Page 7 of The Sin

“I did,” I muttered. “I trusted you to keep me safe and you handed me over to the Guard.”

“Georga—”

“No!” I cut him off. “I can’t stomach your excuses, your lies, right now. You weren’t stopped and searched, Roman. I was locked in that box, but I heard exactly how it went down.”

He sent me another look, this one wordless.

I went on, “I know I broke the law and I was prepared to suffer the consequences on my own terms, even if that meant crossing the bridge into the Outerlands, or the wild, whatever you call it. Even if that meant being exiled to The Smoke. Even if that meant a stint in rehab. That was my choice to make. But you shoved me back into that box and you told me to trust you. You brought me back inside these walls. You took my choice away with false promises and threw me to the wolves.”

I couldn’t look at him a moment longer, so I turned my gaze out the window and we rode in silence. My stomach cramped with nerves as we drove along an unfamiliar road. I’d never been anywhere near the wall before, certainly not anywhere near a Guard station. I had no idea where we were.

Was Roman even taking me home to Parklands?

I no longer trusted him in any shape or form.

For all I knew, he’d enrolled me into the Center for Reform and Rehabilitation. Husbands could arrange a private admission if they felt their wife was out of control. That’s how Daniel’s mother had ended up there. The Guard hadn’t incarcerated her. It was Julian Edgar’s signature on the admission form.

That anger simmering so dangerously close to the surface burned hotter, deeper, burned blisters onto my soul.

After a few more turns, I finally recognized where we were, skirting north of the town square. Then we were on the road to Parklands, approaching the barrier, and still my nerves twisted tighter and tighter.

The guard at the kiosk raised the barrier and waved us through.

It wasn’t long before we turned down the rutted dirt lane that led to our rustic cabin in the woods. The first time I’d seen the cabin, the night of our marriage, I’d been slightly horrified at my new accommodations. Along the way, the charms of this log cabin tucked away in the woods had grown on me, just like the charms of its owner.

The cabin had started to feel like home.

Roman West had started to feel like home.

Well, not anymore.

Roman cut the engine and placed a hand on my arm, waiting until I brought my gaze in to meet his.

“You are safe now,” he said soberly.

As if that should make me feel better.All’s well that ends well.Except that’s not how it works. Clearly he wasn’t shipping me off to rehab, and maybe I was safe now, but that didn’t dissolve the last twenty-four hours.

“Are you seriously kidding me?” I jerked my arm out from his touch and shoved open the passenger door. “I have spent the last twenty-four hours in a mental torture chamber.”

I jumped down from the ridiculously high truck. “I had no idea what was going to happen to me. If they’d send me to rehab. If I’d be executed for treason!”

I slammed the door and marched across the crisp, cold forest floor to the cabin.

It wasn’t just that six-by-six cell and my uncertain future that had bared my sanity to the bone. Roman’s betrayal was a whole other level of torture. It clung to me like a dark shadow, mocking every look we’d ever shared, every word, every feeling, everything!

He’d built up my trust in him until it was steadfast. He’d shown me glimpses of a man I could fall for, had fallen hard for, and it had all been a facade. Just another mask he wore.

When I reached the front door, I was forced to wait for him.

Roman walked up to me, unhurried, heavy thoughts riding low on his brow. As he unlocked the door, he had the audacity to say, “I’m sorry for what you went through.”

“Sorry?” My voice pitched. I was a volcano on the verge of eruption. “You’re the one who put me through it to…to…” I had some theories. “To teach me a lesson? As a warning? To threaten me into being a good little wife?”

I yanked the door open and stepped inside the claustrophobic hallway with its row of coat hooks on the wall and naked bulb dangling from the ceiling. The cold followed me inside. Why the heck hadn’t Roman turned on the heating?

I stomped into the main living area.

“Georga.”

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