Page 125 of Thorns of Silence

“How did you keep her a secret?” he questioned. “For five years at that. Are you sure you’re not hiding something?”

God, I was hiding so much shit I didn’t know if there was a way out of my secrets at this point.

“Considering I have amnesia, I’m probably hiding many things.” I congratulated myself on such a good comeback.

“Fine, I’ll give you that.” I barely stifled an eye-roll. “The name.”

Huh? He was giving me whiplash with his abrupt topic change.

I blinked. “Excuse me?”

“I want the father’s name.” I swallowed at the subtle threat shining in his eyes, his intent clear.

Was he toying with me? I couldn’t tell. His expression was suddenly so closed off that I didn’t know what to make of it, but he looked dead serious from where I stood.

This man consumed, obliterated, ruined. He took everything and left nothing in his wake. He was an unrepentant sinner. He was a destroyer, a murderer, a torturer.

The man who held my heart in his cruel, brutal hand was the father of my child.

FORTY-EIGHT

DANTE

I’d just been fucking tasered in the heart. Amnesia and a daughter? It couldn’t be. She had to be fucking with me. There weren’t such big coincidences in life.

Yet, why would she lie? There weren’t many people who knew about my amnesia. Or my kidnapping.

The red mist thickened in my vision. My pulse in my ears drummed faster and faster. For a moment, the anger was so blinding I wanted to hurt her. Punish her. The thought that she might love someone else sent fury through me. I wanted to show her that she belonged to me and only me. Fuck her so hard so she’d forget everyone and everything else.

But then an image flashed through the fog. The faceless woman became Nix. She danced in a field of dandelions with me. Her lips on mine. Her hands wrapped around my waist while she watched me with a soft smile and an adoring look.

It couldn’t be. She’d never even offered me a smile. She’d never danced with me. She never looked at me likethat—like I was the only man in the world.

I shook my head, chasing distorted images out of my mind.

“I want his name, Phoenix,” I mouthed. I still couldn’t believe that this whole time she had a daughter and I never knew. Fuck, did I know her at all? Maybe I’d gone about this wrong all along. What if that bastard hurt her, and that was the reason she was so guarded around me?

Her brows crinkled. “What will that accomplish?”

This whole amnesia thing… I wasn’t exactly convinced, but I could play it in my favor if she wanted to go down this route. My eyes traveled over her sun-kissed skin and long hair, no longer brunette but fiery red. I hated what she’d done to it, but I still loved those big blue eyes.

“I’m going to talk to him.”I’m going to kill him.The lie spilled effortlessly from my lips. “You’re my fiancée, and it’s up to me to take care of you and your daughter.”

At least that much was true. Well, kind of. The amnesia worked in my favor and I fully planned to take advantage of it. I just couldn’t quite figure out whether she was faking it. Every so often, I thought I saw her eyes twinkle or a smirk start to curve her lips, but then it’d disappear just as quickly.

“How did you lose your memories?” I asked her.

“Bumped my head,” she answered. “It’s selective memory loss.”

“I see. Well, you and I were arranged to get married last year,” I told her vaguely. It was a little white lie. I was engaged to Reina only to get to her. Nix had always been my endgame. “You kept your daughter a secret, but that won’t stop me. The three of us will dance through life together.”

Staring at Phoenix as she and her daughter looked at me with those baby-blue eyes, I couldn’t help but feel smug about thinking on my feet. It was the first thing that’d worked when it came to Nix, and I had to admit, it felt nice not to have her stare at me with disdain.

There was no way of telling how things would turn out, so I’d have to hurry up and marry her before her memory returned so she’d be mine forever. Maybe fate would be on my side for once, and Nix’s memory wouldn’t return until after I slid my ring on her finger.

She smiled softly and I found my heart pounding in an odd way. For the past three years, this had felt like a lost cause, and it was nice to see this side of her.

I leaned forward and brushed my knuckles over her soft cheek.