Page 69 of Reignite

“I don’t care if I was safe.” My voice cracked. “I only cared about you.”

“I know. I’m sorry and I’ll ask you to forgive me as many times over as you want.” Gray wrapped me into his arms tight enough I couldn’t move, except for the sobs that wracked my body.

I wasn’t crying. I was done with tears. But the grief and torment of the past months fought to come out. I gasped for air, and my entire body tremored with the earthquake of emotions under the surface.

“Look at me, baby.”

I lifted my head, looked into his eyes, and space and time and grief and pain slipped away. Which left me and Gray. Together at last.

He stared into my soul and continued to stroke my hair. “I’m here and I’m not going anywhere. Because I am yours. You’ve claimed me.”

Slowly my breathing returned to normal. A hollow place in my heart had been filled in again. I wanted to melt into him. I still wasn’t sure he was real, but there was still anger inside of me that had to be dealt with. “Don’t forget that I’m yours too. Never forget that.”

He nodded and glanced at Serena. “I should have before. It was my mistake to think that letting you and Foster think I was dead would keep you safe.”

I’d much rather be mad at Serena than Gray. “Why didn’t she come forward if she knew so much? She could have prevented this whole disaster.”

“She couldn’t,” Gray said, shaking his head.

“She wouldn’t.” I didn’t know if she was a coward or plain mean. Both probably.

“No, love. Serena is CIA. As far as we or anyone else knows, she was never even here at all.”

The CIA? Then she sure as shit had the resources to have prevented this, or let me know that Gray was alive, or not gotten involved with Foster in the first place.

Serena had some splainin’ to do. “I get that the CIA is all super-secret sneaky, but that doesn’t explain why I had to think you were dead.”

Gray and Serena exchanged a look, and Gray nodded his head. Giving her some sort of signal.

She nodded back and then looked at me. “I was deep undercover when Gray and Foster’s team got the call to rescue me.”

Let her defend herself, or apologize, or whatever. “And?”

A dark cloud crossed her eyes. I recognized the pain of losing someone in her. I could empathize, but my sympathy wasn’t ready to come out and play yet. I stayed silent and frowning.

Serena took a breath and stretched her neck like a long-lost ache was still there. “My cover was blown because the organization who thought I was simply the ambassador’s daughter found out about my CIA affiliation because of the affair with Foster. We were damn young back then. I was idealistic and stupid, and I paid the consequence.”

“As did Foster.” Gray piped in trying to help Serena’s plight.

I gave him a dirty look for it. “Not nearly enough.”

“I betrayed him, am still betraying everything the two of us had. I thought he’d get over it, over me. I knew I never would, but I didn’t think he’d carry those scars around for this long.”

She jumped up like something had bit her on the butt and started pacing. “Or that they’d drive him insane. I watched him make more and more wrong turns, getting darker and more vengeful by the day. I told myself it would all be okay. Until he came here.”

“You knew he was coming after us and you did nothing.” For that, she was worse than Foster to me. Gray might trust her, but I never would. She could have warned us. We could have been prepared.

She turned away from us, staring into nothing. “I came to stop him. But I was too late.”

We waited for her to say more, but either she wasn’t going to, or couldn’t.

Gray continued her story for her. “When the car exploded, she had a choice. She could either nab Bennett or save me. She pulled me from the wreckage. I woke up in a hospital, a week later. Serena had already begun the wheels of her plan to draw Foster away from you and to her. I wanted to contact you right away, but I thought she was right and I couldn’t risk your life because of me anymore.”

Mierda. “I will always be grateful that she saved you. But it’s going to take me a long time to forgive her for taking you away from me.”

Gray kissed me gently on the lips. “I know, my love.”

Serena rubbed her fingers across her brow again. “I’m sorry, Angelina.”

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