AllFreeNovel
Share Us
My eyes jump to the picture, and then I shut them for a moment.
“A picture can’t tell you someone is dead.”
“Did we look at the same picture?” I ask him.
“Are you going to tell Wryn?” he asks instead, ignoring my question.
I drum my fingers on my leg as I lean back too. “I don’t know.”
“It’d be selfish of you not to,” he says, igniting that flame inside me that tells me he’s right, but I don’t want to hear it right now.
“I fucking know that.”
He cocks an eyebrow. He’s not worried about my temper.
“This is a better outcome than her being trafficked all these months,” Geo says.
I want to launch across the desk and pummel him. It’s not him; it’s the thought of death being better than what my father was inflicting on innocent women. It’s the thought that I haven’t stopped it, that I can’t stop it right now. The helplessness washes over me, worse than the hope being crushed. I hate myself right now. I hate Bertrand all over again. And Antonio, Paul, William, and Vincent.
Fuckers.
“It’s not a fucking better outcome to be dead,” I say, seething. “There’s no good outcome. There’s nothing good about any of this. This life sucks the soul out of us, leaving a shell. There’s no other reason why my father would kill my mother and then go on to murder someone I was seeing and then be able to sleep at night. I refuse to believe he’d always been like this. It’s the money that made him a greedy, selfish bastard, and I fucking hate him.”
My fingers are curled into tight fists by the time I shut my mouth, and Geo doesn’t say anything. He nods in agreement. We both know what this world is like. We know what our fathers are like. We know that if we want things to change, we are the ones who must bring it about.
I’m not going to lie; having money is way better than not having it, but I’m only comfortable with certain ways of getting it, and trafficking is not one of them. Nor is murdering those around me to further advance my career and that of my family. Well, except for killing my father. But I didn’t start that. And now, it looks like I’m going to have to go that route, and it absolutely burns me from the inside out.
I think about Wryn, how crushed she will be when I tell her. Then, I think about keeping it to myself for a bit longer.
I should choose the first option. But God only knows I’m going to choose the second.
5
WRYN
Ipause outside the doorway, chewing my lower lip nervously before stepping through into the home gym. Geo is lifting weights, and Connor is jogging on the treadmill. I frown at him. I knew I would find him here since he wasn’t in his office. All he does these days is work and work out—well, whatever he can find to do with one hand.
His eyes meet mine in the mirror in front of him, and he reaches to turn the machine down to a walk. I head over to stand beside him, and I stare at his bare torso as he glances down at me.
“Should you be running right now?” I ask him.
He presses his lips into a thin line. I know he doesn’t appreciate my hovering, but I can’t help it.
“I’m fine,” he says, grabbing a towel and wiping the sweat running down his face before turning everything off and coming to a stop.
The silence in the room is deafening once there’s not the background whirring noise.
“I was injured, not incapacitated. I will recover at some point, and there’s no reason to let myself go during the process.”
“No, you’re right,” I concede, and he nods. “I’ve been thinking.”
“About?” he prompts, tilting a water bottle up to his lips.
Geo continues to work out on the other side of the room, not paying us any attention.
“I want you to teach me some self-defense skills.”
He stares at me for a beat before setting his water bottle down. “It’s a good idea,” he says, stepping off the treadmill, and I move sideways to allow him room.
