Page 85 of Crossfire

I swallowed hard, fighting back tears, pushing back the memory by focusing on something physical while I continued to loosen the knot of my bindings.

“Someone hurt you,” Grayson realized, his tone pulsing somewhere between tenderness and fury.

Desperate to steer the conversation back to safer ground, away from the darkness that haunted me, I choked out, “What can I say to convince you that I’m not a criminal?” Because that was what we were supposed to be talking about, not my childhood trauma.

“So, you kept going,” he continued, undeterred—a bloodhound on the scent. “You kept advancing in the classes because the more you knew how to fight, the less vulnerable you felt.”

His words hit me like a punch to the gut, knocking the wind out of me. I felt exposed, raw, like he had peeled back the layers of my armor and left me defenseless.

I tried to hide the tremble in my voice. “Wouldthatmake you believe I’m innocent?”Because, yeah, anyone who’s been hurt in their past is innocent, right?

A flicker of emotion passed over Grayson’s face, a tug-of-war between empathy and suspicion. His eyes, once cold and unreadable, now shone with a soft light, a glimmer of respect for the warrior I had become.

But having something bad happen to you as a child didn’t make you innocent. Case in point, look at Grayson. He had childhood trauma, and I thought he had overcome it, that he was a better man because of it. But he was nothing but a killer.

Why do I care? Why am I letting this hurt?

“I thought you were different,” I whispered, my chest clenching with something that I couldn’t quite name. “I thought you were good. But you’re no better than…” Those men who’d hurt me.

Grayson’s body grew rigid, the veins on his neck popping out as his jaw ticced with barely contained rage.

“Than who, Ivy?”

A tear dripped down my cheek, but Grayson’s body didn’t soften with empathy. If anything, it had grown even more rigid, the veins on his neck popping out as his jaw ticced.

“Who hurt you?” he demanded, his voice a barely contained snarl.

It didn’t matter, and I wasn’t falling for his protective act. This was probably some ploy, a tactic to pull my most vulnerable information out of me so he could weaponize it and manipulate me into doing whatever he wanted.

Screw him.

“I need a drink of water,” I declared.

Grayson studied me, his features darker than I’d ever seen them.

“I haven’t had water in a long time,” I reminded him. “So, if you meant what you said and want to keep me alive, I need water.”

See? I could play the role of a wide-eyed victim. Look at me go, furrowing my eyebrows, making him think he had all the power over me.

As if, you hostage-holding asshole.

Grayson hesitated, seemingly trapped in my partial revelation. His gaze flickered with a mixture of emotions—frustration at not knowing what happened, anger that someone had hurt me, but also compassion. When he opened his mouth to speak, he closed it, torment crossing his features like he feltbad that I’d already been through hell today and he didn’t want to add more to it by pressing me. Not when my eyes were blurry with tears, at least.

Instead, he clenched his fists, his knuckles turning white as silence stretched between us, saturated with unspoken emotions.

After what felt like an eternity, Grayson let out a deep sigh as he rubbed the back of his neck. Then, he took a step away, then another, so slowly, it was clear this was hard for him—to let this conversation drop. But thankfully, he did, and finally, I was once again alone.

That’s when I made my move.

37

GRAYSON

What on earth was happening? I believed Daniel, and I believed in the organization that I worked for, that I had dedicated my life to. Had arguably handed my soul to.

Yet everything Ivy had said struck me as completely sincere.

Was I seeing what I wanted to see?

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