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“What?”
“Safe,” I whispered. “Confused…excited. Irritated. Crazy. Everything all at once. Take your pick.”
He stared at me as though he hung on every word.
“But now, I need the man who doesn’t flinch when things get dark. I need you to be him, not just for vengeance, but because you’re the only one who understands what it’s like to carry this weight.”
He crossed his arms. “This is about what it does to you. Seeing that kind of violence, being a part of it changes you.”
I took a step closer, closing the distance between us. “I know, but I’m not the same person I was before all of this happened. I can’t be. And I don’t want to be.”
He studied me. “What if you regret it?”
I reached out, palming his chest. “If I do, I won’t go through it alone. I have you, and you have me. Whatever happens, we’ll face it together.”
He kept staring, his steady heartbeat throbbing into my hand.
I sipped my tea, the chamomile’s soothing effect lost on me. “What now?”
He gazed at the car. “We make it right.”
Achille carried him into the shed.
I clutched my mug as my fiancé dragged that fiend—I refused to call him a man—into a place that had stolen many last breaths. Achille made me swear to stay away until he’d secured him, so I waited outside. A starry night twinkled above me. With the backdrop of the forest, I could pretend I was home. Elise’s presence enveloped me in warmth.
You don’t have to do this for me, Vi.
A gentle hand palmed my shoulder.
Achille stood over me, his expression muted, wearing jeans and a black T-shirt that blended into the dark.
“You ready?”
I nodded, standing.
Achille raised a brow. “Before I bring you there, I need you to promise me three things. One, you don’t go near him. He’s weak, but dangerous. Two, let me do the talking. Three…if it gets too much, you’ll leave.”
“Trust me, it won’t be too much.”
His mouth quirked. “Okay. Follow me.”
Taking my hand, Achille led me toward the shed. Before he opened the door, he squeezed my hand. He pulled me inside an almost empty, four-walled room. Xaden sat in a steel chair bolted to the floor. An extremely bright light positioned on the floor beamed at Xaden, washing out his harsh features. His blood-matted hair hung in greasy chunks around his head. Achille directed me to a lawn chair in the corner.
Then he spent the next hour working on him. Wailing on him with objects in the shed. Achille asked the same question over and over. Who hired you? Obscenities burst from Xaden’s mouth. Then Achille used cables from a car battery and touched them together. Sparks showered Xaden’s cheek, and he yelped.
After that, it didn’t take long for him to break. Xaden spilled every detail of how he’d been contracted to kill my sister and me. An anonymous hire on the dark web sent him payment through a company: Golden Key Construction.
Achille glanced at me. “You recognize that?”
I shook my head.
Achille turned to Xaden. “Tell me more.”
“That’s all I’ve got,” he whimpered. “I swear to God. Look through my phone if you don’t believe me.”
“Why did they want her killed?”
“No idea. She was just a job!”
