Page 138 of A Lethal Game of Trust

“It doesn’t make sense, Leo. Let me talk to him. Let me do this for you. If you’re wrong—whenyou find out you’re wrong, you’ll be broken. I wouldn’t forgive you. You wouldn’t forgive yourself.”

Forgiveness was a funny thing and I had spent a long time over the last few months thinking about it. It wasn’t black and white; it wasn’tI forgive you, or I don’t. It wasn’t even forgive but not forget. Forgiveness was something earned slowly, imperceptibly, if it were possible at all.

“Well, then maybe that makes two of us.”

And forgiveness was about trust more than anything. This was a lethal game of trust for both ofus.

52

For Your Sake

Dom

Our almost happy ending haunted me for months. That night when we returned to my apartment in Darley and she curled up against me, I knew we could get through it.

Then I woke to her gone, suitcase and all.

And I got it. If Luís had killed my father, I wouldn’t have done the research she had. No, he would already be dead.

That was without the trauma it had caused her. The loss of her mother, her future. Me.

What we could have had together. Forcing me to love her silently, from afar.

“Let me talk to him,” I begged. “Let me go in there. He’ll tell me if I confront him.”

Her narrowed eyes glared at me. Hesitating. I could have a way in here.

“You want a confession. I know you, Leo, and you won’t do this until you are certain. You wouldn’t do that to me. Nor Issy.”

“You won’t let me kill him,” she said quietly.

Our possessions, ourfamilydo not get taken by others, Dom.

She couldn’t be ruined by the guilt of killing him and hurting me and my sister.

“I know you have every right to,” I told her, my voice losing every fraction of emotion and instead gaining a dangerous edge. “My father knows the risks we take in the life we live and,ifhe did this, he was stupid to ever think you wouldn’t kill him. But we will be broken if you do. You will risk everything we could ever become, Leonie.”

Her breathing picked up, but she only looked out to the road.

“I think there’s a way we go about this, though, where we don’t get too trigger-happy, and you do something you regret.”

“I won’t—”

“You’re acting as if you don’t have a heart. But I know you do. And I know it’s full of emotions, full of feelings. You kill him and it will drive you insane. He loves you, Leo.”

“He loved my dad, too,” she countered, her knuckles white on the steering wheel.

“Family above all else,” I repeated. “Luís wasn’t family, but you are.”

“What would you suggest I do?” she snapped, eyes focused on the road. We were only a few minutes away, but it would take a minute or so to get past the gate in this unknown car.

“You pull over and we talk this through. We come up with something that means he lives, but I don’t mean a nice life, Leo, and I don’t mean for my sake or his. But for yours.”

Her widened eyes searched mine for the truth, and then suddenly, she swerved to pull up on the grass, hitting the mound with some force.

“You know you don’t want to kill him,” I said, reassured by how she had listened to me.

“You won’t love me anymore,” she whispered, voice breaking, eyes filled with unshed tears.