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Selina was right. She wasn’t being stubborn because she was a brat. She wanted to get back tothem. The people she claims treated her so poorly. To a man who had no qualms with kidnapping Selina’s little girl.
“Why?” I snarl, closing my hand around her thin throat. “We would have treated you like a goddamn queen. Given you whatever the fuck you wanted.”
Her slight body struggles against mine. What little good it does her.
“Please…just let me go…”
“Not until you tell me why? I saw the bruises on you myself when I saw you in the basement. Christine said it was worse underneath your clothes. I know they beat you, and you still went back.”
“You have to let me go.”
I squeeze her throat, letting her know real fear. “Not until you tell me why.”
“He’ll kill him!”
I blink down at her, confused. “Explain?”
“Seth…my son—he’ll kill him.”
Shocked, I loosen my grip as I mull over her words. She’s only nineteen. There’s no way she has a kid. There’s just no way.
“Please!Let me go. I need to see my boy.”
I sit back on my heels, my heart pounding in my chest.
Never once did the thought of her having a kid cross my mind, but it’s the only thing that makes a lick of sense.
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
“I was scared you’d use it against me. That you’d find out where Gunther was and bomb the shit out of his place. That Seth would die.”
Without warning, I’m thrown back into another time. Another life.
“Carolyn?”
“Yeah, Cole?”
I hadn’t realized how gaunt her face had gotten. How hollow her eyes had become.
“We need to talk?”
“Yeah?”
“People are talking about Henry’s injury. They seem to think it wasn’t caused by a fall off the play set.”
Almost immediately, her body goes stiff, and my worst fears are confirmed.
“Cole? Please, Cole, let me go.” Amber’s pleas jolt me back to reality. Tears stream down her face. Tears I put there.
“Why would you think that? Why would you ever think that?” I whisper. “I’d never harm a child—never!”
“I couldn’t risk it. Your people hate me. Selina would kill me if she had the chance.”
I cup her cheek, so very sad with how hurt she must be. “I would never hurt you or your boy. I’d spend my dying breath setting you free.”
“Then you understand why you have to let me go. I’d love to be your Kept woman, Cole. I want it more than anything. But the safest thing for my boy is that I go back to the Reavers and you leaving us alone.”
“I can’t do that.” My voice is so raw, I don’t recognize it. “There’s too much already set in motion, and I can’t bear the thought of what you’d be going back to. But I promise to do everything I can to reunite you with your son.”
