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Surprise fills me when he draws me onto his lap once more. I honestly believed once he knew the truth he wouldn’t be able to stand the sight of me.
“I didn’t know who you were when we met in Cyprus,” I say softly.
I hope he can hear the truth in my words because I need him to know. Those first moments we spent together were for me. I was taking what I wanted for the first time in my life instead of putting everyone else first.
He nods and I continue, “I wanted to get away from Sebastian, to find a way to protect Roman. I was desperate. And Seamus offered me a solution. If I helped them take down the Hernandez family—my family—then they would place me and Roman in WITSEC. And we could live happy, normal lives.”
“But then Sebastian sold her to your father,” Seamus adds.
“And you wanted me to inform on Rafe and the Gallo family,” I bite back angrily. Seamus doesn’t say a word to deny my allegation and I continue talking to Rafe. “I left so they didn’t have anything to hold over my head.”
“You left to keep me safe? To protect me?” Rafe asks, his hand cupping my ass as I nod.
“Not that it was necessary,” Seamus cuts in. “You’re married. If you don’t want to give the Bureau information about your husband, you don’t have to. You can’t be legally compelled to testify against your spouse and without your testimony, there wouldn’t be a case.”
Shock courses through me. Fuck. I wish I had known that before.
It could have saved a lot of heartache. And Devon’s life.
Chapter Nineteen
A Taste of Fear
Rafe
She doesn’t know. Shock ripples across her beautiful features, and I wonder what she would have done if she did. If she would ever have told me, or continued this facade of cat-and-mouse with a man I hated.
Leaving the matter of my wife for a moment to marinate inside my mind, I focus on Seamus. “Remove yourself from Konnor’s house. You’ve got two hours, then I will make a phone call.” I return the backhanded courtesy he paid me in forcing Willow’s hand. I already hate the man, but this little soiree hasn’t helped.
Seamus intended to sew distrust between us. He meant to break us up, because I snatched away his little gold mine without knowing what that cost meant to him.
“No,” he says simply.
“I’ll make that call now, then.” I smile humorlessly at him and reach for my phone.
“Stop.”
I glance at Willow, and my resolve to tether her to me harder sets in stone. Or in seed, perhaps—what I’ll fill her with every fucking day until she bears our children, tying her to me so she can never run again.
“I want you to consider your words carefully, my love,” I croon softly, lacing my tone with mockery and promises of punishments, the sort both of us will enjoy. “I give you everything, and you run. I bring you back, and I find a dagger lodged in my back. If you take away my ability to protect you now, I will raise hell on this earth to see you chained to my bed, taking us back to the level of trust we had the day I married you. Is that clear?” I keep my voice soft, easy.
Her eyelashes flutter, her breath quickening at the sweetly delivered threat to everything that makes the foundations of who we are together. “I understand you, Rafe.”
“Do you still want to stop me?”
Seamus twitches, and I slide my hand under my desk as we talk, finding the loaded gun Dom ensures was always primed and ready.
“Yes,” Willow whispers.
I sigh, gripping the gun and pressing its cold length to the back of her thighs where I pull up her dress. The movement is below the line of the desktop, and Seamus has no idea his life is about to fall short of its intended mark.
She freezes at the unexpected contact, her gaze locking on mine. This is a choice I can’t take back. I’ve never shot a cop before, let alone an FBI agent. But Seamus can’t be left alive. Knowing what he does about Konnor’s family and mine … so much more than testifiable, chargeable events. He has collected secrets the way I did, and I’d always known the soulless putanas yos would end up as collateral by my hand.
What I didn’t realize was the slice of my heart he would take with him.
“I love you. I trust you, gynaíka. But I cannot let this go. Is there anything you need to say?”
She shakes her head, her eyes welling with tears for the asshole who walked into my house, fucked up my date night, and ousted my wife’s secrets.
