“He gave up the rest of the ring,” Rhys replied, watching her closely. “Twenty-three other buyers. Transporters. Security. Physicians on retainer. Everyone who kept it running. Enough to collapse all operations and shut it down permanently.”
Gaby’s anger warred with reluctant relief. “Please don’t tell me he walks away.”
“No. But he gets a lighter sentence at a minimum-security facility instead of a living hell in gen pop, where he’d never last a week.”
She let the unfairness of it sink in. Natalie wouldn’t be happy. “She wanted him to suffer,” she whispered, leaving much unspoken.
“I remember,” Rhys replied, moving closer. “And he deserves to. But dozens of girls will get the second chance Natalie got because of the deal.”
She exhaled slowly. “I hate that it works this way.”
“So do I.”
Something inside her settled—not peace but understanding. “Thank you for coming to tell me in person.”
They stood there for several beats. The space between them suddenly became very small.
Gaby broke the silence. “Is that why you came? To tell me about Álvarez?”
“No. I came because I refuse to leave things the way they are. Unsaid and unfinished.”
She sat, curling her legs beneath her, partly from fatigue, partly because she wasn’t sure her knees would hold her. This was it.
“Then finish it,” she challenged softly.
He exhaled, rubbing the back of his neck—a restless, unguarded gesture she’d never seen from him. “There was a woman I trusted. I thought she wasthe one.”
Gaby stayed silent, letting him go on.
“Her name was Lillian. We met in grad school. She was brilliant. Respected. We had so much in common. Not just academically. We synced in every category. I loved her.” A faint, bitter smile touched his lips. “I was ready to propose until I found the manuscript for her book.”
Her stomach clenched. This confirmed everything she and Emily suspected. Rhys was Ryan Landon.
“I read it and learned everything she said or did with me was a lie. She studied me as a dominant. My methods. My vulnerabilities. My kinks. I confronted her. Challenged her ethics. I asked her not to publish it. But she had a contract and an advance.” His jaw tightened. “It was a case study disguised as a memoir. Salacious. Graphic. She changed the names, but not enough. Everyone knew it was me.”
Gaby’s breath caught. “Do you think she meant to expose you?”
“Yes,” he stated flatly. “She had to know it would destroy me professionally. Damage my credibility. Hand my enemies a roadmap of how I think. How I lead. How to break me. It was unnecessary. She did it anyway.”
“That’s unforgivable.”
“It cost her,” he said. “I was bitter and angry. I sued and reported her to the licensing board. Her career was over, but the damage to me was done. I left the UK and started over with the FBI, often undercover, which let me stay anonymous.”
“I thought you were a profiler?”
“Behavioral specialist,” he corrected. “I didn’t start out that way, but my skills were often called upon. That she fooled me so easily, a supposed expert, really stung. I put up walls and set clear limits so nothing like that would happen again. Ten years later, you walked into my neat, orderly life.”
Silence stretched between them for several heartbeats before he continued.
“I thought enough time had passed—that I was finally ready to risk my heart again. Then everything in me saw it happening again. Even when every part of me wanted you not to be her.”
By some miracle, her voice was steady when she said, “I am not Lillian.”
“No,” he agreed. “You’re not.”
She stepped closer. “But you treated me like I might be.”
“Yes.”
