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We were at a stalemate. I knew that expression of his. It meant he wasn’t going to budge. I decided this wasn’t the hill I was willing to die on. So, I pivoted, just like his military tactics books had thought me.
“What are you planning to do with Evie Ryan?” I knew his beef with the senator, but his daughter Evie was a whole different story. She was an innocent, and I wasn’t sure if I could stomach the thought of Kristoff turning his sister into collateral damage.
He took my hand and guided me out of the gym toward the library. There he went to his desk and pushed a button. A big television screen rose from a cabinet against the wall. It was showing the local news. Unsurprisingly, they were doing was a special on the senator. A moment later his face was on the screen.
Kristoff sat on the big couch in front of the TV, his eyes fixated on the man who looked a lot like him.
I walked up to Kristoff and gingerly sat next to him. I grabbed his hand when his mother’s killer kept going on about his war on drugs. The silence between us stretched. I looked at the younger version of the senator who sat next to me. There wasn’t a speck of emotion on his face. A face with a jaw just as chiseled, and eyes just as green, as the man on the screen. I never would have guessed a blood relation between the two, until this moment. Until he’d told me. Though he hadn’t, not really. He had told me about his half-sister. Oh God, Kristoff had a sister. A vague, fleeting image of another TV moment with the senator fluttered into my mind.
“I’m not planning to do anything to her,” Kristoff eventually said. “Evie’s not my target. She’s nothing to me.”
I was sad to hear he was so adamant about that, but decided to let it go, for now.
“What about the senator’s son? I mean the other one.”
“And Hector,” Kristoff added.
“Of course.” I hadn’t even thought about the fact that Kristoff’s half-brother could have also been the senator’s. Somehow I doubted the general public knew about all his affairs and illegitimate children.
“The son you mean is just a teenager. I have no beef with him either.”
Relief poured over me. At least this was something. My eyes went back to the screen.
The senator was talking about the impact his daughter’s overdose had had on the family. If I hadn’t just learned about the killer that lurked underneath that handsome face, my heart would break for the poor man.
Kristoff’s gaze was cold. “Spin doctor.”
“What?”
“He’s a spin doctor, using his daughter to gain sympathy votes. It’s quite brilliant, actually. Not only does he get the hard-ass, anti-drugs people on his side, but also the more mellow ones who feel sorry for him because he had to put his own daughter into rehab.”
As harsh as that sounded, and as horrible as the man was, I didn’t think he’d had much of a choice.
“What else was he supposed to do?” I said cautious. “She overdosed, after all.”
“Did she?”
I blinked. “You can’t be implying that he had his own daughter committed just so he could—” I couldn’t even finish that sentence. As someone who had spent years in hospitals, it felt like the ultimate betrayal, having to stay a minute longer in a medical facility than absolutely necessary.
“You have no idea what some human beings are capable of. I like that you are still innocent in that way.” He gently stroked my cheek.
I involuntarily leaned into him. His hand dropped over my neck and collarbone, then massaged my neck. I hummed in approval. Right up until the moment he grabbed my ponytail and pulled.
My eyes popped wide open. I stared into Kristoff’s mesmerizing eyes, where all warmth had bled away. His green eyes were filled with a mix of anger—which I knew wasn’t directed at me—and challenge, which I was absolutely the recipient of.
He leaned closer, his forehead touching mine. “Is this open enough for you? To hear and see the monster that lurks underneath my skin? Are you still all in? Still prepared to walk the labyrinth with me to face off anything heading our way?”
There was a challenge to his voice. He looked bold and brazen, just like the Kristoff of old. The man he’d been since the day I’d met him.
I raised my chin. “Either I’m all the way in, baby, or I’m out. You know you can’t keep me here forever if I don’t want to stay.”
He quirked a brow at that but didn’t dispute it. Smart man.
He extended his hand to me. “You want to take a walk on the dark side of my depraved soul?”
I took his hand, anticipation coursing through me. Kristoff guided me out of the library, downstairs, and outside toward his private garage. Dusk had set in, and as we walked toward that dreaded place, somewhere I hadn’t ventured since what I’d discovered there. Maybe he was trying to scare me off, knowing the memories that place held for me. More accurately, what the tortured soul Kristoff had kept in the downstairs dungeon had done to me.
He stopped before the threshold of the garage, giving me one last chance to change my mind. A muscle ticked in his jaw, but I didn’t budge. I knew what was behind that garage door. And it was a whole lot more than his collection of special-edition sports cars. Because as usual with this enigmatic man, it wasn’t what you found on the surface that made him who he was, but what was beneath it.
