The knife he planted there.
He lunges for Liam.
He makes my choice for me.
It all happens so fast, I don’t know at first where the deafening sound came from. My ears are ringing from it when Dad drops to his knees, then slumps heavily against the bed. His eyes are still wide open even though his blood and brains paint the blanket.
And I feel… nothing. I killed my father and I might as well be on another planet. I barely understand what I’m looking at. There’s a man who was alive and breathing seconds ago. A man who helped create me, then did everything in his power to keep me small and dependent on him. Who treated me like a possession, nothing more.
Now he’s dead. For real, this time. And I’m still pointing a gun at him because part of me refuses to believe it’s all over. Part of me expects him to get up even with half his head gone. Something between a laugh and a sob forces its way out of my mouth,
“Aurora.” I hardly notice Liam getting up and coming to me. He closes his hand around the gun, meaning he covers my hand, too. “Give me the gun now. It’s over. You’re safe.”
Am I? I wish I knew.
The only thing I know for sure is the way something in my heart loosens when he puts his arms around me. When he pulls me close so I can rest my head against his chest. His heart is still racing away. Mine is too. “You’re safe now,” he murmurs. “He can’t hurt you anymore.”
“It’s betterif we stay away from the penthouse for a while.”
I understand Liam is trying to explain why we’re in this strange place, but his words are bouncing off me without making a dent.
“We’re safe where we are.” He keeps using that word. Safe. Like he’s trying to get through to me.
Good luck.I’m going through the motions of living, breathing, but I’m not really here. I’m still back in that room, deciding whether I should shoot the man who abducted me and forced me into marriage, or the man who gave me life… then decided he could rule over every part of it.
The house Liam brought me to is a lot more homey than the penthouse could ever hope to be. Except for the guards posted out front, that is. Just another reminder of how safe we supposedly are. Is there any such thing as real safety? I don’t know anymore. I don’t know anything.
“Here. Drink this.” He places a steaming mug in front of me. “Don’t worry, it’s just tea.”
I know. I watched him prepare it. Somewhere in the fog that’s wrapped itself around me, I still feel like I have to watch him. It hasn’t been all that long since he drugged me. Even that doesn’t make me feel angry or resentful anymore. Maybe I’ll never feel anything again. Maybe I killed part of myself back there, when I shot my father.
It still doesn’t feel real. I wrap my hands around the mug, willing the heat to work its way through me. To thaw the ice.
And in a way, it helps, because I’m able to speak after taking a sip. He added plenty of sugar, too, the way I like it. “You came to rescue me.” It still doesn’t feel right. I have to say it almost like I’m confirming this is all real.
“Of course I did.”
And the tracker is the only way he was able to find me. I understand that now. I’m not going to thank him for it. That would be too much.
Instead, I voice the question ringing in the back of my mind. “Even after what I did? You still came for me?”
“Do you think I would leave you there, with him? Is that what you think of me?”
Uh… yes. “But I betrayed you.” Like Selina must have. I understand that now, too. That’s what dad was talking about. Emotional women, how there’s no room for them on a team. He took advantage of her the way he took advantage of me. Not that I feel sorry for her. It would take a hell of a lot more to ever make me feel sorry.
“You did.” He takes a seat across from me at the kitchen table. It’s kind of amazing how this house sits here looking all warm and welcoming, like it’s ready for a family to move in. There are even a couple of plants here and there—they’re fake, but they add to the illusion. I can almost relax here. I can almost breathe. I can almost pretend there’s anything normal about any of this.
He nods slowly, rubbing the back of his neck. The lines etched across his forehead and at the corners of his eyes tell me how much the experience has taken from him. I doubt he would ever admit it out loud, but he’s shaken up.
“I understand why,” he finally adds after leaving me hanging for much too long. “I found the phone. You dropped it in the closet. I saw the messages he sent.”
And now I remember the video, and it makes my hands tremble until I come close to spilling tea all over the table. “You have a deal with Gabriel.”
He is decent enough to look me in the eye, at least. “I did. I have from the beginning.”
“So everything else was a lie?” It doesn’t feel right, challenging him now, but I need to know. I deserve to know. “All that stuff about helping me find a new life. It was all lies.”
His frown deepens, but he doesn’t deny it. “And the stuff about me studying,” I continue as bitter betrayal squeezes my heart. “You were only playing with me.”
