Page 41 of Hunted

“Why?”

He closed his eyes. He did not talk about this. Not to anyone. He never had. And he wasn’t about to begin now.

And even as he assured himself of those things, the entire ugly story was taking shape in his mind, readying itself to be told. To be shared. With her.

He rolled onto his back, looked up into her brown eyes. He reached out to take hold of her hand, and he pulled her until she sat on the edge of the bunk beside him.

“There was a bomb threat phoned in. That’s how it started,” he began.

Chapter Ten

Lexi listened to him talk for a long time. It was as if the floodgates had broken, as if once he started, he had to tell all of it, right to the end. He told her about his last conversation with his wife Wendy, and how Darren, his boss and best friend, had stood by him afterward. Darren had never doubted him, even when his one-time friend, an agent named Stryker, had suspected him of being involved in the murder of his own family.

She’d stretched out on the bunk beside him at some point, laid her head on his pillow. “How could this Stryker person possibly have suspected you?” she whispered.

“The obvious reasons. It was a bomb. They’re my specialty.”

“But your own family …”

He stroked her hair, and she realized that she now lay in the crook of his arm with her head on his chest and her arm around his waist.

“Stryker knew Wendy and I only married because of the pregnancy.”

“You didn’t love her?”

“I did,” he said quickly. “Just not the way …” His words trailed off, and he tried again. “We were friends, good friends. Things got out of hand once, when we were both feeling lonely and drinking a little too much. Wendy got pregnant. So we got married.”

“But it was working out,” she guessed.

“Yeah. Kids have a way of bringing people closer. Two years in, we decided to give Justin a sibling, and Jackson came. It’s hard to explain it … but you’ll know what I mean someday when you have children of your own.”

That hurt. It hurt beyond belief, but she swallowed the pain, fought it into submission. Talking would do Romano a world of good. She wasn’t about to change the subject.

“How did Stryker know about how things were between you and your wife?” she asked, genuinely curious.

“He was in love with Wendy himself. Hell, sometimes I thought she might have wished she’d married him.” He lowered his head, hiding whatever crossed his face.

Lexi couldn’t imagine any woman falling for another man if Romano was the competition.

“She never said so, though. Never did a thing to make me think that.” His voice was sleepy. Long pauses came between his words. “She was too kind to risk hurting me … and she was loyal.” His hand stilled on her hair. “A lot like you,” he said. It was almost a whisper.

The last pause drew out. In a few minutes, she realized he’d fallen asleep. Exhausted maybe, from the sudden release of such long pent-up emotions. A soul-deep sleep, she could tell. His chest expanded, lifting her head with his deep inhales.

She sat up, staring down at his relaxed face. “The only person to blame for what happened is White,” she whispered. “You did your job. You did what you were supposed to do.” Maybe he’d hear her whispers. Maybe they’d get through. “Your family’s at peace. You’re the only one in hell. You need to see that.”

His eyes were still closed, his breathing deep and even. He slept as if comatose, and she thought it was his body’s response to the emotional stress of sharing his past—the past that had almost destroyed him.

Lexi didn’t imagine he’d ever released any of the rage he’d been feeling over the murder of his wife and little boys. Maybe he’d never talked about it before.

But he had now. And she was glad.

She slipped silently away from him, pausing to pull the covers over his still body. She ached for what he was going through, but she also knew that his past was coloring his judgment of the present. There was no danger in going to the house. There were no men hiding there waiting for her return. Not when White believed they were in New York right now. Even Romano had admitted the chances of such a thing were slim. But he was being overly cautious.

And it would be kind of ignorant of her to think any of that caution was personal. It was fear of failure that made him so careful. He was afraid another death would be added to his list of imaginary sins. He was afraid of what that would do to his soul and maybe even to his mind.

But there was no danger.

She needed to go home, and her reasons went way beyond her desire to make sure Jax was all right. Although, her cat was among the top three.

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