He’d wanted Rune.
Because I’m weak.
By falling for her, Gideon had failed the Republic he’d helped build, the friends and soldiers he’d sworn to stand beside, the citizens he’d vowed to protect. Rune had weakened him, and that weakness had gotten people killed. It would continue to if left unchecked.
It’s why Gideon was here. To carve out the weakness in his heart by eliminating the source:her. And into the hole left behind, he would pour molten steel. Until he was welded back together. Until he was stronger and colder than iron.
He dug the barrel of his gun into Rune’s temple.
She didn’t wince or look away. Just locked gazes with him. As if she’d been waiting for this moment. Waiting forhim.
“Go ahead. Pull the trigger.”
“I intend to.”
“Yeah?Prove it.”
He’d forgotten the way her eyes raged when she was angry. Like a storm he wanted to walk straight into.
“We both know what you want to do to me, Gideon. Well, here’s your chance.”
His gaze slid to her mouth. “You have no idea, the things I want to do to you.”
From this close, he noticed everything: the puffy redness of her eyes, the pink splotches on her face, the tears drying on her cheeks.
The alcohol on her breath.
Gideon knew Rune occasionally indulged, but this was something else.
He frowned. “You reek like an alehouse.”
“Spoken like a true gentleman.” Her voice was a husky growl.
“I’ve never been a gentleman.” He leaned closer. “If you mistook me for one, that’s on you.”
It was impossible not to be aware of every inch of her. The heat of her thighs on either side of his knee. The fevered beat of her pulse beneath his palm. She was as small and soft as he remembered. Flawless.Lovely.
Gideon had a desperate urge to take her face in his hands and ask her what was wrong, to make her tell him why she was so upset.
He shook off the temptation.
This was what she did to him: made him completely irrational.
She’s a coldhearted seductress. Don’t let her deceive you.
Rune had opened her mouth—probably to insult him further—when the shouts of several guards made them both freeze. Boots thudded in the corridor. They must have heard the bottle shatter and were now in search of its source.
Gideon glanced around the powder room. The only exit was the door behind him, which opened into that same corridor. The moment the gun went off, he’d give his location away. And with no exit, the guards would corner him.
He’d be as good as dead.Worsethan dead. If they arrested him, he’d be at Cressida’s mercy. He couldn’t fall prisoner to her again. Gideon would take his own life before it came to that.
The pulse in Rune’s wrist quickened beneath his thumb. If she called out, they would find him for sure.
“Scream for help,” he whispered as the guards drew closer, his gun still pressed to her temple, “and I’ll put a bullet in your brain.”
“If I stay silent, you’ll kill me anyway.”
True. But Rune seemed to want to live a little longer, because she didn’t scream.
