Page 49 of Absolution

I let her go and straighten as I look down on her. “I told him to stay away. I told you you were safe.”

“Well, he didn’t stay away!” she cries. “And you didn’t tell me I was safe. You told me he was out to get me and that you couldn’t control him!”

I narrow my eyes. Did I? Maybe I did. “You could have come to me.”

Kerry scoffs. “Sure. Right back into the claws of the man who wanted me dead.”

“And yet here you are. Again.”

“Because I’m stupid,” she says, more to herself than to me.

I have to agree.

“Where did you go, Kerry? We looked for you.”

“I moved to Chicago.”

“I know that.” My impatience grows, crawling in me like slithering snakes. “Go on.”

“Canada.”

I twitch and stare at her. I don’t believe in coincidence. “Where. In. Canada,” I say slowly through clenched teeth, heat rising in me, a cloud of rage. If she has something to do with Christian’s situation, I swear to all that’s holy—

She stutters, no doubt sensing that I’m ready to pounce. “A—a little town called Middlebro.”

“You fucking bitch!” I snarl and grab her by the throat, pushing her back against the backrest.

Kerry cries out and clutches at my hand, but she’s like a mouse in the hands of a lion and has no leverage. Her face turns beet red. “Please,” she mouths. “It’s Christian, he’s—” She swallows, wincing with pain.

I snatch back my hand and she darts up, taking several steps back, toppling the chair. “You’re all the same!” she cries, tears streaming down her cheeks, her hand flying to cover the reddened skin on her throat. “You’re all assholes.”

“I have never claimed to be anything else, Miss Jackson. And neither has my nephew, or anyone else in my family. We haven’t gotten to where we are by being cuddly. Now what about Christian.”

“He’s dead!” she screams. “He died!”

I go still, processing what she’s saying. What makes her think that? She is very close to having been right, but how is she involved? How did Christian end up with double-sided pneumonia, a temperature through the roof, his body filled with fluids and his organs close to shutting down?

“Go on.”

“He found us,” she whispers as new tears drip down her cheeks.

“And?”

Kerry chews on her plump bottom lip. Her nostrils flare as she stares at me. “He… Cecilia got ill, and we had to walk to get her to the hospital. He fell into a ravine, a river, and disappeared.”

“Why did you walk?”

“Everything went wrong! There was a storm. The road was blocked.” Her eyes turn distant, as if she’s not in the room anymore. “We had to.” Her last words are nothing but a hoarse whisper, filled with pain.

“So let me get this straight. You fled from nothing, settled in fucking nowhere, my nephew found you, and because of you, he’s now dead? Did you kill him? Push him? Did you find a convenient opportunity to get rid of your stalker?”

Her green eyes widen. “N—no! It wasn’t like that!”

“Then what was it like?”

“That’s none of your business!”

I close the distance between us in a fraction of a second and push her until I slam her into the bookshelf, a little bronze statue of Athena falling to the floor with a loud bang, my hand around her throat again. Her pulse thuds like mad under my palm, and fear oozes off her making my cock twitch, waking the monster in me that always lurks under the surface.

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