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“But he found you?”
“Twelve months ago.” I could still feel the fear I felt the night I walked into our apartment and found Alex waiting for us.
“And he sent you here to kill me?”
“No. I was sent here to watch someone. Not to kill anyone.”
“Then, what changed?”
“It was a lie from the very beginning. He dangled Noah and my freedom in front of me. Told me all I had to do was be his eyes and ears in Destiny. Report back to him if he ever asked. But he never did. It was a lie. Because the next time I heard from him, he told me I had to …”
“Kill me?”
My voice strangled in my throat. “Yes.”
“When did you know he wanted me dead?” Bull’s deep voice was clipped.
I looked at him. Watched him swallow deeply. His poker face firmly in place. As was the darkness clouding his eyes.
But I could feel his pain. And it was deep.
“I got a phone call…”
“When?” His voice was sharp.
A thick knot of remorse lodged in my throat. “The day after Maverick and Autumn’s wedding.”
His face tightened and his jaw popped.
He was thinking about that night on the River Queen after the wedding, and how it wasn’t just sex. How we’d admitted our feelings as we made love, losing ourselves in the exquisite touch of each other’s body. I could see it written all over his face. It was hurting him. Deeply.
I wanted to look away so I didn’t have to see the hurt in his eyes. But I wouldn’t. Because I did this. I hurt him and I had to face up to it.
“When did you decide you weren’t going to kill me?”
“I would never hurt you,” I whispered.
“You expect me to believe you were never going to go through with it?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“I lost the ability to do what I used to do a long time ago. And…” I looked away and let my voice trail off.
“And what?”
“And I could never hurt you.” I raised my gaze to meet his. “Because you’re the reason I breathe.”
BULL
Because you’re the reason I breathe.
Her words were like a kick behind the knees.
And they almost brought me down because I desperately wanted to believe her.
“I know this is a lot to take in. But I need you to understand that I never intended for any of this to happen. I couldn’t tell you why I was here, or what was going on. Alex told me there would be grave consequences if I did. And he doesn’t make idle threats, Bull. He’s cruel. He took Noah because I didn’t do what I was sent here to do.” She shook her head, drawing her brows together. “Plus, I didn’t want you to know who I was. Not in the end.”
My voice was alien. Cold. Hard. With an edge as sharp as a knife. “Why?”
“Because I love you,” she said, and my heart ached for it to be true. But it wasn’t. Because this was all a part of the bullshit façade.
“If this is you being in love with me, then I’d hate to see what you’re like if you weren’t.”
She ignored my sarcasm.
“I know it looks bad, and I don’t expect you’ll believe me. But I fell in love with you. If you believe nothing else, please believe that.”
I didn’t.
She took a step toward me but then stopped, and for a moment I thought I saw a glimmer of regret on her beautiful face. But then it was gone.
Because she is a cold-blooded killer.
“Am I your first?” I asked, and when she looked away, I knew the answer. Jesus. This wasn’t a one off. She’d done this before. “How many?”
“Enough.”
“Did you make all of them fall in love with you before you put a bullet in them?”
“That’s not fair.”
My temper snapped.
“Don’t talk to me about fairness.” I spoke through gritted teeth. “What’s not fair is living in darkness for eighteen long, goddamn years, only to finally fall in love with a fucking lie!”
“It’s not a lie.”
Agony swept through me like wildfire and I gripped my gun. Inside my skull, I was screaming like a madman.
Because you’re the reason I breathe.
I wanted to release my pain in a roar. I wanted to fall to my knees and pound the floor until my hands were black and bloody, and so goddamn numb that I couldn’t feel anything anymore. I wanted to take her in my arms and kiss her until she fought against me, breathless and wild, and make her tell me why. Why did she have to break my fucking heart?
We looked at each other, and the air between us snapped with tension. My heart was wounded and bleeding. But the armor was already beginning to attach itself to the breached walls and harden like cold steel again.
“What happened to Noah?”
I thought about the kid I was growing close to as I sat down at the table next to her, and a weird stalemate settled between us.
