"I was already pregnant and had no idea. I never thought?—"
"Keira—"
"No. Let me finish." I push through before I lose my nerve. "I need you to understand what happened that last night. Ewan showed up at my apartment with a file. Photos of you. Of us. Dated and time-stamped. Routes. Contacts. Safe houses. Bank records. He even had surveillance on people from our childhoods."
My voice wavers, but I force myself to continue.
"He told me if we went forward with Operation South Tide, you'd die. Everyone around you would die. And he'd make me watch every second of it. The only option was to give up everything and go with him."
My chin quivers, but I refuse to stop now.
"I tried to think of a way to warn you, but the apartment was compromised. He had men on the door, the hallway, the windows. I wasn't free anymore, Tristan. Not from the moment he walked through that door."
After years of swallowing the truth, setting it free feels like bleeding out.
"So I made a choice that would make you hate me. I fed you the wrong location. I let you get taken because at least then you'd still be alive. You could escape. And I went with him because I knew what he'd do if I didn't."
Tristan hasn't moved. Hasn't blinked.
"Later, when I found out I was pregnant, it got worse. He didn't know at first that the baby was yours. But when Hale came and the timelines didn't add up…" I swallow hard. "He lost his mind. Stopped seeing me or the baby as people. All he saw was ownership. A way to keep me compliant forever. To hurt me."
Tears stream down my face, but I keep going. I have to.
"I needed you to hate me so you'd stay behind a wall Ewan couldn't climb. I was trying to protect you, even if it meant destroying us."
Silence.
Horrible, suffocating silence.
Then his hands are on my face, cupping my jaw, tilting my chin up. But I can't look at him. Can't bear to see the disgust or the hatred.
"Please look at me."
I force my eyes to his.
There's no disgust. No hatred. Only devastation. And the beginning of something that looks like a wildfire waiting for fuel.
"I don't care."
I blink. "What?"
"I don't care why you left. I don't care what you did or what you had to tell yourself to survive it." His thumbs stroke my cheekbones, catching tears. "I knew you would never choose him. The woman I fell in love with would have burned everything down before letting someone own her."
"Tristan—"
"He threatened you and our child." The words come out serrated. "I need you to tell me exactly what he did to you."
His entire body is vibrating now. I can feel it through his palms where they press against my skin.
"It doesn't matter anymore."
"It matters." His eyes have gone dark. "Every bruise. Every threat. Every time he touched you when you didn't want to be touched. I need to know all of it, Keira. Because I'm going to pay it back. Every. Single. Moment."
"You can't just?—"
"I'm going to pull him apart piece by piece." His voice drops to something barely human. "I'm going to make him feel every second of fear you felt. Every moment of helplessness. He's going to pay for every smile you had to fake, every performance you had to give, every second you were dying inside while pretending to be his."
I'm struggling to stay composed.
