of the earth, never to be seen or heard from again.”
I exhaled shakily.
“Henry was special forces before he became head of security for my family. He’s very good at cleaning up messes… even these kinds of messes.”
Her expression darkened with disgust, maybe, or resignation, but she didn’t press. Instead, she whispered, “And shit like that is exactly why I can’t stay here. Not after everything you’ve done. Not after what I saw in that barn. Not after… all of this.”
Her hand lifted, trembled, then lowered again without touching me, like she wanted the contact, but was willing to deny us both what we wanted after everything I’d put her through.
“I’m leaving, and I expect you to stay the fuck away from me from now on, Ben. I never want to see you again.”
The finality in her voice was a knife sharper than the one Brett had stabbed me with.
I tried to sit up. Pain lanced through my ribs, but I didn’t care.
“Chrissy, please?—”
“No.” She shook her head, her tears spilling over and running down her cheeks. “I have to go, and you have to stay the fuck away from me.”
She stepped back and turned away from me, toward the door. I watched her go, step after shattering step, and the space between us grew impossibly wide.
She reached the doorway and paused, looking back at me one last time.
Her voice was a ghost of a whisper.
“You should have trusted me with the truth from the start.”
Then she turned and walked out, leaving me bleeding and alone in a warm room, but feeling colder than the ice storm I’d run into to save her.
