Page 30 of Redemption

As much as she wanted to fight him off, the breath of her name from his lips was like a burst of shared strength. She wanted to disagree with how he inflated her downtrodden ego, but for the moment, it felt so good to have someone believe in her, even after telling secrets in the middle of the night. She hadn’t seen his disgust and disappointment before, and now she had expected it—and again, was wrong.

“Ryder.” She straightened. “That’s the truth. Hardy-har. I’m such a fake. A sham.” His embrace didn’t loosen. “Feel free to stop with—”

“Relax.”

“Why are you reacting this way? I teach people self-defense and was kidnapped. I hunt bounties, and they turned that around on me, didn’t they?”

“My parents are dead. I killed them.”

Her heart stopped.

He shifted away and leaned back onto his elbows. The night went dead around them as the stars dulled and the frogs held their tongues. Not even the fish splashed. All was silent in the country darkness. “You’re not a sham, and I don’t get why you think that. Who gives a hoot if your dad’s a familiar face in lockup? Bounty hunters aren’t invincible. What more do you want from me? Nothing is wrong with you.”

In the distance, something splashed into the water, breaking her trance, but she couldn’t get past what he’d said before that. “Ryder—”

“You think because you’re around criminals that you’re unshakeable? That people can’t hurt you?” He shook his head. “Your logic is flawed. Hell, sweetheart, humans are inherently flawed. That’s a fact of science. You’re gonna fuck shit up.”

“Uh, um.” She swallowed her thoughts about his parents. “Yes. I suppose we are.”

“A person can be outnumbered, out-forced, outmaneuvered, outgunned, outwitted. It doesn’t matter how talented they are, and it doesn’t negate who they are.”

When he said that, it made sense. But inside her heart? It didn’t matter. “In theory. I still can’t go home.”

“Because someone took you?”

“I help protect my community. I track bounties, and families turn to me. Why should they now?” she admitted to the night, unable to face him.

“That’s a bogus question, and anyone who asks that isn’t looking for a real answer—just like I didn’t really kill my parents.”

Her forehead wrinkled as she turned toward him. “You didn’t?”

“I killed them as much as you can be blamed for your situation.” He draped an arm over her shoulder. “I wasn’t born yet, actually. But I was breech. My mom went into labor. Everything was going wrong. Fast labor. I was upside. We didn’t live close to a hospital and so on. My dad rushed her to the emergency room. There was an accident. They died. I didn’t.”

Victoria blinked, taking in the ramifications of what he said. “You were born…”

“An orphan,” he answered. “Into the system in my part of Australia. Funny how it works. No relatives and no one wants the baby who kills their mother.”

“But that was the accident?”

“My mother would’ve died anyway.”

“Oh.” She bit her lip. “You were adopted?”

“No. Never quite worked out.”

“Oh.”

Ryder turned and put both hands on her shoulders, squaring them in the dark. “My point is, I’m to blame for their death as much as you’re to blame for being trafficked to Russia and raped.”

Her chin dropped at his bluntness. “You don’t know what I was doing—”

“I don’t care if you were hot on a bounty—”

“I was. That’s a lot different than being born.”

“No. It’s not. That’s living your life and getting caught up in something you can’t control.”

“Icould.”

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