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When he turns away from me, his bare back faces me as he moves across the room and I frown. There are scars littering his skin: long marks that look as if he’d been tortured at some point.
It makes my stomach knot. Is this why he’s so cruel? Exacting revenge on the people who’ve hurt him in the past?
I shake myself from the thought. It doesn’t matter what Killian’s motives are. All that matters is that my life is now in danger thanks to him.
“How do you know so much about my family? About me? I never even told you it was my bachelorette night at the club. So, how did you know about it? And my wedding?”
I follow him over to the small desk located on the opposite end of the room, nestled between the bathroom and his bedroom door.
He bends over it, rifling through one of the drawers for something.
“It’s a bit early for you to be demanding answers like this, don’t you think?”
I scoff at him, my eyes running over the scars on his back as the knot in my stomach continues to tighten.
“It’s too early for you to answer my questions—but not for you to get me off?”
All he answers me with is a soft chuckle.
“Killian.” I grit my teeth. “Who is your informant.”
He turns around to face me, raising a brow. “My informant?”
“Who is it? You must have one. That’s the only way you could know so much about us.”
“Perhaps your family isn’t as trustworthy as you think, Antonella. Perhaps you all leak your secrets easily to anyone who will lend a comforting shoulder.”
I feel my face twist in confusion. What does that mean? Who would be stupid enough to do something like that? Our family is tight knit for a reason. Secrets don’t just ‘leak out’ unless we want them to. My father made sure to drill that into our heads, since my brother and I were kids. My mother would be too afraid to speak out in general—let alone to someone that wasn’t family.
Killian speaks again. “Don’t delude yourself into thinking that your family is good at following their own rules. They’ve said one thing and done the opposite more times than I can count. You need to start thinking for yourself, Nella. Because the people you surround yourself with aren’t who they say they are.”
The sound of nickname on his lips makes my heart flutter, but I still feel my blood run cold. Did he mean my father? How he’d married me to Ben? I always imagined that our marriage connoted a unification of the two families, a mutual agreement that benefitted us all.
For months, my father’s business deals had been swooped out from beneath him with seemingly no explanation as to how or why. It was as if a shadow had stolen everything, then vanished without a trace before anyone noticed.
Had that been Killian’s doing? Had he orchestrated this entire thing? The path leading up to my current situation is twisted at best. When my father had come to me a few months ago and told me that I would be marrying Ben, there had been no further explanation.
Had that been Killian’s plan all along, too? Setting me up to be the bait while it drew the Thomas family out into the open? Giving him the perfect opportunity to dive in and kill him while simultaneously taking me as captive in the process?
My head swims with all the possibilities.
“Did you tell my father to sell me, Killian?”
I watch the muscle in his jaw twitch. “Your father doesn’t give a shit about you. Stop thinking this is about him.”
It stabs my heart to hear such a cruel thing thrown at me. “Really? And who gives a shit about me then? You? I met you two days ago!”
He lets out a dark laugh, fixing me with that piercing gaze of his. “I’ve known you for months, Antonella. Too many to even count at this point.”
He shakes his head and waves a hand at me flippantly.
“Like I told you, you and your family aren’t as protected as you may think.”
I swallow.
“Who is your informant, Killian?”
He stares at me with a cool expression. “What does it matter?”
