Page 88 of Cara

I don’t know what to say to make it better. Because I did go through hell. It was sheer hatred that kept me alive, not love. Not the need for justice.

I’ve often told myself it would’ve been better to tell Dante to leave me, to let me bleed out in that warehouse that haunts my dreams.

“When we married, some of these were already here.” She taps the ones she memorized, not mistaking a single one. “I told myself I’d make you forget them. Stupidly, I convinced myself I could. But here you are, mangled, and it was because ofme.”

“I chose to run. I talked you into it.”

“You wouldn’t have even considered the idea if I hadn’t made you feel like there was no hope for us. I told you our marriage would be over, that I didn’t want kids with someone who could do that. What did that naivety get me? Was saving her really worth the price?”

I can’t hear her talk like this.

I seize her chin, watching her eyes shrink at whatever she sees in mine. Disbelief. Some anger. Overwhelming amounts of regret. “You don’t mean that.”

“Maybe I do.”

“You’re angry. She betrayed you. You probably feel like the world did too, because I do. You may have changed over these four years, but this hasn’t. It’s not weakness or naivety to love. You love harder than anyone I know, and it’s not a crime.”

“She knew what they did to me. She knew that, and she wasstillgoing to offer me up to them…” She blinks back tears, flashing a disbelieving smile. “It blows my mind how long she kept up the act, how long she pretended to care.”

She could deny it a thousand times, but I hear it… The love for her sister with nowhere to go. I hear it clearly because I remind myself too, every day when I wake up, relieved that I haven’t dreamed of my father’s face.

“People make terrible decisions when love is on the line. I hate her for what she’s done to you, but I cannot fault that. It would make me a hypocrite.”

The corpses of the men who defiled her—the agony I put them through—was a decision. One I’d gladly make again. “Your heart is boundless, Sophie. I knew it the moment I laid eyes on you,” I smirk softly, “even if youwereshooting daggers in my direction most of the time.”

When her usual snarky remark doesn’t immediately follow, I gather her up, rolling until she’s pinned beneath me. Her lips stretch languidly like mine. Her fingers trace a line down my back, absorbing the directness of my gaze.

Her answer comes, even if it’s delayed.

“You’re the only one I trust with it.”

Sophie

“It’s going to storm.”

Xavier heaves the swinging shutters closed, stronger than the unsettled squalls. In the span of a minute, the cottage has darkened several shades. A cleft cloud has begun to drift in from the north, thick and heavy with a dark underside, threatening to unleash chaos at any moment.

Hovering by the entrance, waiting as he told me to, I hear him locking doors, securing the house, shutting the windows. A disquieting rolling noise, like vibrations on metal, reverberates through the living room.

I’m just like that fearsome cloud, withholding a goddamn torrent. A flood.

The villa is quiet now that Xavier’s moved into the rooms.

A powerful emotion has been building within me all day, as overwhelming happiness began to overshadow pain. He’s stayed by my side throughout every second, never more than an arm’s length away, ensuring that I am well cared for and that the thoughts I’ve buried for years finally deserve answers. Even after all this time, he still says the right things, even if it’s to his own detriment.

My eyes dart to the open door leading to the bedroom, reminded of waking alone, reaching out, and finding the sheets cold and empty. Remembering what happened when he dared to touch me and how agonizing the aftermath was. It was exactly as I feared. When I pulled myself out of bed this morning, I was determined to remember who I came all this way for.

My husband.

Something in me is broken, raging like that storm outside.

Its siren song lures me to part the doors, landing on the sand.

The wind, wild and untamed, whispers against my skin.

Let go.

Let itallgo.