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A furious growl. “No, I don’t know it. You said you loved me, damn it. And then you were gone.”
I tugged frantically at the sliding door, even though my strength was no match for a dhampir’s. Gabriel gripped my wrist, jerking me away from the door.
“Answer me.” He spun me so that my back was against the plate-glass window. “Why did you come back?”
Anger flared in me. “Let. Me. Go.”
“No.” He gripped my chin, forced me to look at him. “I want the truth, damn it. Something’s going on and I want to know what.”
I shut my eyes. “Fuck you,” I said wearily.
His fingers tightened on my jaw. Raindrops glittered on his dark hair. “Talk, Mila.”
I tightened my mouth and glared back. To my disgust, tears stung my eyes. I blinked them away, but one escaped to run down my cheek.
Gabriel brushed it away with his thumb. I thought I saw a flicker of shame before he hardened his jaw. “Crying won’t help.”
I shrugged and looked past him. Caught in a nightmare with no way out.
He gripped my upper arms. “Talk, damn it. Was it the hundred K they gave you? Is that why you left?”
I blinked. “How do you know about that?”
“Did you really think I wouldn’t find out?”
Right. This man was part of a syndicate worth billions. He could probably find out who my best friend in kindergarten was—and what she’d had for lunch today.
He tilted his head to one side. “I could compel you, make you tell me.”
I inhaled sharply. It was the one threat I’d thought he’d never use against me. “You promised you wouldn’t.” My lower lip trembled.
His gaze flicked to it, then his mouth curled in a sneer. “That was before. When I trusted you.”
I swallowed something sharp, bitter. Because he was right not to trust me.
“Fine,” I gritted. “I took the money. But I only kept ten thousand of it, enough to get away. The rest, I gave to my family.”
Ninety thousand dollars in crisp fifties, which I’d left stacked on the dresser beneath my goodbye note.
“Then why? I loved you. You said you loved me back. Why would you leave without a fucking word? I thought you’d been kidnapped. That—” He briefly closed his eyes. “I thought they’d got to you. The slayers, or another coven.”
He released me, speared his fingers through his wet hair. “I thought,” he said raggedly, “that you were dead—or a blood slave. Because why else would you disappear like that?”
I remained where I was against the window. “I’m sorry.”
“Sorry? That’s all you can say after putting me through hell?”
I exhaled. “I’m sor—.”
He put a hand over my mouth. “Don’t say it. Just…don’t.”
He waited until I nodded against his palm and then released me, stepping back as if he couldn’t stand to be close to me.
“I had you traced, you know. I couldn’t eat, couldn’t sleep until I knew you were okay. When they found you at that farm in Tennessee, I had to see for myself that you were all right. I even came into that barn you were sleeping in, late one night. Just to make sure.”
The barn had been made over into a dormitory for seasonal help like me. I’d felt safe, anonymous, among the mix of farmhands and interns studying organic farming like me. The best part was we all worked so hard that each night, I fell into bed exhausted, and didn’t wake up until they rang the bell for breakfast.
I sagged against the glass. “I didn’t know.”
