Page 48 of Made for Vengeance (Dark Dynasties #3)

I didn't know how long I sat there, staring unseeing at the garden beyond the window, my mind replaying the conversation I'd overheard, the words that had confirmed my worst fears and deepest insecurities.

Time seemed to stretch and compress, minutes feeling like hours, hours collapsing into moments of crystal clarity amid the fog of betrayal and disillusionment.

When the door opened again, I knew without looking who it was. His presence filled the room—that distinctive energy, that controlled power that I'd come to recognize as uniquely his.

"Grace," Rafe said, his voice softer than usual. "The meeting is over. We can go now."

I didn't turn, didn't acknowledge him. Couldn't face him yet, not with the storm still raging inside me, not with questions I wasn't sure I wanted answered burning on my tongue.

He moved closer, stopping a few feet away—giving me space, respecting the invisible barrier my silence had erected between us. "You heard," he said. Not a question.

"Yes." My voice sounded strange to my own ears—flat, empty, stripped of the emotion that churned beneath the surface. "I heard everything."

He was quiet for a moment, and I could feel him watching me, assessing, calculating his approach. "I'm sorry," he said finally. "You shouldn't have had to learn the truth that way."

Now I did turn, facing him with eyes that felt burning and dry all at once.

"Shouldn't I? Isn't that exactly why you brought me here today?

So I could hear it for myself? So you wouldn't have to be the one to tell me that my father has written me off, that my brother considers me dead to the family, that I'm nothing but a 'complication' easily set aside when it becomes inconvenient to care about my fate? "

Something flickered in his eyes—not guilt, exactly, but a recognition that I'd seen through whatever plan he'd had. "Yes," he admitted. "I wanted you to hear it directly. Not filtered through my words, not softened by my interpretation. The unvarnished truth about where you stand with your family."

"Why?" I demanded, rising to my feet, anger finally breaking through the numbness.

"Why now? Why like this? Was it not enough to take me, to keep me, to make me dependent on you for everything?

Did you need to destroy what little remained of my connection to my former life?

To ensure I had nowhere else to turn, no one else to rely on? "

Pain crossed his features—not physical, but emotional. A reaction to the accusation in my words, to the implication that his motives had been purely selfish, purely manipulative.

"No," he said, his voice rougher than before. "That's not why. I wanted you to know the truth because you deserve it. Because continuing to hope for a rescue that will never come, for a family that has abandoned you, is a cruelty I couldn't bear to inflict on you any longer."

"How long have you known?" I asked the question that had been burning inside me since I'd overheard the meeting. "How long have you known that my father wasn't trying to get me back? That he'd written me off as a loss?"

Rafe was silent for a moment, and I could see him weighing honesty against self-protection, truth against the potential damage it might cause.

"I suspected from the beginning," he admitted finally.

"The lack of public outcry about your disappearance.

The ease with which he accepted the story about a study retreat.

The way negotiations about other matters continued without your situation being raised as an impediment. "

"You suspected," I repeated, the words bitter on my tongue. "But you didn't know for certain until when?"

"Until about a month ago," he said, his gaze steady on mine despite the tension I could see in his jaw, in the set of his shoulders.

"When Dante met with Patrick directly about another matter.

Your father made it clear then that he considered you.

.. collateral damage. A loss he was willing to accept in exchange for certain business considerations. "

A month. He'd known for a month that my father had officially abandoned me, had explicitly stated that he no longer considered my return a priority.

A month during which Rafe had continued to let me believe that there was still some uncertainty, some possibility that my family might care about my fate.

"Why didn't you tell me?" I asked, my voice barely above a whisper. "Why let me continue to wonder, to hope, to imagine that somewhere out there, someone was looking for me?"

"Because I couldn't bear to be the one to tell you," he said, the admission clearly costing him.

"Because I knew what it would do to you.

Because I thought... I thought it might be better for you to believe there was still a chance, still a connection to your old life, than to know with certainty that it was gone forever. "

"That wasn't your decision to make," I said, echoing words I'd spoken to him before, in other contexts, about other truths withheld. "You promised me honesty, Rafe. Complete honesty. And instead, you kept this from me—the most fundamental truth about my situation, about my place in the world."

"You're right," he acknowledged, surprising me with his immediate concession. "I should have told you. Should have trusted you to handle the truth, however painful. It was... a mistake. One of many I've made where you're concerned."

The admission should have satisfied me, should have validated my anger, my sense of betrayal. Instead, it left me feeling hollow, empty, as if the foundation I'd been standing on had crumbled away, leaving nothing but air beneath my feet.

"So now what?" I asked, the question encompassing everything—my situation, our relationship, my future in a world where I truly belonged nowhere, to no one.

"What happens now that I know the truth?

That my father has abandoned me, that my family has disowned me, that I'm truly alone in the world except for you—the man who took me against my will and keeps me still, despite everything? "

Rafe moved closer, his expression more vulnerable than I'd ever seen it. "You're not alone," he said softly. "You have me. Not as your captor, not anymore. But as... whatever you want me to be. Whatever you'll allow me to be."

"And if I don't want you to be anything?" I challenged, needing to push, to test, to understand the boundaries of this new reality. "If I want to leave, to start over somewhere else, to build a life that has nothing to do with O'Sullivans or Contis or any of this?"

Pain flashed across his features again, quickly masked but unmistakable.

"Then I would let you go," he said, the words clearly difficult for him to speak.

"Not happily. Not willingly. But I would do it, if that's truly what you wanted.

If that's what would bring you peace, happiness, a life you could embrace rather than merely endure. "

The offer hung between us, unexpected and unsettling. Freedom—the thing I'd dreamed of, had schemed for, had eventually stopped hoping for—suddenly presented as a possibility. A choice I could make, if I truly wanted it.

And yet, where would I go? What would I do?

My father had abandoned me. My family had disowned me.

My former life had continued without me, the space I'd occupied filled in and smoothed over as if I'd never existed.

I had no home to return to, no connections to rebuild, no foundation upon which to construct a new life.

"You don't mean that," I said, unable to believe the offer was genuine. "After everything you've said, everything you've done—you wouldn't just let me walk away."

"I would," he insisted, his eyes never leaving mine.

"It would destroy me. It would leave a hole in my life that nothing could fill.

But I would do it, Grace. Because I love you more than I love possessing you.

Because your happiness matters to me more than my own.

Because forcing you to stay, knowing what you know now, would make you hate me eventually.

And that's the one thing I couldn't bear. "

The words hit me with physical force, knocking the air from my lungs, making my knees weak. Love. He'd said it before, whispered it against my skin in moments of passion, but never like this—never so directly, so vulnerably, so completely exposed.

"You don't love me," I said, the denial automatic, protective. "You're obsessed with me. You want to possess me. It's not the same thing."

"Isn't it?" he asked, taking another step closer, close enough now that I could feel the heat radiating from his body, could smell the familiar scent of his cologne.

"I thought so too, at first. Thought what I felt was just desire, just the need to possess something beautiful, something that challenged me, something that made me feel alive in a way nothing else ever had.

But it's more than that, Grace. It's so much more. "

He reached out slowly, telegraphing his movement, giving me time to pull away. When I didn't, his hand came to rest against my cheek, his touch gentle despite the strength I knew he possessed.

"I love your mind," he said softly. "Your courage.

Your resilience. The way you've faced everything that's happened to you with a strength that humbles me.

The way you see through facades to the truth beneath.

The way you challenge me, question me, refuse to let me hide behind the masks I've worn all my life. "