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These were questions even my recovered memory wouldn’t solve.
“I don’t know,” I sighed, pulling myself off the floor. Dusting the dirt off the front of my cargo pants, I extended a hand toward Abby, but she refused it, rising on her own accord.
I guess she’s not over the rejected mate part.
She eyed me. “How did you get out?”
I shuddered internally at the memory, the time not enough to dismiss the trauma of the escape. “I clawed my way out.”
More anguish painted her expression, and I offered her a lopsided smile.
“When I emerged, I had no recollection of who I was or where I’d been. I spent fifty years wandering the area, trying to put the pieces together, but I never figured it out. Finally, I ended up in Seven Rock and started a little… empire.”
“Drugs?” she asked bluntly.
I shrugged. “I do what I know.” My eyes narrowed. “What happened to the empire I set up here? Is the Verity Gang still active?”
Abby shifted her weight uncomfortably and looked away, giving me my answer without speaking.
“Who’s running it?”
“Does it matter, Elijah? Everyone thought you were dead.”
“Who, Abby?”
She drew in a breath. “Orson Haynes.”
I laughed, thinking she was joking, but when she didn’t crack a smile, my own smile faded.
“Is that a joke?” I demanded. “My Orson? My first lieutenant? The same gargoyle who knew every single aspect of my business?”
She rolled her eyes, not understanding my betrayal in the least.
“He’s been running things the way he thought you would want things run,” she said nonchalantly. “That’s what makes him so successful. Who else would you want running things?”
“Me!” I roared.
She threw up her hands in exasperation. “In case you haven’t noticed, you’ve been conspicuously absent around here.”
“And you’re working for him?” This was getting worse by the second.
She didn’t respond, her teal eyes fixed on the ground in front of us.
“Oh, hell no. I can only imagine what that asshole is doing! He’s not a leader! He never was. He’s a gargoyle, a soldier, Abby. He’s meant to be muscle, not brains!”
“Oh, hell no is right!” Abby jumped in. “You abandoned me. What did you expect me to do?”
Gaping at her, I shook my head vehemently.
“That’s not true!” I hissed. “I set you up financially. I explained why we couldn’t be together—”
“I didn’t want your pity salary,” Abby bit back. “Orson offered me a place in the crew when you were gone, and I have a position, power—more than you ever gave me. You can’t just walk back in here after two hundred years and expect to have things the way you left them, Elijah. It doesn’t work that way.”
Rebuffed by her chiding, I glared at her.
“I offered you a life, a setup,” I snapped, enraged that she was spinning it like she was. “You were the one who chose not to accept it and hightailed it out of Pario City before I went to war to teach me some kind of lesson.”
“I didn’t want to live as your fucking concubine!” Abby screamed. “I was your mate, and you rejected me!”
