Page 70 of Captured Heart

“I didn’t lie. Not really.”

Her eyes narrow with undisguised resentment. “Then what’s your name?”

“Alex...” I pause, the weight of this confession sinking in as I hold her gaze. I’ve kept my real identity a secret for so long that revealing it now just feels...wrong. “Aleksandras Kazlauskas.”

Her face goes pale, her eyes wide with disbelief. “Oh, my God. That sounds like the name of a Russian spy!”

“It’s Lithuanian.” My casual correction does nothing to settle her.

“That doesn’t make it any better!”

I try to take her hand again, but she yanks it out of my grip. “Just listen to—”

“You told me you were an engineering student.”

“I didn’t. You assumed that, and I told you not to make assumptions about me.”

She thinks about it, then tries another angle when she realizes that one was all on her. “What about the things you told me about your uncle’s repair shop and fixing your first Buick Regal?”

“That was true.”

“And your mother?”

“Katie, everything I told you was true.”

For a moment, her anger seems to waver, her defenses lowering, but it’s fleeting. She shakes her head, stepping back. “It doesn’t matter, anyway. None of it does. Whatever we shared doesn’t matter, because you’re just going to leave me here.”

“I’m not leaving you.”

“Liar!” The sound is shrill, sharp enough to cut. Her breaths stagger out of her faster, harsher, as her hands ball into fists at her sides. “I heard everything you said to Victor. Don’t stand there and pretend like you care about me now when you literallyhandedme over to that monster!”

She’s been brave so far, keeping it together pretty damn well. But saying that breaks her. And I can’t even describe what hearing that does to me. Something shatters inside me, a barrier that was keeping all my guilt and shame at bay, and as it crumbles, those emotions gush through me. The flow is overpowering and relentless.

But I remind myself that she would have been here whether I took the job or not. I have no involvement in Victor’s feud with Kenji, and if I didn’t do the dirty work, some other goon would have.

“Katie, I know you’re angry, and you probably hate me right now, but I assure you, being here with me...is thebestway this thing could’ve played out for you.”

“You think so?” She uses every mechanism she has to keep the raw emotion out of her voice. “You think any of Victor’s other men would’ve toyed with me the way you did?”

“I didn’t toy—”

“Do you think any of them would’ve kept reeling me in just to toss me back out?” Her voice rises with her temper. “Do you think that guy would’ve spent hours talking with me, flirting with me, finding out my deepest secrets only to slap me with rejection and tell me it’d besimplerto just be friends?”

I run my hand down my face, growing more irritable because she knows the truth now. How can she not get it? “I was there to do a job. I didn’t wanna get...involved and complicate things.”

“Oh, a job? You were just maintaining professional courtesy, right? Are all Victor’s men so committed to thejob?” The question drips with derision and bitter sarcasm. “Do you think any of them would’ve taken me home in a drunken state, helped me undress, and put me to bed? Do you think one of those guys would’ve stayed with me until I fell asleep, kissed me tenderly on my forehead...” Her teeth clench together as she spits out her next words. “...and then thrown me into the back of a van two days later? Is all of that part of the job description?”

She’s unraveling faster than the speed of light, becoming angrier with each passing second. It’s like every negative emotion I invoked over the last two weeks is culminating and morphing into this raging death spiral.

“Katie, you’re mixing things that shouldn’t be mixed. You and the job are two different things—”

She doesn’t even allow me to get a full explanation in and cuts me off right there. “Do you think any of them would’ve crept into my room in the middle of the night because he was drunk and looking for a warm body to screw?”

My eyes widen, my mouth dropping in absolute shock. “Are you serious?” I gape at her for a few seconds as I try to recover from the knockout blow she just flung at me. “You think that’s what happened last night?”

“Isn’t it?”

I never thought two words could cripple me like that. And it’s not just the words. It’s the abrasive acrimony she lathered them in. I turn around because I can’t look at her anymore. And I can’t stand the way she’s looking at me, her pretty brown eyes filled with hurt and disappointment.

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