“Rick.” I couldn’t stop the shiver that went through me.
“It’s why we haven’t been able to locate him. He has several aliases that he’s been using, and none of the ones we are aware of are linked to any properties or rentals. He’s been MIA since the explosion.”
“Aliases?”
His slight pause gutted me.It was going to get worse.
“He’s…a fugitive. An international criminal. Wanted for theft, assault, fraud”—his voice cracked—“and murder.”
No…I wanted to sink beneath the water. Even without my sight, suddenly everything was too much. The sound of my unsteady breaths. The hammer of my heart.
“A mur…” I couldn’t even say the entire word.
“Athena—”
“Where do I fit in?” I forced the question out. It was either that or tears would overthrow me.
I heard the way his teeth ground together before he answered, “We think Belmont realized you two were seeing each other and thought, by killing you, he’d have leverage over Ivans to stop the blackmail. A warning that he could be next.”
“Collateral damage.”
He didn’t have to say anything for me to know it was the truth.
“That’s why you were at my house that morning—because of him.” It had occurred to me more than once how fate had put this man in the right place at the right time to save me. But it wasn’t fate. It was facts. Evidence.
“We had a source provide a photograph of the two of you at dinner. I was coming to question you about him…to warn you.”
My chin bobbed slowly.Maybe a little bit of fate, then.I inhaled deeply and then exhaled. The darkness felt like a small blessing right now, letting me drift away into it.
“I don’t know what’s worse…that my ex-husband tried to kill me, that the man I was seeing is a criminal, or that it’s now his enemies who want me dead,” I said, and as soon as the words were out, a sound followed them. A rolling, tenuous, bubbling sound. Maybe some would call it a laugh, but it seemed wrong for laughter to come from the pain in my chest.
“I’m sorry.”
I shivered at the bone-deep pain buried in those words. It was so real—so raw—that for a second, I thought I saw him. Not clearly. Not anything more than a shift in the shadows. But that was the only reason why, when I stretched my hand out, it landed with perfect precision on the rough plane of Dare’s cheek.
“It’s not your fault.”
Chapter Eight
Dare
Three weeks. It’s been three weeks since we said goodbye. Since you’ve said anything to me…
Mom’s cancer is back, but she won’t let me come home. Says she’s going to beat it again, but I can hear it in her voice she doesn’t believe it.
Why tell me something she feels deep down isn’t the truth? Don’t I have the right to prepare for the worst, too?—Athena
It’s not your fault.
I couldn’t breathe—I couldn’t exhale without the oxygen taking the whole truth with it.This was all my fault.I’d left her all those years ago, and if I hadn’t, she wouldn’t be here.
“All you’ve done is try to protect me,” she said and punctured the inflatingtruth in my chest.
Protect her…it was the only prerogative strong enough to suppress the truth.
I shuddered,the words like the tip of a knife poised under the tip of my chin. A threat. A promise.A reminder.Telling her who I was would make her wary of the only man willing to do anything to keep her safe:me.
From Ivans. From Belmont. From her ex. They were criminal pieces of shit who didn’t deserve to breathe in the same universe she lived in. But so help me, neither did I.