Page 62 of Resurrection

“Some sort of PLA involvement. Eric knows something about Valeriya’s death. The conclusion of their plan comes down the pipe in a month.” I don’t tell her he’s sure he can get her back. That seed won’t be planted by me.

Carys frowns and rubs her forehead. “A month?” She massages as though she can conjure unknown details from her memory. “I can’t remember something the company is doing that’ll be concluded in a month.”

One side of my lips quirks up. “Hence the conspiracy.”

She’s stopped crying, thankfully. I’m not sure how much longer my willpower would have held out if those silent tears had continued. Each one shred the bit of heart still beating in my chest. Men have begged me for their lives, and I’ve felt nothing. But her sadness burns through me, leaves a scar.

I clench my hands.

“Neither of them would hurt me on purpose,” she says.

The sound of Eric’s grating laugh as he mentioned Carys’s first miscarriage—our miscarriage—echoes in my ears. He cheated, lied, shown her who he is, but she doesn’t want to see it. “Eric is a dick. You’re wrong about him. He doesn’t give a shit if you get hurt.”

“He can be misguided. So can my father.” She shrugs and doesn’t look at me. “They’re men.”

Her comment sets me off. “I don’t understand what that fucking means.” She’s constantly lumping me in with them, and I don’t deserve it. I leave my corner of the room and stride closer to her. “That’s the second or third time you’ve implied men can’t be trusted.”

“Sometimes men do stupid things. Then,” she says, her gaze connecting with mine, “I have to figure out a way to forgive those men for those things.”

Fucking hell. She’s got me there.

When we’re only a few feet apart, I pause. If I get close enough to touch her, to slide my hand around her waist, tug her flush against me, there won’t be any more talking. These events happening to her, between us, around us, are creating fires of need, of desire, of another emotion I’ve never admitted to anyone. I enjoy playing with fire. Who doesn’t? But she’s the last person I’d want to burn.

“How did you get here?” she says.

I smirk. “You won’t like it. Though I was pretty fucking pissed when I woke up and found you gone.”

“I’m surprised you aren’t still angry.”

“There are more pressing emotions aimed at other things.” Like that fucker Eric. My mind swirls around any and all solutions to make sure he never gets a second chance with Carys. It wouldn’t be a true second chance, anyway. He seems to have screwed her over at every turn. What he’s done makes me vibrate with suppressed anger.

“How?” she says.

“Demid. One hundred thousand dollars. A private plane. Thomas Byrne. A few other people I owe favors if I ever have any money or influence again.”

“I can help with Thomas, pay back Demid.” She turns away and her fingertips dance across the minibar bottles. “You shouldn’t have come. The risk…”

I stare at her back. She doesn’t know? Seems impossible she wouldn’t realize. The inferno threatening to consume us surges, forcing the words out. “Did you really think I’d want to be anywhere fucking else? Throw me in prison. Gun me down in the streets. I’d go to hell and have that shit happen on repeat it if meant you were safe and happy. That’s all I’ve ever wanted for you.”

She goes still at the table. Her back tenses. When she turns toward me, she braces her hands on the table. Tears are trickling down her face. My gut twists in response. “Finn—I—”

“The whole time I was listening to those two dickheads spout off, I couldn’t stop thinking it’s my fucking fault. It’s my fucking fault her life is like this.”

“Finn.” She steps toward me, but I step back. “It’s not—”

I clear my throat and ask the second question that’s plagued me since Eric laid it out. “The other miscarriages—the fact that you haven’t been able to have a baby—is it because of that night?”

She shakes her head and closes the distance. Her fingers trail from my bicep down to my wrist, and she links our hands together. A simple touch, but it electrifies my body, makes me even more aware of her in this room, the bed behind us.

“The first miscarriage was trauma related.” She swallows. “The others? There was no reason. Every test money could buy said I should be able to get pregnant and sustain a pregnancy.” Her shoulders rise in the tiniest shrug. “It just wasn’t meant to be.”

Another tear slips out unchecked, and I tug her toward me, locking her against my chest. Her cheek is over my heart, and I squeeze her tighter. “Do you ever—” I don’t have the guts to finish my question. Asking wouldn’t be fair. I can’t offer her what she wants, what she needs.

“Finish it.”

“Carys.”

“I’m tired of lies and half-truths and bullshitting each other. Ask me.”

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