Page 22 of Dangerous Love

“You don’t need to worry about it, Shorty. It’s in the past.”

“I don’t care,” I hissed. “I want to know.” I turned towards Grace. “You tell me. Please?”

She moved forward until I was out of her line of vision. “She deserves to know.”

“Know what?” I cried. Angst built in my chest, piling up like cinderblocks ready to crush me. My eyes flicked from one to the other, and when Avery sucked in a breath, I turned towards Grace and pleaded again. “Grace, make him tell me. Please. I can feel it. I just need to understand why everything felt so wrong for so long.”

Grace squeezed my hand before she tenderly placed it back on my thigh. She turned towards Avery, her forehead resting on his shoulder. “Honey, one of us is telling her today. I think it should be you.” His hand gravitated to her back, and he ran a few strokes up and down until silence hit us. Then the room went quieter than a hospital morgue.

Fear drilled through my belly, my chest burning with every breath. I wiped my clammy hands on my uniform and shuffled across the small space, stopping when I knelt in front of my brother. “Avery?” I whispered, tears welling in my eyes.

He leaned forward, his palms resting on my shoulders. He moved them to my face until my pupils were level with his. “Sienna, there’s no coming back if we talk about this. I can’t undo it if it’s too much.”

I sniffed, the wetness dripping from my nose, and nodded in complete silence.

“When I sent you on the plane alone, I didn’t think I was coming back. I went there to die if that’s what was needed to protect you.” He let go of my face and leaned on the back of the sofa. “The plan was to warn Jarryd that Hal was coming for his boy, but this part you already know.”

“Yes. And you did, right?”

Grace’s breathing increased until she was taking small, shallow gulps. Avery laced his fingers with her. “No. Not technically.”

I shook my head. “What do you mean? Everything ended well. You got to Riley on time.”

“No. Riley and Jarryd got tomeon time.”

A sob rocked me as I pictured Avery at the end of Hal Cooper’s gun. “Oh my god. Did they hurt you?”

Grace wiped a stray tear running down her face. “It’s me they had, Sienna, and they demanded Avery give them Riley or they’d kill me.”

My blood iced. Time paused as I stared at them. They sat frozen like their minds had gone back to that day. Based on the lines and crinkles mapping their skin, whatever was floating in their vision wasn’t pleasant.

“Oh, Gracey, I’m so sorry.” I hugged her, my mind unsure as to why they wouldn’t have told me this earlier. Cooper was a lowlife. A sociopath who was willing to have me raped in front of my brother as a lesson, so I wasn’t completely surprised that he’d come for her once I was out of the picture. My palm touched Avery’s knee. “Thank you for protecting me,” I murmured. “How did you get out with Grace?”

“I sent Jarryd all the files I had on Cooper and told him where we were. But I agreed to pledge as an enforcer, as long as Hal let Grace go. And he did.”

Tears dripped from my eyes, scorching my skin with every drop, like I’d been sheltered in utopia for the last three years compared to what they’d gone through. “Oh my god.” I brought my hands to my face, wishing I didn’t have to hear any more.

But I still have to know.

Avery’s tone grew firm. “Sienna, it’s Riley who saved us. It’s Riley who got me backed out of my deal and all of us out in one piece, when Hal had guns pointed to our heads.” He tossed the pillow across the room. “Fuck, I can still smell her as she kissed me goodbye. I can see the blood sweeping across her face as they had her tied up.” He cleared his throat, his face paler with every word leaving his mouth.

“I’m so sorry,” I cried. “I didn’t know.”

Grace squeezed my hand. “We know, sweetie. We didn’t want you to have to carry this burden with the rest of us. It’s been hard.”

“What did Riley have to do to get you off?”

Avery’s Adam’s apple bobbed up and down. He ran a hand over his face, his eyes glistening with a thousand unshed tears. “I don’t think he did it for me.”

“Not you?” I squinted, trying to read the blank expression on his face. Who else would he have done it for? If not for Jarryd, then…? None of it made any sense.

“It’s you who tipped him over the edge.”

Me?The world shattered around me. My brain grew dizzy as Avery’s words screeched in my head.

“Trey warned Riley that either he came back into the fold, or it’s you they’d drag back into their clutches. Something to do with you belonging to him first.”

I shook my head. “I don’t understand?”

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