For a second he could have sworn his vision dimmed, and he couldn’t make the words make sense.
Kenzie had offered herself up?
“He’ll hurt her.” The words sounded dumb on his tongue. “He wants to hurt Kala. He’ll kill Kenzie if he figures it out.”
“She’s excellent at pretending to be her sister. I know I don’t like to admit it, but when they decide to go all out, I can’t tell them apart,” Taggart admitted. “But he will hurt her. I don’t even know if she’s made it to the meet spot since she didn’t leave me a handy note.”
Kala’s hand swiped at her eyes, but she remained steady. “I let you read it. She didn’t tell me anything else. I don’t even know how she shut her tracker off. There wasn’t any blood that I could see, and we don’t have anything at The Garden that would disrupt the signal. She wore Lou’s suit. The nanite project. It can fuck with our trackers. Lou’s working on the problem.”
Kenzie was gone. Kenzie had walked out of her perfectly safe hidey-hole and into whatever Manny had planned for her sister.
He was going to be sick. He could hear Manny talk about how Kala might give him strong sons.
What the hell was she already going through? “How long?”
“She left six hours ago.” TJ looked like his light had dimmed. He was always sunny, but his fear for Lou weighed on him. “We were supposed to be resting, getting ready for this op. As soon as she knew we were all occupied, she slipped out. She even managed to override the security system.”
“She’s a multi-talented girl,” her twin said. “Now we have to hopeher research helps us figure out where the hell she is. She was doing a deep dive on all of Huisman’s properties. I know she had some ideas about where he was trying to build the bombs. I have to think Huisman would take Lou there, and that’s where he would want me, too.”
Kenzie was gone.
She’d walked out because she’d known her sister wouldn’t want to live without Lou. Because her cousin loved Lou. Because she would desperately want to keep all those happy ever afters alive. Since her own hadn’t worked out. She was out there alone, and she didn’t know he loved her. She thought he didn’t, thought that he would always pick Huisman first.
She thought she was the expendable one. The one who could sacrifice for her family because she would be the least missed.
This was it. This ache in his heart and body and mind was love, and he’d been scared of it. Scared that if he loved her, he would lose her. Scared that if he loved her, she would end up hating him.
This was the punishment Manny had doled out, and he’d done it because he was jealous. He was jealous that his grandfather told him to be more like Ben. He was jealous as hell that Ben wouldn’t be his sidekick or some shit. It didn’t matter. He’d allowed Manny to win. He’d wanted to be the center of Ben’s world, and he didn’t care if that was a positive thing or an evil thing.
“We need to move out,” Taggart announced. He stared Ben’s way. “The only reason we’re here is Kenzie asked us to save you. She sacrificed herself for Lou and Kala and TJ and for you. I’m only willing to bring you back with us because I know she would want me to, and I’m going to honor my daughter. I should ship you back to Toronto right now.”
“I won’t go.” He forced himself to stand tall when all he wanted to do was beg. “If you won’t let me help, I’ll try to find her on my own. I won’t allow anything to stop me. I was an idiot. I love your daughter. She is the most important thing in the world to me. I will find her and then we’re going to hide and I will let you deal with Manny. I’ll go wherever she needs me to go, be whatever she needs me to be.”
Taggart looked to Kala, and the two seemed to have a silent discussion.
Kala shrugged. “If we don’t know where he is, he could cause trouble.”
Taggart moved, his motion causing everyone to jump to action. TJ and Cooper headed out, Kala following.
Tristan had a tablet in his hand, his eyes studying it carefully.
Ben took the moment. “Mr. Taggart, I’m so sorry. I can’t begin to apologize. Kenzie was right about everything, and if she’ll let me, I’ll do what it takes to get better.”
Taggart’s head shook. “It can’t be strictly about her. She doesn’t allow or disallow your healing process. You realize you’ve been in an abusive relationship for years, right? I know your masculinity is threatened by that fact, but you can’t move on to anything healthy until you acknowledge and accept that it happened.”
He’d been battered emotionally by a master.
He didn’t want to think that he was being held back by toxic masculinity. He was far more evolved than that. And yet it was there. The rage at the thought he was in a “relationship” with Manny. But how else would he explain it? The turmoil he felt proved Taggart’s point. “I hate him. I want so very, very much to not care. I want to not think about him. I want a life with Kenzie and a home. I’m tired, and I didn’t know it until I met her.”
“You can forgive her for lying to you?” Taggart asked.
Somewhere in that cage he’d been held in a weight had lifted.
She hadn’t required proof to believe him, to change the course of her life for a man who couldn’t love her. Who did love her.
“I forgive her wholly and unreservedly, and if I get the chance, I’ll prove it to her,” Ben promised.
Taggart sighed. “Then you’re ready for the talk. But I need to explain to you that if this is all performative bullshit, I’ll bury you.”
