Page 46 of Tactical Lies

“I know,” he agreed because anything else would be lies.

“Do you know how badly I'm struggling right now? Knowing that dad wasn't really my dad, that mom only got pregnant with me because she was raped, that I wasn't planned or wanted?”

“You were always wanted,” he hissed.

“Even though I wasn't his, Dad stayed. He accepted me, raised me, and never let on that I wasn't one hundred percent part of our family. I don’t have many memories of them, but those I do have, I think he even loved me.”

“No thinking involved, Cassandra. He did love you. Adored you. You were his daughter in every sense of the word. He loved you because you were a part of Mom and he loved her with everything he had. Never ever doubt that he loved you.”

“Didn't you love Becca that way?”

Those words fueled the guilt and shame that had plagued him for over a decade. “She’s my other half. I love her more than life itself.”

“Then how could you leave her when she was suffering through that?”

A deep sigh rattled through his chest. “I messed up, Cassandra. I freaked out that day, thought I couldn’t raise her rapist’s baby even though we weren't sure who the father was. I fell apart, something I hadn't done since I found out what happened to the girl I loved. It all piled up on me and I crashed. I'm not proud of myself, actually, I'm ashamed of myself. But I panicked and destroyed my relationship with the only woman I’ll ever love in the process.”

“Twelve years, Connor. That’s how long I'd been alive at the time and that’s how long it’s been before you finally went to her. She must have felt so alone, so scared. Mom had Dad, but Becca had …”

“No one,” he finished for her when she trailed off.

“You aren't giving up on her again, are you?”

“I asked her for a second chance, but she never answered.” But she did let him comfort her on the plane. And she did tell him she’d been engaged. And his brothers said they believed she wanted him to take her to the cabin.

Was it Becca standing between them now or was it his own fears that he wasn't good enough for her?

“You can't give up on her,” Cassandra insisted. “Even if she doesn’t take you back, you still have to make it up to her. Right now, she’s scared and alone all over again, and you're not there to make things better. Go to her, Connor. Now. Talk things through. Work them out. Figure out whether there’s anything to salvage, and if there’s not, at least be her friend. Don’t let her be alone again.”

August 20th

6:49 P.M.

Was that a car?

Becca jerked upright from where she’d been lazing on the porch, where she’d spent most of the day, when she spotted what she was positive was an approaching car on the long, winding driveway that led from the remote road to the cabin.

Someone was coming.

Who?

How?

The alarm hadn't triggered, she would have known if it did. Becca hadn't gone anywhere without her phone just so she would know if anything had set off the alarm.

So, whoever it was had to have the skills to bypass the system.

That couldn’t be good for her.

Scooping up her phone, she hopped back inside the cabin as quickly as she could. It wasn't large, there was a bedroom to the left of the front door, beside it was the bathroom, then the middle and right side of the cabin was the living area. At the back was the kitchen, a huge fireplace was on the side wall with a couple of couches around it. Two rocking chairs were by the front window and a solid oak dining table in the middle of the room. A small set of stairs led up to two attic bedrooms and another bathroom.

Not a lot of places to hide.

Since she hadn’t put her prosthetic on after lunch because she’d wanted to give her leg a chance to recover a bit from all those hours of walking through the jungle in Cambodia after they escaped, she could hardly hop her way to freedom.

Which meant flight was out.

Leaving fight as her only option.

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