Page 1 of Dagger

Chapter One

Dagger

“...So,” Elise relayed. “I drained my glass, leaned toward Pete, and told him I wanted my code name to be Duchess.”

I closed my eyes and took a calming breath.

For hours, I’d sat there not moving a muscle except for my jaw involuntarily clenching and unclenching. Everything inside felt numb except for the painful ache in my chest.

“Maybe it was silly,” she whispered. “But I wanted vengeance for you, too, John, and as empty as that pet name is to you these days, in a way, it made me feel I was getting justice for you.” She exhaled deeply and jutted her chin in the air. “That’s it. Now you know it all. The good, the bad, and the downright ugly.”

My heart throbbed.

In the blink of an eye, everything I thought I knew had been razed to the ground. After thirty years, I finally saw everything clearly. The cold, hard truth slid into place, and it crushed me. Every pain-filled word sliced through my heart, echoing, until they maimed, ravaged, and made me raw.

As Elise told me her story, I’d added my pieces of the puzzle, too. Told her all about Adele and the type of marriage we’d had. Relayed information about my dad, my time as a Marine, and the club. I wanted her to see the full picture.

I needed to make her understand.

Elise had always been the purest thing in my life.

How had it come to this?

“You’ve been alone all this time,” I croaked, a statement, not a question.

Elise’s jade-green eyes fixed on mine, steady, icy, and emotionless.

“How can you even look at me?” I bit out.

“It stopped being about you a long time ago,” she informed me coolly.

I flinched.

“I’m not saying it to score points or to get retribution for what happened, John. Everything I did was for Constance; it had to be. Our lives took different paths, is all.”

“’Cause he made it that way,” I declared.

She gave a brittle laugh. “Who did? Robert or Bandit?”

I scraped a hand across my eyes. “Both.”

“We all had a hand in it,” Elise murmured. “They may have played their chess moves and arranged us on their checkered board, but we allowed it. We never kept the faith. I believed you’d died, and I lost myself. You came back, saw what was on the surface, and didn’t bother to dig deeper, even though you knew the girl I used to be and how deeply I loved you. It always killed me how it was so easy for you to believe their lies, even though you knew me better.”

“You should’ve told me,” I admonished, but there was no anger in my tone, just regret. “I would’ve helped.”

“Really?” she challenged. “Or would you have gone berserk and put Constance in danger?”

I fell silent because, if I was brutally honest, I didn’t have the answer.

“You proved a long time ago you weren’t on my side, John,” Elise continued matter-of-factly. “Forgive me for believing youractions. I didn’t have a choice but to draw a line under us and, instead, do what was best for Constance. On your twenty-first birthday, I told you I’d sacrifice myself over and over to keep her safe. I meant it, I did it, and I’d do it again in a heartbeat.”

Her words ripped through me.

She was right; Elise had given up everything for Sophie while I’d carried on sailing through life without a care in the world, or so she thought.

“She’s incredible,” I murmured, moving over to sit on the edge of the bed. “Constance—Sophie. She’s everything a mother could wish her daughter to be. He may have taken her away from you, Leesy, but he never took you away from her. Everything good and strong in you is inside her. You need to know that.”

Tears filled Elise’s eyes, and the sight of them cut me deep. Without thinking, I reached out to comfort her, but she flinched away from me.

---