Page 32 of Forged in Flames (Made of Steel 2)

"I'm 26 years old. I already have me degree. I enrolled here specifically to keep my eyes on you. And you haven't exactly made it easy."

"Is your name even Eli?"

"Yeah. But my last name isn't Hayes. It's Serrano."

I stared at the complete stranger in front of me. "How long were you watching me in Colorado, Eli Serrano?"

He sat down next to me on the bench. "I wasn't watching you. I was watching Don."

"But by default, that means you were watching me too."

Eli nodded. "I was doing surveillance for the past couple of years. Mostly outside the house. We got lucky enough to bug one room in his most recent house, but it was almost as if he knew it. Our audio never picked up on anything suspicious at all. We mostly just watched the house, him going in and out."

I thought about the house back in Colorado. Don rarely ever stepped foot into the living room. It had become almost a safe haven for me in the last few months I was living with him. That couldn't be a coincidence. But if Don had known, why hadn't he bothered to remove the bug? Not talking about the awful things he had done didn't exactly make him innocent.

"I didn't understand it at the time," Eli said, pulling me out of my head. "Why you stayed there instead of at a friend's house or something."

"I didn't have a choice."

"And I'm sorry that I didn't know. I would have stepped in if..."

"If what? You knew that he forced himself on me? That he beat me?" A few tears started to run down my cheeks. "He tried to kill me, Eli. I feared for my life every fucking day."

"Summer, I swear I didn't know. Not until I saw the bruises on your neck here. I thought you just stuck around because you were loyal to your father."

"He's not my father!" There was a sour taste in my mouth.

"I know that now. But I didn't when I was doing surveillance. The adoption paperwork was sound. There was no reason to look into anything. From the outside, everything seemed legal."

"He was hurting me."

"We weren't looking for evidence of something we didn't know existed. And I was close to putting him away on charges so much bigger than domestic violence."

"Bigger than that? Each day you didn't step in, a piece of me died. You dismissed my life in favor of some better cause."

"I swear I didn't know what he was doing."

"Untie me, Eli."

"Summer, I swear I didn't know. All I knew was that I saw a broken girl who deserved more than whatever life her criminal father could give her. But I thought you wanted to be there. I thought you were choosing to be there."

I wanted to punch him in the face all over again. "And did you enjoy it? Watching me? Following me?"

"Jesus, it wasn't like that. It was a job. And if I had ever heard him hurting you, I would have stepped in. You have to believe me, Summer."

"So you...what? Decided to stalk me here? You've been watching me for two years. But I only just met you. You may think you know me, but you don't. You only know the broken part of me."

"Yes, I was kind of infatuated with you. I had to pull a lot of strings to get this gig."

"You're sick."

"I do know you, Summer. You get a wrinkle in the middle of your forehead while you're studying. And you cry when you read novels. Almost 80 percent of the time. Even if it's not supposed to be sad."

"Stop."

"And you don't laugh nearly enough. You do this thing where you smile but it doesn't quite reach your eyes."

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