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“How so?” He spears a small bite-sized piece of steak and brings it to his mouth. “From what I understand, he captured you and forced you to marry him. That seems like reason enough to want him dead.”
“I… I was tricked. I didn’t know the truth. I believed he did something he didn’t.” A tear slips down my cheek, but I leave it there. I deserve the shame.
He finishes chewing and takes a drink of his cabernet. “What would you give in exchange for him?”
I want to scream that I’d give anything—my life, my soul, anything. But I’m not worth much to Gideon. There’s only one thing I have to offer.
Peering at my father, knowing he won’t approve, because it’s traitorous, I say, “A way in. I’ll give you a way in.”
“In to what?” Gideon asks, though I have a feeling he already suspects what I’m referring to.
“You let Rowan go, I’ll spy for you. Any move the Sinacore Alliance makes, you’ll be the first to know.”
“Keeping the wineglass in his hand, he swirls it around as he considers me. “If Rowan ever trusted you again, you’d be risking your own life. Luca Sinacore takes as well to betrayal as I do.”
The images of Bryan and James McKenzie’s bodies fill my mind instantly. I glimpse at Scarlet and Itsuki and wonder if either of them did those horrible things.
Would they do the same to me? Would Luca?
Would Rowan?
It doesn’t matter. For him, I’ll do whatever it takes, even if I have to sell my soul to the Devil.
“I’m aware of the risk,” I say. “Just return him to me.”
Gideon sighs, his gaze taking on a regretful expression. “I must admit, out of anything anyone could have offered, that is the most tempting of all. And I might have taken it. Except…” From his coat pocket, he produces a leather necklace and sets it on the table in front of him. Then, one at a time, he places two pennies heads up beside it. “I’m sorry. His sentence has already been carried out.”
I reach across my father for the necklace, immediately recognizing it. It’s the one given to Rowan by his mother. The one that’s been hanging around his neck since he was a child.
“No!” I cry out.
My world shifts and I nearly vomit. His sentence has already been carried out?
Against my will, I imagine it happening. Picturing him being killed a thousand different ways makes something inside me snap.
“I’m sorry. If you’d come to me an hour sooner, perhaps—”
“Murderer!” I lunge from my seat and crawl over the plates of food, wanting to kill Gideon. But before my fingertips make contact with his throat, Scarlet gets a hold of my hair and drags me off the table.
“I thought they’d be more professional than this,” she says to Gideon.
I scream and dig my nails into her wrists, but she doesn’t release me. It’s not until my father manages to get control of the situation that I’m let go.
“Easy,” he says to her, his palms up in a placating manner. Slowly, he steps toward us and takes me from her.
“Keep her on a leash if you don’t want her to end up like her boyfriend.”
“He’s my husband!” I scream like a banshee, doing my best to tear myself out of my father’s tight hold, but he’s too strong.
“Tut, tut, Lou,” Gideon scolds, shaking his finger at me as he stands. “These are the consequences of your actions. Perhaps next time, you’ll give yourself time to think about that before pulling the trigger.”
“Settle down, Louisa,” Papá growls in my ear. “This isn’t going to help fix anything.”
Fix? How can anything be fixed now?
Where there’s life, there’s hope. There is no fixing anything. My hope is gone.
Rowan is dead. And I killed him.
