Page 50 of Hunter

“Because what if it’s all a lie? What if someone planted the evidence to turn us against each other? And what if—what if it’s all true?” The words come out in a rush, like I’ve been holding them back too long.

The room falls into silence. Seconds, maybe minutes, pass, but the weight of it feels like hours. I’m suffocating on my own thoughts, unsure how to make sense of everything. I’m about to say something when she finally speaks.

“I know it’s hard to face something head-on, especially when you’re scared of the outcome. But you need to. For your peace of mind. It’s going to eat at you—consume you—until you deal with it.” She pauses, her fingers lightly tracing circles on my chest, like she’s trying to ground me. “You’ll drive yourself crazy until you do.”

She’s right. It’s all I can think about, and it’s ruining everything. I need answers, but I’m terrified of the consequences.

She lifts off me, her gaze steady, meeting mine. “Just don’t be your usual control freak. Let it happen when it happens. If you try to plan it all out, if you try to control every moment, you might just chicken out.”

I raise an eyebrow, my heart skipping. Chicken out? Me? My expression softens into a smile despite myself.

She laughs lightly, the sound a welcome distraction. “I’m kidding. Relax, tiger.”

I let out a deep breath, the tension in my body slowly easing. She’s right. She always is. I just need to face it. Face him. The silence stretches between us, but this time, it’s different. It’s not suffocating. It’s just…quiet. We both know what I have to do. It’s only a matter of when.

Sophia’s phone rings from her room, the sound cutting through the quiet. She leans down and presses a soft kiss to my chest before getting up. “I’ll be right back,” she murmurs, her voice still thick with sleep. She walks toward her room, the door closing behind her, and the sound of her mother’s name—“Mom”—echoes faintly through the space before it fades as the door clicks shut.

A surge of instinct drives me to follow her, to listen in on the conversation, but I force myself to hold back. She needs her privacy. She deserves her space to talk to her mother without me hovering, suffocating the moment. I glance at my computer, deciding it’s better to return to what I was doing before she woke up than let my mind spiral with imagined scenarios of what they might be talking about.

Half an hour passes, and the quiet is broken by Sophia’s footsteps as she walks back into the room. Her face is clouded with a kind of despair that immediately catches my attention. Ipush myself out of the chair, not even flinching at the loud thud as my laptop hits the floor, and rush to stand in front of her. “What’s wrong? What happened? Are you okay?”

She sighs, offering a tight, almost bitter smile. “Yes, I’m okay. My mom just called to tell me… More like ordered me, really.” She snorts, the sound dripping with frustration. “She wants me at the house tomorrow for Jenny’s birthday. Apparently, they’re throwing her a little get-together.”

I pause, eyes narrowing slightly as I take in the look on her face. It’s not the news that’s troubling her. “That’s it?” I ask, crossing my arms and trying to read her. “Why the look of despair?”

Sophia sinks to the floor, her exhaustion evident in the slump of her shoulders. “It’s not just any party, Maxim. It’s my family. And every time there’s one of these get-togethers, I’m stuck going. No ifs, ands, or buts. It’s like a rule.”

I raise an eyebrow, walking over and sitting down beside her. “If you don’t want to go, then don’t. Simple.”

She laughs, but it’s bitter, empty. “Oh, if only it were that simple.” Her eyes meet mine, full of an unspoken history. “In my family, when there’s a party, you’re obligated to be there. No excuses. Since I was a kid, my mom would drag me along to every single one—even when I begged, kicked, or screamed. She’d say she wasn’t going to be the talk of the family. So now, it’s just…expected. There’s no option.”

I can feel the weight of her words sinking in, the exhaustion of years of this cycle. I try to lighten the mood, but the concern creeps in. “What’s so bad about these parties?”

She tilts her head back and lets out a sarcastic laugh. “The parties my family throws make the ones you’re used to going to look like funerals. No joke. They’re loud, they’re crazy, and they never stop. It’s like being in a circus of…chaos.”

My lips twitch with curiosity. “How bad can a small group of people be?”

She turns to look at me, a wry smile forming on her lips. “Small? To my family, ‘small’ is at least a hundred people. And that’s just the close ones.”

I laugh despite myself, shaking my head. “A hundred people? That’s a party, not a ‘get-together.’”

I kneel in front of her, gently cupping her face in my hands, urging her to meet my gaze. “If you don’t want to go, then you don’t. Simple.”

She rolls her eyes, a soft sigh escaping her lips as she looks at me. “I already said we’d go. My family is dying to meet the blue-eyed gringo who captured my heart.”

I swallow hard. My palms are starting to sweat, and I feel that same tight knot in my chest. Why does the idea of meeting her family feel more terrifying than a firefight? “You’ve warned me, haven’t you?” I murmur, trying to calm the rising panic inside.

She pats my shoulder, her smile playful but with a hint of mischief. “You’ve been warned.”

I stand up, shaking off the unease creeping up my spine. It can’t be that bad, right? It’s just a family get-together. A hundred people, maybe—how overwhelming can that be?

But deep down, I know it’s more than that. It’s the chaos of her world colliding with mine, and I’m not sure if I’m ready for it.

TWENTY-ONE

SOPHIA

The party was the perfect excuse. I needed to go to my mom’s house to sift through my dad’s old files in the attic. The problem was, I didn’t know how to pull it off without her noticing. She’s too damn nosy. She’d end up asking a million questions—questions that, honestly, I don’t have answers to, and for thoseI do, I wouldn’t know how to respond. The party would give me the perfect cover. Maxim and my family would be so consumed with each other, no one would pay attention to me. It was better this way. The fewer people who knew about my plan, the better, and that included Maxim.

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