Page 40 of His Toy

“Hate doesn’t begin to describe it,” I muttered to myself.

“You must have a good reason.”

Her tone was matter-of-fact. Her faith in me left me uneasy. Why should someone as kind, as precious, as loyal as Heather, believe in me? But I wanted to believe it too. That maybe she was right. That I deserved her faith.

“What makes you say that?”

“You’re protecting us.” She smiled. I fought the urge to return the expression. She still didn’t understand how bad this was. The futility of our actions. “I think you saved Hazel too. She’s better off in that clinic than she was with Eric, right?”

I couldn’t argue with that.

“And you could’ve left me with those people at Club Hades. Who knows where I’d be now.” She shrugged. “But you didn’t.”

Her blue-green eyes were pure, as if I could look in and see myself reflected back. Heather was innocent. Even after she knew my work, what I did for a living, that I kept her sister in a cage, that I baited her into this agreement, Heather still believed in the good.

She believed in me.

I should make her and her sister move far away. To never have to see Eric, these horrible people, or me, ever again. She deserved better than this.

I should let her go.

But she would never be safe, not with Eric in the world. All it took was one word, and both of them, Heather and her sister, would be gone forever. For now, it was safer with me, someone who knew the world in which we were trapped, the life in which we had to stay. We needed to keep our agreement. As long as I kept my distance, as long as I remembered that we had a plan, a goal, a final fucking showdown, that nothing mattered until Eric was dead.

Only then, could I give Heather the safety she deserved. A home.