Page 4 of Betrayed

I pull away and stand. I move to the sink and rinse out the towel.

Cass looks up at me like she knows what I’m thinking.

We clean and bandage her wound, dress her in a fresh shirt, and return her to her chair. Luckily, it was a surface cut and doesn’t need stitches. I pull her up to the table, making us both a cup of tea.

She wraps her hands around her mug, staring down at the table. Her voice drops. “Erin.”

“Yes?”

“I know.”

My heart clenches. “How much?”

“Where should I start?” Her eyes meet mine. “How about from the very beginning that kicked this whole adventure off? My husband beat me so badly that he wrecked my spine. Or where you tried to stand up to him and he broke your nose?”

She has no idea that’s not even when he began to hurt me.

“Bambi told me. It wasn’t just the money. You’re getting something for them. That key fob. The one that unlocks the black boxes. Like we had in the dorms at college.” She eyes me. “Do you have it?”

Confession time.

I nod. “I have it.”

“Fantastic.” Her eyes light up. “Call Valentino. Right now.”

“I can’t.”

The fob in my pocket burns, no longer a secret.

She watches me, waiting. When I stay silent, her voice lowers. “This was supposed to be one night. Not a love story.”

“It’s not.”

“It is,” she accuses. “And you haven’t even told him the truth about you, yet.”

“I told him some of the truth,” I protest. “I already told him about Bambi, about how we’ve been living with her, how she helped us escape England and let us stay with her.”

“No. Ryan did. At dinner. Remember? Moretti Spaghetti? You would’ve kept lying.”

She’s not wrong. “You’re not wrong.”

“I’m right. And when he finds out why you were in his apartment that night, what you came to do, he’s going to break up with you anyway.”

Her words land like a punch in my stomach. I don’t want him to know the truth. I don’t want him to leave me.

“Beat him to it,” she says. “And save us.”

“I can’t do that to him.” Pain tears through the guilt. “I can’t hurt him like that.”

“And Caleb won’t hurt us?”

My throat tightens. “It’s complicated.”

“You want complicated?” She scoffs, ripping open the buttons of her top to show off her bandage. Blood has already begun to seep through, red against white.

I pull the fob from my pocket, needing someone else to see it, to unburden myself from the secret.

“Our ticket to safety!” Her face brightens.