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Always had.

"The fuck did he say to you?" I demanded, not buying this bullshit. She looked about as happy about fixing her marriage as I did. "Hope?" When she didn’t answer, I rubbed my jaw and stifled a growl. "What happened to loving me?"

"I do," she squeezed out. "I meanteveryword."

"Then what changed?" She covered her face with her hands, but I wasn’t having that. She wasn’t hiding from me. Gently peeling her hands away, I crouched down so that we were eye level. "Talkto me, HC."

"I'm so sorry," she whispered. "He needs me more."

"Don’t!" Shaking my head, I backed away, fucking raging and needing to move. "Don’t give me that shit." I ran a hand through my hair in exasperation. "There's something you're not telling me."

"I was fooling myself last night." She forced the words out like they were killing her. "I got lost in the moment…thinking I could leave him."

Bullshit.

Bull-fucking-shit.

"What did he do?" I demanded, trying to coax the truth out of her. "Threaten you? Fill your head up with guilt? Make you feel like it's your fault that he's a weak-ass bastard who fucked his own damn recovery?" Reclaiming the space I'd put between us, I tipped her chin upwards, forcing her to look at me. "Tell me what's going on, sweetheart," I growled. "And I will fix it for you."

"I can't," she whispered, clenching her eyes shut. "I just need you to go."

"I'm not going anywhere," I shot back heatedly. "Not without you."

"Please, Hunter," she choked out. "Trust me on this."

Muttering a string of curse words, I sparked up a cigarette and took a deep drag to calm my fucking temper that was rising at a rapid rate and directed solely at her husband. "Leave you here?" I shook my head. "You're asking me for a goddamn miracle here, HC."

****

Chapter Eighteen

Hope

I wanted to tell him the truth.

I wanted to throw myself into his arms and have him fix this whole mess.

I thought that telling Jordan I was leaving him would be the hardest conversation I would ever have.

I was wrong.

This was so much worse.

Because it was a lie.

I came to Hunterwillingly. Because I loved him. Because I wanted to be with him. And now, I was leaving him with my hand twisted behind my back.

But if said anything now, it would end in blood shed.

I wasn’t naïve enough to believe that Hunter's first instinct wouldn’t be to take Jordan out of the equation.

Like Jordan was doing right now…

Pretense and lies. That was what my life consisted of now, and not by choice.

Doing it this way would protect him, I knew that, but it didn’t make me feel like any less of a traitor – or a whore.

Because if he knew – if Hunter found out what a threat Jordan was to our freedom – I was terrified of what he might do. No, scratch that. What hewoulddo. He would kill him. And I couldn’t live with that. I couldn’t bear it. I hated Jordan for what he was doing to me but I didn’t hate the boy inside the man.

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