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“He found out my parents had me—after a lifetime of searching for me after I disappeared when I was eight months old. He found out my uncle stole me and gave me to his brother to raise. He killed my uncle and aunt. He would’ve killed every person in my family just to get to me. And that’s why my adoptive father and the best man in the world, left the country we all loved more than anything. To give me a chance. To give my sister and cousin a chance. And when they died, I knew it was my fault. I’ve lived with their death ever since, knowing that if he’d just told me why we ran, I could’ve prevented it all and taken their place. I would’ve marched to Cem Kara and let him kill me if he’d promised to leave them alone.
“But it’s too late for them now. They’re gone, and I was lucky enough to be given a second chance by you, Jack. You and Anna cared for me like they did, and I’m so fucking sorry for betraying your kindness. But...what I’m about to tell you will hopefully show that the loyalty I had to my mother and father, sister and cousin, now belongs to you.”
I shot a glance at Neri.
Her blue eyes glowed.
She was so beautiful, so perfect, so mine.
My voice twisted with every drop of love I had for her as I said, “I love Neri with all my miserable heart. I think I always have. I know I always will. I love her with the same violence I’ve always hidden from, inherited by a man I want nothing to fucking do with...but...the night Neri was raped, I couldn’t hold back that violence. I need you to know, Jack, Anna...I did what was needed. I felt Neri calling to me—”
My voice broke, but I gulped and carried on, catching Jack’s unreadable stare. “I felt her. How or why, I can’t explain, but I knew something was wrong, but...I was too late. I was too fucking late. When I found her slurring and sick from that bastard drugging her, I thought I’d found her in time. I thought I was there to prevent her from doing something stupid and reckless, so I yelled at her. I will never fucking forgive myself for that. When I took her to The Fluke and saw what that bastard had done to her, well...”
I shrugged and looked at Neri again.
She stood with tears pouring down her cheeks. Her arms crossed so tightly as if she could contain her heart from leaping out and joining mine, smoking and splattering behind my very bruised ribs. The energy between us. The chemistry. The magic. It made my skin prickle and pulse quicken, and I fell all over again as I looked back at her father and embraced the fury that’d infected me that night. “I grabbed a diving knife, left Neri on your boat, and then I returned to that party.”
“Aslan...don’t.” Neri pressed her lips together, shaking her head.
I ignored her. “I found him pissing on weeds and knocked him out. The police were there. They stopped me with Ethan mumbling incoherently in my arms. I thought for sure I would be arrested, but...they let me go. They watched me toss Ethan into your Jeep and drive away and, right then, I knew I’d been given permission to do what was needed to be done.”
“Aslan...stop,” Neri gasped.
Jack swayed on the spot, his face as white as Anna’s. He grasped her hand for support, choking, “Go on.”
“I tied him up and drove him out to sea. I saw Neri’s pain in the way she watched him. I saw her agony in the way she cut up her favourite dress that she was wearing when he—” I shook my head, my voice thick with murderous rage. “I stopped the boat, grabbed the speargun, and shot that cunt in the leg.”
Jack sucked in a breath.
Anna clamped a hand over her mouth.
And still, I kept going, my voice as dark as the night. “While the bastard was bleeding and screaming, he said things that made me become a monster. I lost myself. I beat him harder than you beat me. I hacked off two of his fingers for touching her. I would’ve cut off his cock for defiling her. But Neri...” My head snapped toward her; I drowned in her gorgeous sea-glass eyes. “Regardless of what that prick did to her, she still wanted to let him go. She’s so much better and braver and kinder than me, and...she made me stop.”
Jack shot a tear-streaming look at Neri. Heartbreak carved all over his weathered face.
He didn’t speak, couldn’t speak, as I dropped my hand and ran my thumb over the diamond engagement ring. “I obeyed long enough for her to start the boat. I obeyed as long as I could before I lost myself to rage again. I yanked him to his feet. I pressed him against the railing, sobbing and bleeding, begging and shitting himself, and then...I tossed that motherfucker overboard.”
