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“You didn’t put the bomb in my car, but you knew it was there?”
He looked torn.As if he was actually upset about this.“There is a lot you don’t know.”He glanced at the other men.“Things they’ve not told you.Or have they?”His focus was back on me.
I blinked, as if fighting off tears.“They told me about the bomb and then made me call you, but that’s it.The next thing I knew, I woke up in a room they had me locked in, telling me that they had you.I wanted to see you.I didn’t believe you could do this.”
He glared at the other side of the room, but I didn’t dare look in their direction.I kept my eyes on Maxon.He had to think I was here for him.
“Why are you chained up?Did you hurt someone?”I asked.
He looked back at me.“They’re the fucking Mafia.This is what they do.You needed to keep your distance from them, but he didn’t tell you.He lied to you.Kept it from you.He let you keep his kid and never once told you whose house you were staying in.The danger you were in, just being there.It was driving me fucking insane with worry.”
“Sarah is my niece.She needs me,” I told him.
He winced as he tried to adjust his hands.“I know, but he will keep her safe.He won’t keep you safe though.He made you drive home, alone, in the middle of the goddamn night.Five hours on the road.If I hadn’t been watching you, then no one would have been there to make sure you made it home safe.He doesn’t appreciate all you do to help him with his kid.The least he could do was keep you safe too.But he didn’t.”
Not true.He saved me from you.
He had been watching me?The cold ice that settled over me made me shiver, and I hoped like hell I hid that from him.
“It’s me you need to trust.Not them,” he urged.“Whatever lies they’ve told you, I swear I would kill anyone who tried to hurt you.”
But the bomb.You keep forgetting you had a bomb put in my car.
“I want to believe you,” I told him.“But I don’t understand the bomb or any of it.They used my phone, Hamilton.They traced you and all the other stuff because of your number in my phone.When they made me call you.”
“You could have never gotten in your car, Oakley.I had the keys taken.I made sure it was locked.That there were no extra keys.I did it to force his hand.They took Tanner.”He shot a furious glare in their direction.“I was trying to save my friend.They kill people.I did what I had to do.”
“Do you have Tanner?”I asked them as if this were a shock to me.
Thatcher shrugged and ran his hand over the blade of a knife he was holding.“Not anymore.”
“Where is he?Tanner is my friend!He’s my friend Daphne’s boyfriend!”I really hoped I’d sold that.
Thatcher barely glanced at me, then turned his threatening gaze to Maxon.“When Maxon here tells us what we want to know, then we can tell him what he wants to know.Really, Oak, you need to calm down.Considering we normally hang men from the ceiling so we can torture what we want to know out of them,we’re being nice to this guy.”
“You mean, Hamilton,” I corrected him, thinking that was what I was supposed to do.We hadn’t covered this, but if I was supposed to think he was Hamilton, I would have responded this way, I thought.
“No, I mean, Maxon.Maxon Carda,” he drawled.
Okay, he had dropped the last name.I had to play along.He was going off script, but here we go.Hopefully, I was doing the right thing.
I stared at Maxon with confusion on my face.“Carda?As in Carda Global?”
He looked angry as he met my gaze.He hadn’t wanted me to find that out while he was hanging there.“It’s not what you think, Oakley.”
“He’s right,” the other guy said, speaking for the first time.“You probably aren’t thinking the guy you’re dating is the heir to the company that hired you just after you and Sebastian started dating.”
I let my jaw drop.“Heir?”
He took a deep breath and gave me a pleading look.“Yes.”
“You … hired me because of Sebastian?But then we broke up.What,” I shook my head trying to appear hurt.Confused.Not sure if I was pulling it off or not.“Did you start dating me because my niece was the daughter of a member?I was just a tool to you?”
He shook his head and cursed angrily.“NO!That was not it!I love you, Oakley.I’ve fucking loved you since I met you at the fundraiser the first week you were hired.But you barely acknowledged me.You smiled and pretended to want to be there.Pretended to like Sebastian Shepherd, but it was in your eyes that you just wanted to leave.You intrigued me.I wanted to get to know you, but I couldn’t.I wasn’t supposed to want you.You and I aren’t about business.This is real.What I feel is real.”
I didn’t have to fake my shock this time.I’d had no idea I’d met him years before or that he had been keeping track of me.This was all getting uncomfortable.What happened if he walked free?Would he continue stalking me?Was that what he’d been doing?Panic started slowly unraveling in my chest.
I had to get away.He had to talk.Tell them what they wanted so I could leave.
