Page 91 of Cruel Revenge

But deep down? Who is she? What is her deepest, darkest secret?

I decide to test the waters, hoping that butterfly knife doesn’t find its way into my neck. “All right. Why don’t you tell me what it is that I don’t know about you, and we can sort through this entire mess together?”

She smirks and shakes her head, looking at me like I’m an idiot. “This is going to change everything. I hope you know that. You’re never going to be able to look at me the same again.”

Fuck. What is she hiding? And will it really change how I feel about her? Because as I see it, nothing will ever make me want to be away from this scary but irresistible woman.

Time to find out.

“You don’t know that until you tell me what it is I should know about you.”

With another little shake of her head, she pushes off the counter. She strides down the hall with her hands in tight fists at her side and makes her way into the guest room that she locked me out of last night.

I take a deep breath and follow her.

What is so bad that she would think I would run from her? Because if she thinks there’s anything that would send me running at this point, she hasn’t been paying attention.

But maybe that’s on me. Maybe I didn’t make this clear enough for her. Maybe the moment this marriage stopped being fake to me was when I should’ve told her how I was feeling.

Of course, that would mean knowing the exact moment those feelings shifted, and I couldn’t tell even at gunpoint.

She’s a slow-drip poison, seeping through my veins, infiltrating every single part of my body and mind. Consuming me.

I follow her into the bedroom like a man possessed, pausing only when she steps in front of me with the butterfly knife open.

The sun streaming through the window catches the blade, making it glint in the brightness.

Is this the moment she kills me?

Instead, she kneels on the ground and stabs the knife between two floorboards. She pries one of them up, shifting it to the side and tossing the knife onto the bed.

As Skyla moves another floorboard out of the way, a box comes into view.

She pulls it out and slips her hand deeper into the hole, digging around for something.

When she produces a key, all I can do is stand there and watch her.

Without a word, she unlocks the box and stands, holding it out to me.

For a moment, I consider not taking the box. I could decide that whatever she’s hiding doesn’t matter.

Because as far as my heart goes, it doesn’t.

But if we are doing this, making this relationship work, it does matter.

This might be what gets her killed, and I’ll be damned if I don’t take every precaution to avoid that. Even if it means learning something about her she clearly doesn’t want me to know.

I take the box and sit on the bed, opening it while the weight of her gaze burns into me.

As I open the lid, I try to prepare myself for anything.

Newspaper clippings sit in the box. Endless ones that seem to start nearly twenty years ago.

KILLER IN RHODE ISLAND STALKING MEN TO THEIR HOMES AND LEAVING THEM FOR THEIR LOVED ONES TO FIND

SUSPECTED SERIAL KILLER STALKS THE COAST OF OREGON

STUDENTS GOING MISSING AFTER PARTIES ON GREEK ROW IN SOUTH CAROLINA

---