Page 69 of Revenge & Ruin

“Teo.”

“I can’t tell you.”

“You did this to me. I deserve to know.”

“You’re somewhere no one will hurt you again.”

His words are shockingly bleak and entirely unexpected. I glance down at the handcuff. “Did you do this?”

“It was a precaution.”

“So I’m trapped here.”

“Yes.”

I blanch at this revelation, suddenly feeling that dizziness returning with full force. “Well, you can’t just…I guess while I get better, but…when I’m fine, you’re going to have to…my brother, he will…I have to get out of here. You can’t keep me.”

“Yes, I can.”

“I’m not yours to keep!”

This, after everything else, is what makes him step further into the room. His face is expressionless as he approaches the bed, clasping the bottom bar with both his hands and leaning into it as if it is the only thing holding him up.

“Tell me honestly,” he whispers. “Did you know what you put in that drink?”

The wiser, smarter part of me who values self-preservation screams at me to lie. But I can’t force the words out.

“No. No, no. I swear. She said she said…it was only meant to…” I clasp my hand over my mouth as the sobs rack through me again.

“Who said,belle?”

My breath hitches as I realize my mistake. “No. No one. I swear.”

“Did she send you to kill me?”

“No!”

He looks at me then, long and hard. For the first time, that mask of indifference drops just long enough for me to see the exhaustion that lies beneath.

Had he been there in the parking lot while a stranger attempted to save my life? Had he worried if I would die? Had he been able to sleep? Live with himself? Was it guilt that ate him up inside? Or duty? Or some strange mafioso version of honor?

Teo stares and stares and stares. I let him. I let him see my truth, my pain and betrayal and fear, and all the mess that is going on in my mind. I want him to see it. No, I need him to see that I’m not lying.

Then, after a lifetime, or maybe ten seconds, he says, “I’m sorry.”

“What?”

“If I could go back, I would have just drank it.”

My heart skitters to a stop. My hands start shaking again. “No. No! Because then…you’d be…”

Dead.He’d be dead, wouldn’t he?

I can see it all now, playing before my eyes. Teo slowly becoming delirious, escorting him back to my car and driving him to the Prince’s Hand. Not knowing that the tranquilizer was quickly killing him in my passenger seat.

He would have been dead on arrival.

“It would have been easier,” he whispers.

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