Page 74 of Vega

The thought made no sense, however. I barely knew her, intimately, yet every detail I learned made me want to know more. I should’ve been fighting the infatuation. Instead, I wanted to feed it until I discovered whether it would destroy me or become the first real thing I had ever felt.

I realized that Sonnet had tried to escape because she didn’t trust me. To her, I was still a masked man who had stolen her from her home and locked her away. So, once I saw that she was awake, I carried her breakfast upstairs.

Since she had gotten sick, she had been eating more.

She was still lying in the bed when I entered. Her eyes moved from the tray to my mask, and the anger in them confirmed she was still thinking about the night before.

I set the tray on the small table beside her bed. Her eyes followed the movement before returning to my face. She watched me pull the chair away from the desk and sit across from her.

Bucking her eyes at me, she asked, “What?”

“We need to talk.”

She folded her arms defiantly, waiting for me to go on.

“Roman has to die. As long as he’s alive, he’ll keep looking for you. He won’t rest until he knows you’re dead and can’t expose him.”

“So, kill him and let me go.”

“I’m working on it.”

“And when he’s dead?”

“I open the door.”

She studied me. “You expect me to believe that?”

“I don’t know what to expect from you.”

Her eyes narrowed.

“Once you’re free, you could go directly to the police,” I continued. “You could identify me, describe my tattoos, and tell them enough to put me away.”

“You kidnapped me. Why wouldn’t I?”

“That’s why I’ve been keeping the mask on. It protected me, but it also kept you afraid.”

There was no sarcastic rebuttal this time. She just stayed silent in agreement.

“You don’t trust me because you don’t know me. Every time you look at this mask, you see the man who broke into your home. You see a monster hiding his face while telling you he’s the only reason you’re alive.”

“Aren’t you the monster that’s keeping me alive?”

“I don’t want to be a monster to you.”

The answer surprised both of us.

I reached for the bottom of the mask, and her gaze followed my hand.

“I don’t know whether showing you my face is trust or stupidity,” I said. “Maybe it’s both.”

I slowly pulled the fabric upward. Her eyes widened as my mouth, beard, and the rest of my features came into view. I removed the mask completely and let it fall into my hand. For the first time since I took Sonnet, she looked at me and saw the man instead of a threat.

SONNET ELLISON

The mask moved slowly over his beard, then his mouth, his nose, and finally the rest of his face. And I forgot to breathe.

Vega was beautiful, beautiful in the kind of unfair way that made a person look intentionally designed. His light brown skin glowed beneath the morning light, smooth except for the faint scatter of freckles across his nose and cheeks. Thick black waves covered his head in perfect rows, framed by a sharp hairline that made every angle of his face appear even more precise. His eyebrows were dark and heavy, drawing attention to light brown eyes that looked almost amber without the mask surrounding them. Those freckles were adorable, softening a face that usually intimidated people.