Page 68 of Vicious Betrayal

The timeline Declan gave me on the phone clicks into place fully. Mid-September. The week after she sat down on the barstool next to me at the club, looking at me with those wide, innocent blue eyes and acting like she'd never seen a man like me before. Acting like she wanted me so badly she couldn't keep her hands to herself.

You stupid, arrogant old bastard.

My hands tighten on the steering wheel. I want to smash the windshield. I want to put my fist through the dashboard until the plastic shatters and my knuckles bleed out the rage burning behind my ribs. But I keep my eyes on the winding road, my foot heavy on the gas.

"Cormac, please look at me," she begs, a sob catching in her throat. Tears are streaming down her pale cheeks now, dripping off the edge of her jaw. "Please. I'm sorry. I'm so sorry, I had to⁠—"

"Save it," I bite out, the words scraping past my teeth like broken glass. "Not another fucking word out of your mouth until we're off this island."

—

The next several hours feel like a nightmare. I can't call Declan. If I tell him what's happened, Oksana's life is forfeit. He's a good man, and he wouldn't want to hurt me, but there are some things in our world that are inviolate. Working with the feds is a death sentence. Trying to entrap one of us is a death sentence. He's not a cruel man, and there's some small chance I could use the baby as leverage, but I'm not a hundred percent sure that would matter. Oksana has put every man in our organization at risk, and until I figure out what to do, I have to handle this myself. We're supposed to be on our honeymoon for another five days or so… I have time.

She's a liar and a traitor, but she's my wife. And she's carrying my child. I'm not prepared for this. I need to think.

The FBI won't be making any moves yet. Whatever Oksana has to give them, she still has it, since I caught her before the meeting went through. So I book us a flight back to the States, planning to take her to a safe house.

Throughout the flight, Oksana stays curled in the seat next to me, her knees pulled up to her chest, her face buried in a fleece blanket. She doesn't sleep. Every time the cabin shifts or my boots move against the floor, she flinches, watching me through the tangled strands of her light blonde hair with eyes that look hollowed out by fear.

She thinks I'm going to kill her.

The thought sits heavily in my chest. After everything we shared, the vows I made before God and every person I know, she looks at me and sees an executioner.

She never knew me at all, I think. She never saw anything but a man she was supposed to trap and destroy.

When the wheels touch down, the sky is grey and drizzling cold rain. I rent a nondescript car at the airport and drive an hour and a half west, deep into the rural farmland. The roads turn from four-lane highway to cracked two-lane asphalt, then finally to gravel, winding through miles of bare cornfields and dense trees.

The safe house sits at the end of a long, unpaved lane behind a locked iron gate. It's a low, two-story stone and wood house, completely invisible from the county road. Declan bought it five years ago, and we don't use it much. No one will find us here for now.

I kill the engine and step out into the rain. I hardly notice it as I open the passenger door, reach in, and take Oksana by the arm. She doesn't fight me, but her legs are shaking so badly she nearly collapses against the car the second her feet hit the ground. I keep a steady hand on her waist, guiding her up the three wooden steps to the front porch, and unlock and push the front door open.

The house smells dusty. It hasn't been used in a long while. It's sparsely furnished, but it has what we need for a few days. I lock the door and flip the lights on. Then I lead her into the kitchen, let go of her arm, and set her canvas tote bag down on the laminate island with a heavy thud.

Oksana backs away until she hits the counter near the sink. She stands there, shivering in her thin white sundress, her arms wrapped tight across her stomach. Her chin comes up, a sudden, desperate defiance flashing through the terror in her eyes.

"Do whatever you want," she says, her voice trembling but hard. "I'm not answering your questions. You can do whatever you came here to do, Cormac, but you're not getting a confession out of me."

A bitter, ugly laugh tears out of my throat before I can stop it. Oksana recoils, her shoulder blades pressing flat against the cabinets.

"Do whatever I want?" I step toward her, the wood floor groaning under my boots. I tower over her, looking down into that pale, beautiful, treacherous face. "Is that what you think this is? You think I brought you out to the woods to beat a confession out of you?"

"You're an enforcer," she snaps, tears spilling over her lashes again. "That's what you do. That's your job, isn't it? Breaking people who cross Declan?"

"Aye," I say, my voice dropping an octave, low and vicious. "That is my job. I've broken fingers and pulled off fingernails. I've cut out tongues. Torn off pieces of skin and cut out chunks of flesh. I've put men in hospital beds, and I've put men in the fucking ground when they threatened what belonged to me. But I have never laid a violent hand on a woman in my entire miserable life, and I sure as fuck am not going to start with my pregnant wife."

She flinches as if I'd struck her. Her lips part, a small, wounded sound catching in her throat.

"Who told you that?" I demand, taking another step until my chest is inches from hers. "Who put that in your head? The fed in the sunglasses? She told you that Cormac Murphy was going to peel off your nails if you didn't run to her with whatever you stole off my laptop?"

Oksana presses her lips together, her jaw locking and her eyes dropping to the floor.

She thinks silence is going to protect her. She's twenty years old, playing a game designed by men far older and more world-weary than she is, and she thinks if she just keeps her mouth shut, she can outlast me.

"Look at me, Oksana."

She doesn't move.

I reach out, catch her chin between my thumb and forefinger, and lift her face. My grip is firm, but it isn't cruel. I make her look straight into my eyes and see the burning wreckage she left behind.