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I won’t let her go.
Can’tlet her go.
Heat floods my body, my blood boiling as it courses through my veins.
I tricked her. I hurt her. I broke her trust.
And I betrayed my own family, too. Because of me, we lost Val.
The plan was simple. Plant a recording device in Stuart St. James’s office the night before the football game. But I was too caught up in Skyla. I missed a text from Val warning me that the coast was clear and ran out of time before I could hook it up.
Val never told me why she needed to listen in on St. James, other than the fact that Dad was looking for information about a business deal that was going to cripple our weapons trafficking ring. St. James was a key player.
It wasn’t until a year later that the pieces started coming together.
Turns out Dad knew Denis Stepanov was linked to a sex trafficking ring that he’d been after for some reason we’ve never been able to figure out. So he hooked Val up with the guy’s son, Dmitri, so she could investigate from the inside.
She never told me why Dad tagged her in, only that it was her responsibility to help.
Snippets of me talking to Val on the day of her wedding reverberate between my ears like clashing cymbals.
“Don’t be mad at Dad, Zak. This is what I want to do.”
“The fuck it is. Why would you give up your whole life, Val?”
I rake a hand through my hair. This is on me, because I didn’t follow the plan. Now Val is the one who’s gonna suffer.
“Because I have to make things right.”
Val had to make things right. What things, I have no fucking clue. Neither do my brothers and sister.
She wouldn’t let me stop that damn wedding.
And I blasted my father for it… right before he was killed.
I never found out the truth behind it all. And we’re all still guessing about a lot of things.
Once I found out Stepanov was going to be at Skyla’s wedding, I knew I had to take over for my sister and destroy any plans he had to decimate my family’s livelihood.
I remember looking at Dad’s lifeless body in the coffin, rage tearing my insides apart knowing that Val was gone and that I couldn’t stop the hellfire that rained down on my family afterward.
All because I was too pussy whipped by my target.
And I still am, all these years later.
Tension hangs in the stagnant air between us. It constricts my throat like a boa constrictor looping around and around and around.
“How much longer are you going to avoid my questions?” Skyla snarls at me, her eyes stuck on my face. I pull my gun out of my shorts and set it on a table, heaving a deep sigh. She stares at me so hard, I can almost hear her mind willing itself to make my head explode. Then she lets out a scream of frustration and shoves a hand against my chest.
“Fuck you for being such an insufferable bastard.” Her chest heaves, voice cracking with anger and torment. “You’re a pathetic piece of shit for what you did to me four years ago, and you’re even worse now for forcing me into this situation. I hate you and I will never marry you. If you try to make me, I will cut my own throat.”
“Really. Death is preferable to a life with me?” My temples throb as I take a step closer to her.
“Yes.” She clenches her fist tight. “One thousand percent. I’ve wasted too much on you. You aren’t getting any of me this time. I’m done with you, so just let me go.” She growls those last words at me through clenched teeth.
“If I let you go, what do you think will happen to you?”
“I don’t care. My life is over anyway. One way or another.” A tear slips from the corner of her eye. I reach out and brush it away, the pad of my fingertip sweeping over her cheek. She jerks away from me and smacks my hand away from her face. “Don’t pretend to give a shit now. This isn’t real. Just like it wasn’t real when you duped me the first time.”
