Page 20 of Flawed Revenge

Break her heart? Yes. She believed if she gave him that chance, he’d betray her all over again.

But hurt her body? No. Leo wouldn't do that. He wouldn't. He wasn't giving himself enough credit.

“I would have stood by you, Leo,” she said softly, but earnestly. It was true. If he’d told her what was going on, she would have been there for him, helped him in any way she could.

“I know you would have. That’s why I had to make sure I pushed you away in a way that you would hate me, severing the ties between us for good. I wouldn't risk your life, Katie-Bear. Not then and not ever.”

“You were so cruel.” Another tear slipped free, and she knew from the way he froze, the way his fingers clenched and unclenched, that Leo saw it too. “Telling me to abort our baby, that was cold, Leo. That hurt the most. You could have broken up with me in a way that didn't destroy me.”

Before she could blink, he was on his knees before her, the calloused pads of his thumbs catching the tears that were now streaming down her cheeks. “No, Katie-Bear. I couldn’t. I had to do it in a way that made you hate me. It was the only way to make sure I could never put my hands on you.”

“But—”

His finger pressed to her lips, cutting off her protests. “After I ended things between us, I was a mess. I almost lost control of my anger and attacked my teammates. We went to see Dr. Gardner and told him that something was wrong. Back then, we still trusted him.”

The humorless laugh Leo gave told her that trust had been misplaced.

“He locked us up, Katie-Bear.”

“Locked you up?”

“Three years. My team and I spent three years locked in a glass cage. Naked. Experimented on. Forced to go out on kill missions.”

“Leo, no,” she said on a gasp. Three years? While she’d been hating the father of her child, and struggling to raise a baby on her own, he had been locked inside a cage?

“Yes. We were in that cage for three years. It was only a fluke that we got out. My team, they were so angry at me that day because I wouldn't leave without the ring.”

“The ring?”

“This one.” Reaching inside his shirt, he pulled out a chain with a ring hanging from it. A ring she recognized.

“That was mine.”

“You threw it at me that day. I kept it. They took it from me when they imprisoned us, but I couldn’t leave without it. I’d lost you, I thought our baby was dead, I needed that ring, it was the only connection I had to the past I wished had become my future. We were the only team that survived the drugs. All the rest succumbed to the anger or the suicidal thoughts. That made us valuable. After we escaped, we spent a year on the run, being hunted by Dr. Gardner. Then we decided something had to change, so we contacted Eagle Oswald.”

“Prey Security’s founder and CEO.”

“Yes. He gave us jobs and this remote mansion to live in. We work as Delta Team for Prey, and have done for the last six years. All of that time, we were hunting Dr. Gardner. The program was shut down after we escaped, but back then, we never had his name. He was always just Doctor. I won't lie to you, Kate, the Leo you once knew doesn’t exist anymore. It took a long time, but we know now we’re not monsters. We still have a conscience, we can still feel emotions, but they are dulled. We are dangerous men.”

That was exactly what she’d thought when they were just nameless, faceless men in black holding weapons aimed at her.

But she was still struggling to believe that her Leo could hurt anyone.

“It was only months ago that we got Dr. Gardner’s name. Revenge has been all we’ve thought about for a decade now. It was all that kept me going because I’d already lost the most important people in my life. You and our baby. I dreamed about the day I would make that man’s blood flow. It’s his fault I lost you. What he did to me left me no choice but to leave you.”

“Did you find him? K-kill him?” she asked.

“We only killed him days ago, not even a week.” Sighing, he rocked back on his heels, putting some space between them. “The things we did to get to him, I'm not proud of them, and you wouldn't understand them. You haven’t been in that desperate place, and I never want you to be. But, yeah, he’s finally dead. But before he died, he dropped a bombshell that he might have been working with someone else. His mother, who we thought was dead.”

“That’s who you thought I was when I got here?” That would make sense why they would treat her like a threat until they knew better.

“No one but Eagle has this address. No one ever shows up here.”

“I was looking for you when Eagle reached out to me, he gave me this address.”

“You probably triggered Prey’s systems when you went looking for my name. He would have checked you out to see if you were a threat, and when he found out about Ariella, he realized why you were trying to find me.”

“Leo, I've been in that place. That one you talked about. One where you’re so desperate you’ll do anything. Maybe it’s different, because I wasn't in fear for my life, I didn't have a physical enemy I wanted to kill. But my daughter is dying,” Kate choked on that word because it killed her to have to say it, even if it was true. “I'm desperate enough to do anything if it gives me even a chance at saving her life.”