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The pain in my body couldn’t compete with the agony in my soul.
I needed to protect her.
I needed to change her name, run away with her, and hide her before it was too late.
But I can’t because I’m being moved around like a fucking pawn.
I hadn’t even landed in Turkey yet, and Cem had found a way to leash me. A way to show me that he owned me whether I wanted him to or not.
I’d seen the document myself.
Seen his signature on his statement that the Taylors were to be left alone for their involvement in my disappearance. I’d seen the obscene dollar amount he’d donated in thanks to the Australian government for keeping me safe. I’d choked on bile at his hand-written note painting an image of a heartbroken father whose dream had finally come true at finding me.
I snorted under my breath.
I’d been named after a lion, but him? He was one. He was the biggest, baddest fucking predator who treated everyone else like dumb little mice. Mice he liked to toy with, play with, and move around on a chessboard of his own making until he was ready to pounce.
Roger sighed again and glanced around the half-empty cabin before saying quietly, “Look, I did what you asked me to. I researched him. I did see a few rumours of him being involved with drug activity before he became more active in politics, but he seems like he’s left whatever darkness he used to partake in behind. I think you need to give him a chance.”
I caught his stare. I exhaled hard. And I turned away to stare out the window.
I didn’t care anymore.
What was done was done.
I’d been denied a phone call to Neri.
I’d been shoved on the first available plane once their doctor had cleared me for travel.
I was here now.
Soaring above Turkey, flying toward a war that I would fight tooth and fucking nail to win. Cem might’ve manipulated officials, bureaucrats, and even the damn prime minister, but he wouldn’t manipulate me.
How many webs did he thread around the world searching for me?
Maybe Emre had been right. Maybe we should’ve kept going to Antarctica.
Perhaps then we’d all be alive.
But I would never have met Neri.
I grunted at the hot strike of agony that always came when I thought about her.
If I hadn’t met her, I would’ve lived a half-life, yet...in some awful screaming part of me, I wished I’d been able to stay strong that night in the Craypot and never kissed her.
She could be with someone else right now.
Someone with a boring name and a boring past.
My chest hurt.
My heart ached.
I could never go back to Australia. I’d been flagged as an overstayer and marked as banished. If I was caught trying to enter, I’d be arrested and imprisoned.
I was banned for life.
So where does that leave us if I somehow survive this?
