Range smirked. “It’s a phrase that means … unlucky.” He shrugged. “I’d had an engagement ring picked out for Dani. Was so convinced I was in love, and that while she wasn’t delirious about me, she liked me. Thought we could make it work. Then they return and Canyon calls the family meeting. Tells us Dani’s pregnant. The family just hugged her and welcomed her to the family.” He swiped a hand over his mouth. “I left the house that night. Never went back. Separated from the Coast Guard a year later to do black ops with the DIA. Decided I was tired of playing the nice guy. Of not measuring up to their standards.”
For her, he was the measuring stick by which she had begun comparing men. She could not fathom this family of his treating him so awfully when he had been nothing but heroic since they met. “Then I think I do not like this family of yours.”
He grimaced. “Don’t … make that decision yet.”
She frowned.
“They’re good people.” He flicked the fork around faster. “I went back a couple of years ago for my brother’s campaign. Someone attacked the lodge, but we handled it. Anyway, I left feeling like I didn’t fit in anymore. They were all happy, married,… friends.” He met her gaze again. “I wasn’t.”
“And that was their fault?” She felt bad for challenging him.
He stared her down, then cocked his head. “I own my part in it. After Canyon and Dani, I dug into my anger. Threw everything I had at black ops.”
“Coming after people like me.”
Range stacked their trays and set them to the side. Folded his arms on the table. “Depends.”
“On what?”
“Your side of the story.”
* * *
If there were any more shifts in his world, he would fall through the cracks. He’d opened the dialogue about her past to get his mind off how much that jumpsuit hugged every curve she had. Way more curves than were apparent when she wore the kurta and pants. Her waist was tiny and her—
Not helping, genius.
Kasra faltered, then looked at the table. “That is a … long story.”
“Well,” he said, trying to inject some levity, “start now. We have two days till we reach port.”
Vulnerability tremored through her, and she decided to lay it all out. She could lose everything, but she would rather know now if he could handle it than to find out … later.
“I have not told anyone what I will speak here.” Even now she did not want to speak of it, but she was so very weary of the tension and anger, of hiding.Just get it done. State the facts.“Dawud was my half-brother. His father took a second wife—my mother—when Dawud was ten. She was young but more important, they took over my grandfather’s fields. Both Dawud and his mother resented my mother and hated me from the time I was born.”
What she should mention next? The chickens … “When I was eight, I had been out collecting eggs from the chickens and saw blood near the coop. I ran to it—only to get knocked down by Dawud, who burst out of the shanty. I got up and went in … and found her on the ground, dead.” She hugged herself.
“You think he killed her?”
“I do,” she said quietly. “He was not a good person. Ever. Years later, our father died in a freak accident during harvest, and Dawud, though a man, did not know how to take care of a family. It was not long before the field and house were going to be lost …” She sighed and shook her head. “I know Zaki believed he gave Dawud the idea to sell me, but …” She wet her lips and caught the lower one between her teeth, fighting memories that threatened to drown her. “Dawud had already … paid some debts by trading … me. The first time it happened, I was twelve.”
“What a piece of work.” Range propped his elbows on the table and rubbed his forehead.
After hearing all this, would he abandon her on this ship? It was too terrible, and if she had more time to think about it … “I hated him so much, my naïve self was glad when he took the man’s money and handed me over.”
“To Taweel?”
She swallowed. Shook her head. “Not yet.” She rubbed her palms. “I thought—if the worst they do is take what was already gone, so what? At least I would be free of their hatred.” Her throat was raw and thick as she recalled the awful moments. “I had no idea how …. bad it could be. The things men did to a woman …”
He fisted his hands, knuckles white beneath his apparent anger.
These secrets, these thoughts were from a vault in her heart she had long ago thought the key lost to. How had he managed to convince her to open it? She did not need to recite the gory details. It was awful enough in her own head, why put it in someone else’s? “I was sold again”—she nodded—“this time to Taweel. He, uh … he liked me.”
“I’m going to need a laser-guided missile.”
What did that mean? She better hurry or she would lose her courage. “He took me to Roud.”
What came next … he would not like. She did not like it. This, she believed, was what he truly wanted to know.
