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Everything.

The strength of his own release was powerful enough to have him gritting his teeth, the pleasure so consuming that for one moment, the whole world ceased to exist for him, and all he knew was her.

My Liana.

Time slipped away in the aftermath, and he waited until her breathing gradually eased, and her eyes slowly drifted open...before cutting his heart out one last time.

"Her name...was Annie."



















Chapter Thirteen

"WE MET AT A DIPLOMATICfunction."

Sylvain's fingers trace idle patterns on my bare shoulder as he speaks. I don't think he even notices what he's doing, but even this simple touch speaks of his possessiveness, and for better or for worse, this comforts me.

"She was kind. And innocent." Sylvain's voice is clinical and detached, as if he's reading a file rather than recounting his own heartbreak. "I was assigned to protect a visiting minister. She was the daughter of a French attaché."

Jealousy eats at me, and I don't think this will ever change. Maybe, there's a monster inside of me, too.

"I was...too young to know better. But also too old...to simply believe someone as sheltered as her, when she told me I could trust her."

His words make my heart ache. Because I already know what's about to come.

"Three men took her on her way home from university."

The only question ishowan innocent girl like Annie wasforcedto betray the man she loves.

"They sent me a video." His voice doesn't change. But I feel his pain all the same. "She told them everything within the first hour. My safe houses. My contacts. The security protocols for the minister. Everything I had ever shared with her."

"I'm so sorry," I whisper.

"They came for me that night. I was—" He pauses, and for the first time, I hear a crack in his composure. "I was not prepared for the level of their... enthusiasm."

While I...I don't think I'll ever be prepared to hear any story of someone hurting my husband.

He describes his capture and torture with the same clinical detachment he might use to describe the weather. Seventeen hours of being beaten and broken, of knowing that all of it is happening...because you've been betrayed by the girl you love.