Page 77 of Cara

He doesn’t know where you’ve been, how you’re alive.

My mouth opens, braving the first step of this. “I lived in Madrid for just about three years.”

Xavier waits patiently for more, holding back to keep me talking.

“Some men on the street approached me. I thought it was just because they were drunk. I went home, and Victoria was waiting.” Xavier steadies from the blow of that quickly. “We were attacked in the apartment that night by those same men. I… killed one of them. We escaped together.”

He nods for me to continue.

“I’ve been with her in Reykjavik for the last year.”

“Iceland?” He says it as if it’s inconceivable.

“Yes. She told me there was a man after me who works for my father. His last name is Strata.”

His eyes darken several shades in a matter of seconds. “I'm aware of him.”

We’ll clearly unpackthatlater. “Her connection in Iceland was a man, Isaac. He’s an associate for Chicago and met my sister at Nicky’s, or at least that’s what she told me. He owns a hideout there—a compound of sorts.”

“A compound?”

“A place where those in hiding can go and lay low.” My voice stammers as I push through the next sentence. “A place where one can learn to defend themselves.”

“I'm not following,” he says.

My eyes give away how uncertain I am to tell him what I’ve been doing, knowing the reaction I’ll get.

His eyes, so soft at first, shift into severity as my words hang between us. “Whatexactlywas he doing to you there?”

“Training me.”

“For what?”

“Life, Xavier.”

His mouth drags open, at a loss. He could say anything, but then his eyes zero in on the bruises scattered over my pale skin, and he looks absolutelylivid. “He’s the one who did this to you?”

“I chose it.” I try my hand at a joke. “You should see what he looks like.”

He’s anything but amused, his gaze searing the ground. Sand rides the wind, raining down on us like snow. When he pinches the bridge of his broken nose, my heart lurches in my chest. “Let me get this straight. You fled to Iceland with your informant sister. You voluntarily entered a place that would leave you bruised and scarred, completely erasing your existence so I’d have no way of finding you.” My mouth opens to correct him, but he continues. “You left one prison only to enter another…willingly. Is that what you’re telling me?”

“I never trusted her. And that place was the opposite of a prison.”

He scoffs, teeth sinking into his lip.

The air has soured, becoming hard to take in. The quieter he gets, the angrier I become. “You want to know why I really went? It wasn’t because I thought I’d get a sister back. I didn’t let myself dream that far. It wasn’t because my location had been compromised, though it was easier to use the passport she had on hand. I went because I wanted to feel something other than fear for once.” His mouth flatlines as I approach him. “I’m not the woman you married, Xavier. I wake up every night—screaming. To even touch myself makes mesick.”

His face pales against the darkness. Goes ghostly white.

“For months, men stole what made me beautiful. I can’t find it anymore. I spent years existing with one eye leveled over my shoulder and a gun on my pillow. I feared everyone and anyone. I haven’t been held, haven’t known a single shred of kindness.”

His eyes are wide, gleaming against the reflection of the moonlight.

“I becamenumb. Lifeless.” The unspoken rage I’ve buried so deep arises like a caged bird finally in flight. “You want to know what really threw me? Do you want to know what I did every day? Who I waited for?” His shoulders tense as my words become accusing. “Five-hundred and forty-seven days, Xavier. For a year and a half, I sat at the airport, sitting in the clothes you put me in,waiting.”

His eyes close. “Sophie.”

“I convinced myself that you couldn’t get to me, that your father made that impossible. Imagine my disbelief when my sister told me that you were the most powerful man in New York. Imagine my agony when she lied and told me you’d married Rosa Barbieri.” His eyes, so haunted, meet mine, so unhinged. “Ikilledher for it.”