Total pages in book: 74
Estimated words: 80139 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 401(@200wpm)___ 321(@250wpm)___ 267(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 80139 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 401(@200wpm)___ 321(@250wpm)___ 267(@300wpm)
But I never wanted any of them dead.
Gunfire keeps ripping through the house.
Police shout.
The kidnappers shout back.
I press myself to the floor, looking for a path.
Then I see Ştefan.
He’s near the far wall, half shielded by a doorway, firing.
And in that split second, I know something with absolute certainty.
My best shot is the man who thinks I love him.
I push up on my elbows. “Ştefan!” I crawl forward, coughing, dragging myself over broken glass. My knee hits something wet. “Ştefan!”
This time, he hears me.
“Colette!” he shouts.
I force myself to stand even though every instinct screams at me to stay down.
A police officer yells something. Maybe at me. Maybe at Ştefan. I don’t know.
I raise my hands. “I love you!” I scream in English. Then, “Je t’aime!”
The words tear my throat raw.
Ştefan freezes for a split second. “What?” he shouts.
“I love you!” I walk toward him, moving quickly while still being aware of my surroundings. “I love you, Ştefan,” I say again, and I make my voice crack with what I hope registers as fear and yearning. “Please. Stop shooting.”
His face twists.
Behind him, another shot cracks. He flinches but doesn’t turn away from me.
Good.
Keep looking at me.
“I want to be with you,” I say. The lie tastes like bile. “I want to spend my life with you.”
He shakes his head once. “No.”
“Yes.”
“You lie.”
“No.” I step closer. “No, I swear.”
He raises his gun toward another officer. I move fast, putting myself in front of him before he can aim.
“Don’t,” I say. “Don’t shoot.”
His eyes widen. “Move.”
“No.”
“Colette, move!”
“If you stop, I can help you.” I’m close enough now to see blood on his cheek. Dust in his hair. The wild pulse beating in his throat. “I lied before. I do have a family. They have money. They can help. Legal bills. Lawyers. Whatever you need. They can get you out. They can get you safe.”
He stares at me.
He wants to believe it.
God, he wants to believe it so badly.
For all his violence, all his choices, all his cruelty wrapped in tenderness, there is still a boy in him desperate for the woman he took to choose him back.
“You come with me?” he asks.
“Yes.”
His face softens. “You stay?”
“Yes,” I whisper. “I’ll stay.”
He loosens his grip on the gun.
Behind me, someone shouts.
Ştefan flicks his gaze away from mine, just for a fraction of a second.
A shot rings out.
I jump back as he collapses at my feet. Blood spreads beneath him.
For a second, I can’t move.
The gunfire continues around us, but it sounds far away now. Muffled. Like I’m underwater.
Ştefan looks up at me. His mouth opens. Blood bubbles at the corner.
His eyes look into mine, and for a moment, I think he can see straight through me. Straight to the truth.
And in those eyes I see something.
Not anger.
Not fear.
I see betrayal.
And I wonder who the true monster is.
32
CRUZ
Robin is silent for several minutes.
“What’s on your mind?” I ask.
She doesn’t look at me right away.
Her gaze stays on the window. A moment passes. Then, “I meant it when I said I want to help you. I want to use my family’s means to help you. At the very least, as thanks for getting me out of that place.”
I rub my jaw. It’s so tight and sore from constantly clenching it. “I’m also the one who put you in that place.”
She twists her lips. “Trust me, I know. I can’t erase the fact that you were my captor.”
I sigh. “I don’t expect you to.”
She shakes her head. “I know you don’t. But you did get me out of there, and I’m not taking that away from you. You risked your life. You brought me here. But before that, you were still part of what happened to me.”
“Yes.”
“I need to know,” she says.
“What?”
“Everything.”
What?
I look at the sofa, the table, the faded yellow walls, the place where my mother once sat with Señora V, laughing over coffee. I think about all the truths I’ve buried because silence kept me breathing. Because Vega rewarded men who knew when not to speak.
Robin draws in a breath. “You need to lay out your whole life for me right now.”
“My whole life?”
“As much as matters.”
“That could take a while.”
“I’m not going anywhere.”
The bitterness of that nearly makes me laugh.
No, she’s not going anywhere. Not yet. But we do need to move quickly.
“I need to know what you’ve done, Cruz.”
I look at her.
“I need to know if the scales really balance out from your one good deed.”
I scratch at the back of my head. An accounting? That’s what she wants? To determine if my good deeds outweigh my bad?
How many sins equal one rescue? How much blood can be washed away by one act of defiance?
I used to think I knew the answer.
I don’t anymore.
“The scales don’t balance,” I say.
“At least you’re honest,” she says. “But I’ll judge whether they do.”