AllFreeNovel
Share Us
He groaned in appreciation around the bite, as he had the others. “This is perfect, thank you.”
“Happy birthday. I’m sorry it was horrible and I didn’t get you anything.”
He huffed through his nose and set the fork down. Pressing his knuckles under my chin to lift my head, he studied me intently for long seconds before saying, “You have.”
I rolled my eyes.
“Blackbird, you’ve given me more than I deserve, and I’ll be thankful every day for you.”
My chest warmed, and though I tried to hold it back, my lips kept curving up into a smile.
But the look that suddenly filled his eyes didn’t match his words or the warmth that had filled me, and was now quickly receding from me.
“I told you this afternoon that I needed to talk to you when we got home.” He swallowed thickly, and s
omething like fear flashed across the devil’s face. “Briar . . . it’s time . . . it’s time we talked.”
I nodded hesitantly. “Okay,” I said slowly, drawing the word out.
He gently pushed me away until I was sitting on the floor a foot away from him, and no matter how much my body begged me to reach for him again, I worried that the distance he’d placed between us wouldn’t be enough.
“Lucas, you’re scaring me.”
His head tilted, and a small laugh of frustration forced from his lungs. “I want to tell you that you shouldn’t be scared, because of everything I’ve done to you, this will only be talking. But out of all the conversations we’ve had, this is the one I was sure I would never have with you, and it’s the one I’m positive will make you run back to Georgia.”
I pulled my knees up to my chest and wrapped my arms tightly around them but didn’t speak again. Just waited.
“You have to understand that telling you any of this isn’t allowed, and I don’t mean for this life. This is so much more dangerous than breaking rules with you, Briar. But after today, I can’t continue to let our life go on without you knowing.”
“Lucas, I’ve told you nothing will make me run. Just tell me,” I begged through clenched teeth and fisted my hands in a vain attempt to hide my shaking.
His head shook sadly. “That was before. If you need me to stop, say it. If you need a break, tell me. If you need to leave . . . know that I love you, but I won’t chase you,” he choked out, and dropped his gaze to the floor.
I waited as an eternity passed in silence, my heart racing as those fated words played in my head again and again.
“I won’t chase you.”
When Lucas looked up at me again, my faint gasp at the haunted look on his face tore through the silence in the kitchen.
“My name isn’t Lucas Holt. I will tell you everything you want to know, answer every question you have, as long as the answer isn’t something that will hurt you, but I can’t tell you my real name. It’s safer if you don’t know it, because I have to remain Lucas Holt. I can’t be anyone else right now.”
I had already gone completely still. Confusion and denial were swirling so deeply inside me, mixing with the intense ache in my chest.
Not Lucas Holt. Not Lucas Holt.
When he’d first spoken, I’d wondered if all the men in his world changed their names in a way to protect themselves, but that thought had abruptly died when he continued.
“I’ve given you glimpses and hints at what my life was like up until just four years ago,” he went on, “because I knew I was falling in love with you, and I wanted you to know me, to try to understand who you were falling in love with instead of this illusion I’ve created—but the real me shouldn’t be allowed to even have this chance with you.” He ran a hand roughly through his hair, and a muscle ticked in his jaw.
When he spoke again, everything was rushed and said so softly it was almost too hard to keep up with him. “I told you I had to fight to get into this world . . . but that’s only a small part of it. For almost six months, I was repeatedly put in situations so William and I would run into each other when he was dealing with the darker side of this world. All for the slim chance that he would see something in me that could be of use in his business. But every single one of those meetings was planned and monitored by the FBI. They had tracked multiple shipments of drugs going from the mob to William and thought he was the head of a drug ring in southern Texas. But that’s all they thought he was involved in. They needed me to get close to him, gain his trust, and learn everything I could about him so we could take him down. But I knew I would have to do things I would hate myself for just to prove to William that I would be useful for him. So I did. And I got in close with him—too close.
“No one had expected what I found. None of us had even imagined it went so far beyond drugs—that the drugs were the least of the worries. And by that point, William had already begun mentoring me, had already begun testing and training me to see if I could become this. I’ve been forced to continue with the cover and go deeper and deeper so that one day the FBI and other non-government agencies can take down this entire ring. What you now know as my world.”
I wasn’t breathing or blinking, I wasn’t sure I was even processing what he’d told me. This was . . . well, this wasn’t real. I must have fallen asleep after coming home from the disaster in the city.
But as minutes came and went, my lungs started aching from lack of oxygen, letting me know this was in fact real.
The faintest flicker of relief sparked in my chest—knowing he wasn’t really this man who’d bought my hatred . . . wasn’t a man who chose to be in this life—but that relief died as fast as it had formed. Tiny cracks raced through my heart, spreading out like a spider web as memories from my first weeks with Lucas flashed through my mind. Tears pricked at my eyes and betrayal burned deep.
