Rafe regretted that now. He had regretted it from the beginning. And he was going to regret it for the rest of his eternal life.
Because Nathan was right. Devony was right.
Hehadchosen duty over her.
And there was no way for him to take that back now.
CHAPTER 25
Devony paid the taxi driver in cash as she got out at the curb in front of her family’s Darkhaven in South Kensington.
After leaving the Order’s mansion in Boston, she’d gone straight to the airport and to a small locker there, where she had stored her passport and a few thousand dollars in multiple currencies. She hadn’t grown up in a family of spies and law enforcement officers without picking up a few professional tips along the way.
Using her real ID and traveling in public while Opus’s goons might be on her trail had been a risk, but she’d had little choice. Now that she was away from Boston, she allowed herself to exhale some of the paranoia that had clung to her until now.
The lovely Onslow Square stucco and brick townhouses with their black wrought-iron fences and classic, white-columned entrances had always been a welcome, comforting sight to her. Across the street, as the sun’s last rays set over the tranquil garden square, birds sang in the tree-filled park she used to play in as a child.
Now, the peace was merely a facade.
The familiarity provided no solace, because even though she’d fled to the only place she had left to go, she was coming here broken, with her heart in tatters. And with her family dead, this picture-perfect block in London would never be home for her again.
The Darkhaven had been vacant for months, everything just as her parents had left it. Their lives interrupted, all of the rooms and furnishings frozen in time.
Now that Devony was there, she wished she hadn’t come. She had regretted leaving Boston as soon as she stepped foot on the plane.
And she had been sick with herself for what she’d done to Rafe in her desperation to preserve her pride—what little she had left where he was concerned.
It was fear that made her run when she wanted to stay.
That kind of cowardice had never been her style.
Now, Rafe was thousands of miles away, in physical agony these past few hours. She knew because she felt his pain too. Her bond to him gave her his anguish the same way it connected her to his pleasure.
She had hardly been able to endure it for the majority of her flight to London.
Feeling the depth of his love for her had only made the thought of his pain more unbearable.
She had hurt him, not just physically.
God, how they had hurt each other.
She’d thought Opus Nostrum had killed everything that mattered to her, but she had been wrong. Because Rafe Malebranche had killed her heart.
It didn’t matter that she’d only known him for a handful of days. He’d stormed in and now her life would never be the same.
She loved him, even though he’d hurt her. She couldn’t stop just because her heart was broken. Now, she would love him with all its shattered pieces.
Devony walked through every room in the Darkhaven, feeling like a ghost. Her bedroom was a relic of her childhood. Still the girly pink accents and sweet, fussy furnishings her mother had surrounded her in with the hopes that her headstrong daughter would gravitate toward a softer life than her own.
She glanced down at her dirty, battle-worn black clothing and biker boots. How disappointed her mother must have been with her.
Devony was never going to choose the safest, softest path. She’d tried, for them. The music studies, the university classes. Although she enjoyed those pursuits, they didn’t fulfill her. She longed to make a difference in the world. She felt the need for a higher calling.
She hadn’t dared to reach for it until after losing everyone she loved. She hadn’t imagined there was a way for her to truly make a difference until she began working together with Rafe on their shared quest to destroy Opus Nostrum.
All a lie.
They had shared that common goal, but he’d never been working with her. He had been playing her for a fool, using her information to help his true teammates in the Order.
