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And Jack didn’t move as I plucked the ring out of the box and held it up to him. The golden waves glistened, the tiny diamonds glimmered, and I licked my split lip with my still bleeding tongue and confessed all my darkest parts. Every secret. Every coveted piece of me.
I tore myself wide open, all to earn a single thing in return.
One precious, wonderful thing.
Her.
“The day you dragged me onto your boat was the day you saved my life, just like my father, Emre Avci, was trying to do. I’ve been lying to you ever since. I deliberately didn’t tell you much about my past because...the less you knew, the fewer lies I had to spin, but...here’s the truth. Every shred of fucking truth. My real name is Aslan Kara. If you research my father, Cem Kara, you’ll find a shady businessman with rumours of darkness, but nothing proven. To the world, he’s crafted a careful story that hides what he truly is, but Emre told me everything. Kara is the worst bastard alive. He’s killed people. Maimed people. Trafficked minors. Peddled drugs. Raped women. And done a hundred other terrible things. He is ruthless, cruel, and pure fucking evil.
“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.”
Jack stumbled, his legs folding in slow motion, dropping him to his knees before me until our eyes were level. He never looked away from me, seeing what I’d done as if I’d projected every gruesome, cruel, and merciless thing into the night sky between us.
A morbid movie.
The worst kind of hologram.
We stared at each other as two animals, not people, two beasts that would do anything to protect their mates.
Anna stayed standing, her hand still in Jack’s as I held up the ring and confessed, “I married your daughter that night. As she rinsed away his touch in the sea, I told her what I just told you. I told her the truth about my origins. I stood before her as a murderer and the son of a monster, and asked her to accept me. I married her with every fucking part of me, Jack. The vows we uttered that night, with just the moon and stars as our witnesses, were the most binding vows of my life. I will never be with anyone else. I will never love anyone else. I was born for your daughter, sir, and if a single shred inside you would accept me, I promise to you, here and now, there is nothing I wouldn’t do, no law I wouldn’t break, no man or beast I wouldn’t kill to keep her safe. It isn’t a choice; it’s a necessity. An absolute necessity because I love Neri with all my useless soul, and I wholeheartedly mean it when I say I would die if I had to live a single day without her.”
I turned the ring, spinning it in the moonlight. “You have enough to call the police and have me thrown away for life. If they figure out who I truly am, they’ll deport me, and my father will ensure I’m killed the moment I step foot on home soil. I’ve put everything I am into your hands, and all I’m asking for, all I’m begging for, is your mercy. Your mercy and the chance to keep loving your daughter. In my heart, she’s already my wife. I promised my entire being to her that night, and yes, I did sleep with her like she told you. She was my first and my fucking only because I don’t want anyone else. I don’t need anyone else. I only want her, and if you can’t forgive me for what you saw tonight, if you can’t trust me that I would lay down my own life for her, then...”
