I refused.
His fingers closed around my chin, gently pushing my face up to his. I kept my eyes shut, still rebelling against him, as his presence towered over me, that dark smoke curling around me.
I stilled in his hold as his smell registered, stirring something deep within me I had been sure was dead. My knees buckled under the weight of it.
No... No, don’t let him in.
I tried to reel it back in. Tried to stop thinking, feeling. I hated how my body still knew how it would feel if he were to close the gap between us, how hard and warm he would be. I hated how,after all this time, and all the agony, I knew how his skin would taste.
“Ava,” he said softly, and my chin started trembling. My whole body was trembling. So was his. “All those nights… All those nights I held you like I would die if I couldn’t touch you. Yet, it was so easy for you to be convinced you didn’t mean anything. Tell me why, little bird.”
I opened my eyes to see him staring down at me, burrowing down into me, searching for the soul that was no longer there. My mind replayed everything from the moment he shut that vault door on me. My heart bled into my chest. “I had died inside but you were laughing. Andtoasting. In Mexico. I watched you,” I managed, my throat constricted with pain. I thought I had been over that, but it ripped me to shreds again as the memory resurfaced.
Grayson’s face saddened. “My beautiful girl.” He cupped a hand over my cheek. “Hunter had asked Gemma to marry him a few hours earlier. We were celebrating it. It was the first time either one of us had felt anything other than utter despair.” His eyes roamed over my face, pain contorting his features. “Don’t you dare think we weren’tconstantlyhaunted by your absence. Do you want to know what I was thinking on that balcony? I was contemplating jumping over the railing, breaking a few bones, just to get relief from the ever-fucking-present pain in my chest. I planned another heist, hoping it would get you off my mind for just a few goddamn seconds, but it didn’t work. Nothing worked. You plagued me every second of every day. What you saw on that balcony was a broken man, trying his best to be happy for his family.”
My heart was beating in my chest at the look on his face, his words. Why was I falling for this? Why did I even care? I shouldn’t be listening to this. I shouldn’t let him touch me like this.
But I couldn’t find it in me to push him away from me. It was maddening, but somehow it felt right. I screamed and raged at myself for it, but I didn’t move. “What about Raina?” I countered desperately, hoping to squash the warm feeling slowly spreading through my body.
Grayson frowned. “Liam told me what she said to you.”
“Are you going to try and convince me it was lies? That she’s not the one?”
“She’s not,” Grayson insisted, scowling down at me.
“Then why do you love that shirt so much? Why is she still alive? If you don’t feel anything for her, why not kill her? She was a liability. I thought you never leave loose ends. And just so you know, I burned the fucking shirt,” I added bitterly.
Gods! I shouldn’t let him get to me like this!
I pushed out of his hold, finally getting the strength to do so, but he grabbed hold of my arm, not allowing me too much space.
“Do you remember the holes in the front and back of the shirt…” He yanked his black shirt out of his tactical belt, and held it up, pointing at the little circular scar on the lower left side of his abdomen. One I had traced with my tongue before. “Right about here?”
It was a bullet wound, with an almost identical one on his back. An exit wound. The bullet he’d tried to stop with his body to save Hunter in Egypt.
“I hadthatshirt on when I took this bullet for Hunt.That’swhy I loved the shirt. She had nothing to do with it. And I kept her alive so she would tell you about the Codex.”
I frowned. “You knew?”
Grayson inhaled deeply, like it was a tedious thing to explain. “Yes, she made an off-hand comment a few years back, like she knew I wanted the Codex, so I knew she overheard a conversation between me and Hunt a year prior. When she got caught, I knew she would eventually use it to save herself, so Ilet her. At first, I was planning on using this setup to fake our deaths, since a clever little bird told of our existence.” He raised an accusing brow at me. “But then I decided to use it to give myself over to you.”
I blinked up at him, struggling to comprehend all he had said. I shook my head, trying to shake off the daze. “No. You love her. This makes no sense.” Raina was perfect for him.
“I don’t give a shit about her. It’s you, Ava! You! How could that not make sense to you?” He released me, turning away from me in frustration, then whirling back. “Don’t you ever think back to those first nights in the tent? How right you felt against me? Wrapping my arms around you that first time fixed something in me.” He banged desperately on his chest, over his heart. “It was a fucking awakening. Did you not feel that? At all? What about all those nights under the moonlight—howbrightyou shined for me, little star.”
I shook my head, clamping my eyes shut against the memories. “It was Stockholm Syndrome. It wasn’t real. It was a trick of my mind.”
Grayson grabbed a fistful of my hair, yanking it backwards so I would look at him. Adrenaline rushed through me, tingling in my fingertips.
Hurt pooled in Grayson’s eyes. “Stockholm Syndrome?” His voice was shaking.
“Yes,”I mouthed, but no sound came out, like my body refused to say the word.
Grayson stared at me, tears welling in his eyes, making my stomach twist painfully. “You’re lying to yourself, Princess.”
I tried to shake my head, but he wouldn’t let me. His eyes roamed over my face as he brushed a finger down my cheek, a tear slipping down his face. “When I touch you, you don’t feel it? It’s still there. Itburnsin me, Ava. Don’t you feel it anymore?”
I clamped my eyes shut, hoping it would stop the tears from flowing.
