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I close my eyes. “I know, Declan. I’m not an idiot.”
“What do you think you know?” His fingers dig into my calves.
“There are two types of families with money. Old and new. The old think they’re better than the others. When I was with Ian, there were whispers at the events we attended.”
“What kind of whispers?”
I think of all the times I had dinner with one of our Harvard classmates. “Callum Junior killed a man in his class,” I say. “They were just rumors, and I never believed them. Until I saw him at the wedding. The way he’s protective of Haley, it just kind of clicked. The man they killed was accused of raping one of their classmates.”
He shakes his head. “If Cal killed someone while he was at Harvard, I’d know.”
“Maybe you forgot? Do you—” I gulp down the hesitation. “Do you guys kill people . . . often?”
He snorts. “I don’t forget things.”
“Surely that isn’t true.”
“I have an eidetic memory.”
My eyes grow wide. “You—what?”
He sighs, nods, and grabs my chin to pull my attention to him. “I’m about to ruin your entire world, baby. And you have to know how much this hurts me.”
I place my hand over his. “Just spit it out.”
“I tortured him to tell me why he was here. It took him days, but he told me everything.”
“Okay,” I whisper. “Why was he here?”
“No. We have to start at the beginning of the story,” he mumbles. “The day Ian was killed, I was so drunk out of my mind, I couldn’t even stand. I went into Russian territory looking for a fight. The previous night Cara had visited me in my dreams.”
I hold his wrist, keeping him close to me to show him I’m here for him, that he’s not alone in the grief.
“The memories are so vivid that when I have those dreams of her, it’s like I’m reliving the moment. I can recall the smells and everything down to the shade of the blood tainted water. There are only three things that help calm me when I get like that. Pain.”
He pauses, his gaze traveling down the artwork sketched into his body. “Sex, and alcohol. That day I chose alcohol. I picked a fight in the bar and got kicked out. I was in the alley so fucking shitfaced that I couldn’t even walk. And I overheard two men.”
I freeze, already knowing what’s next. “It was the men who came here, Sammy. They were talking about raping and killing you. I tried to stop it. I tried so hard to do something, anything. But I couldn’t.”
“This doesn’t make sense, Declan. The police said that they chose a random house. That there were no signs of them knowing who we were.”
“I know,” he says. “This is where it gets crazy. The man admitted to me that he was paid to kill you.”
I flinch, pulling away from him. His hand drops like a heavy weight. “What?”
“Ian’s parents put out a hit on you, Samira. They wanted you gone, but Ian got in the way.”
I pull away from him to stand, my body needing to move to keep me from reeling. “No. They never liked me, but this makes no sense. Who orders a kill on their daughter-in-law?”
“They didn’t like you, honey. You were a small-town girl that came from no money. You have no social status. To them, you weren’t good enough.”
“So then, why wait? Ian and I had been married for years. We had kids together. A life. Why would they kill me, knowing it would ruin Ian? Em and Max?”
“Because rich people are assholes.” He offers me a sad smile. “I’m sorry, baby. I’m so fucking sorry. I hate myself so much. I should have stopped it. I could have prevented all this pain for you and the kids.”
Lifting a hand to silence him, I still walk back and forth. “How do you know they were talking about me?”
“I just do. It was the same day of his death, the same men.”
