Page 410 of Reign

My father forced Adriana across it when she was nine years old.

I promised myself I would never become him.

Now Elena sits in front of me wearing my shirt, bruised and exhausted, telling me she saw every part of what I am and still recognized me.

I don’t know what to do with that.

“I don’t want you in my cartel,” I say.

“I’m not asking to be.”

“I don’t want you surrounded by this.”

“I was born surrounded by it.”

“You don’t have to keep living that way.”

“I’m not asking you to put me in the middle of your business. I don’t want to sit in your meetings, and I definitely don’t need to know where you hide the bodies.”

Despite everything, a chuckle escapes.

“But I need you to stop believing that seeing you clearly will make me less myself,” she continues. “I don’t want half of you because you decided the other half might ruin me.”

The words land harder than they should.

“I don’t know how to give you that.”

“Try.”

A laugh nearly leaves me.

Of course that is her answer.

Simple. Uncompromising. Entirely unreasonable.

Entirely Elena.

I extend my hand.

She gives me hers without hesitation.

The trust in that nearly undoes me.

“I won’t lie to you about who I am,” I promise.

Her fingers close around mine.

“And I’ll try not to decide what knowing me takes from you.”

“That sounded painful.”

“It was.”

She almost smiles.

I breathe easier.

Then her expression sobers. “I don’t know what to do with the rest of it.”