Page 44 of The Hunter

I could have told her the truth. That I hadn’t done any of those things. That I saw her being taken and, for reasons I still didn’t understand, intervened and took her somewhere she’d be safe. Where no one would find her.

But the truth was too tangled to explain. Too dangerous.

“Justice,” I said, and the room went eerily still for several protracted moments.

Then her voice broke through. “Justice? For what?”

I didn’t answer. Just stared at her until she looked away. Something about her presence made everything harder to hold on to. My anger. My certainty. My purpose. She chipped at that with every word. With every breath. With every damn look.

So instead of remaining in her presence any longer, I abruptly stood.

“Eat your damn dinner…Princess.”

I grabbed my bowl and carried it into the kitchen, slamming it into the sink hard enough for ceramic to crack against steel.

Then I left her sitting at the table as I retreated to the basement.

I shut the door to the office behind me and leaned against it, my chest heaving like I’d just come in from a war zone.

Maybe I had.

I turned toward the wall of screens, staring at Sarah’s photo like it might give me clarity.

But Ariana’s face kept cutting in.

Not the polished, painted version I’d studied for months. Not the woman in designer dresses and draped in diamonds.

Instead, I saw the woman sitting at my table, eating chicken and dumplings like it was the best thing she'd tasted in years. The woman who flinched when I raised my voice. Who shook when I touched her.

What if I’d been wrong?

What if she wasn’t complicit?

What if she was another one of her husband’s victims?

Just like Sarah.

I dragged a hand down my face and turned away from the screens.

I couldn’t afford to think like that.

Not now.

Not when everything depended on keeping the lines clear. Black and white. Guilty and innocent.

But the more time I spent with Ariana Kane, the more I was beginning to realize that nothing about her stayed in the lines.

Chapter Eighteen

Ariana

The scent of bacon pulled me out of sleep before the light did.

For a moment, I thought I was back in my bed. That any second now, I’d hear the click of expensive shoes outside the bedroom door. That I’d have ten minutes to shower, moisturize, and fix my hair before Victor demanded to know why I wasn’t downstairs for breakfast at the correct time.

Then I opened my eyes and took in the wood-paneled walls. I wasn’t home. I shouldn’t have felt the relief I did, given how I ended up here.

But I couldn’t deny this was a much better prison to be trapped in than the one Henry stole me from.