Page 13 of Severed Rivalry
I clear my throat until she stops her path toward the hall, pivots, and returns to place her phone face down on the long table in the living room.
“Good try. And sleep well, baby. I love you.”
“Love you, too.”
Ci’s eyebrows rise and a smirk plays on his mouth. “Tough room.” His eyes come to me. “Is it time?”
This man. He’s waited more than an hour. He’s been fully with us where we are, not forcing a conversation and not phishing for details.
The sigh that leaves me is more than a decade in the making. “Yes. I suppose it is.”
He pushes to his feet and slides back into the spot Renée vacated. He stares between his feet for a moment before lifting his gaze to mine. “I want to know everything. How long have you been in town? Or have you been here the whole time? What happened with us?” He pauses and quietly adds, “Why did you leave?”
“It wasn’t you.”
“Please spare me theit wasn’t you, it was metalk.”
“Ci.” I extend a hand in a placating gesture but retract it and bury it under the blanket. “This will be hard for me, so please be patient. And some things—” I look over my shoulder down the hall. “Some things will be left for later.”
“I deserve to know.”
“You do… Regardless, there are things Renée doesn’t know, and I won’t say where she might overhear. That’s not up for negotiation.” I level my gaze on him.
He holds my eyes as if he could read my thoughts. When I don’t break, he simply extends a hand as if the floor is mine.
“I want to start by saying I never meant to lie to you. And where I could, I was truthful. Where I wasn’t, it was because I was young and scared. It wasn’t you. Truly. It was me.”
His jaw goes hard, but he maintains his silence.
“Now I’m older and scared, but not for myself anymore. Nothing they could do—nothinghecould do to me—is worth a second thought. Renée, on the other hand… She’s my everything. And nothing is off the table to protect her.” My expression must tell him what my words might not. “Nothing. She’s my priority. And given any danger, I’ll do everything in my power to make sure she never learns the fear I’ve lived with.”
“Angel.”
My nickname on his lips is a salve to the wounds I’m about to reopen.
“I was raised in South Dakota in what I know now was a polygamist cult.”
Cian’s eyebrows hit his hairline, and his eyes blow wide.
“Women are property and girls are regarded as less than that. I ran away from there. It took three attempts because the first two… well, let’s just say I had guts, but my plans weren’t well developed. The third time, I had both. I had a strategy and the determination, and”—I hold his gaze—“I was willing to die to get out. Desperation makes people do strange things.”
“Yeah. I get that.”
“Yeah?”
“Keep going. I’ll tell you mine after you tell me yours.”
“My third attempt was when I’d just turned fourteen.”
“Fourteen?” It’s a strangled whisper.
I nod and gather my courage to continue. “My first two attempts were with my best friend. That was part of my mistake. Loose lips. Looking out for each other. We were double the target. If we’d thought to split up, it would’ve been smarter, but we didn’t. So the last time, it was just me.”
I pull the blanket up over my shoulders, using it as armor to protect me. “I bailed in the middle of the night after a full moonfestival. It was the only time men were allowed to drink, aside from weddings, and those celebrations were one of the few reprieves people had from pre-dawn wake-up calls. I figured it might buy me an extra hour on the road before I was discovered. And it worked.”
“You escaped.” Disbelief colors his voice.
I nod. “Yep. I made it four miles down the road before a trucker picked me up hitchhiking.”
