Page 120 of Reckless Knight (Knight's Ridge Empire 7)

Reaching over, he grabs the two glasses of what look like whiskey and passes one to me.

“Drink. All of it,” he instructs, and I do so without hesitation, the strong alcohol burning the second it hits my tongue and continues all the way to my belly.

He takes the empty glass from my hand and places it back on the side.

“There are things about me that you need to know,” he confesses, his voice hard and cold and completely unlike him.

I glance up at him, a gasp passing my lips when I take in the mask he seems to have pulled on.

My Toby, the soft, kind guy I’ve become used to, has gone. In his place is the soldier he’s briefly told me about.

Holy shit.

“Toby?” I breathe, my previously boiling blood instantly turning to ice.

“Us meeting wasn’t a happy accident,” he confesses, staring at a black and white piece of art on the wall opposite us.

“I-it wasn’t?” I ask, thinking back to that first night when I spotted him across the bar.

“No. I’d been following you.”

“What?” I shriek, not believing what I’m hearing. “You’re joking, right?”

Finally, he turns his eyes on me, and I’m able to read the truth in the dark depths staring back at me.

“Fuck.”

“Our lives were intrinsically linked long before we met, Jodie. You just had no idea about it.”

“I-I don’t understand,” I say, hating the weakness in my voice.

“The man I told you about, the one who hurt me, hurt my mum. He tried to kill my sister.” I gasp, the pain in his voice making my heart ache for him.

“Shit, that’s—“

“He’s also a man you know.”

“A man I—” My words cut off as one face pops into my head.

But no, that can’t be right. It can’t.

My brain starts racing as pieces of a puzzle that I never realised didn’t fit in begin slotting together.

“My so-called father had a whole other life, Jodie. A whole other family.”

“No,” I breathe, beginning to slide away from him, my stomach turning to the point that I fear I’m going to be running for the toilet at any moment.

“For years, I’ve been planning his downfall. I wanted to watch him lose everything, to watch as I ripped shreds off his heart and left him bleeding out, just like he spent his life trying to do to me, to Mum, to my sister when she reappeared in our lives.

“But the problem I had was that the man I knew didn’t have a heart. He was a cold, abusive monster.”

My heart races and my palms sweat as I listen to his tale, praying, fucking begging for this not to be going in the direction I fear it may be.

“His need for control, his jealousy got the better of him, and he tried to have my sister killed. And he employed someone we had no idea existed to do the job for him.

“You might know him. Twenty-one-year-old recently deceased member of the Royal Reapers.”

“No, Toby. Please, please don’t—” My hands tremble in my lap as something akin to guilt washes through Toby’s eyes.