Page 38 of Erik's Redemption
“No.” She shook her head, stumbling back a step. “You’re lying.”
“I’m not. People were tasked with taking out the leaders in the organization. He was one of those leaders.”
No…she didn’t believe it. Any of it! She knew Nico! She knew his heart. He’d made some bad choices, but he was aprotector. He wouldn’t have hurt women like that. Someone, somewhere, had to have made a mistake, and Nico had paid the price.
“The intel you received was wrong,” she whispered.
“It’s never wrong.”
Five breaths… She sucked in five full breaths before she gained the courage to ask. “You said people were tasked withkilling the leaders of the trafficking ring. Who, specifically, killed Nico?”
For the first time, his carefully constructed mask slipped—and she saw everything. The pain. The regret…and the answer to her question.
“You,” she whispered, her voice so quiet it barely touched air. “Youkilled him.”
His hazel eyes bled into hers, yet still he refused to speak.
“You need to say it!” she shouted. “I need to hear the words!” Because otherwise, they wouldn’t be true. She needed his confession released into the world to make it real.
“I killed Nico.”
The second hiswords were out, he wished he could take them back. Wished he could twist them into something different. Something that didn’t hurt her. Hurt them.
The look on her face, the sheer ruin, reminded him of exactly why he’d been fighting this moment for so long. Because he broke her. Every wonderful thing she was, he’d taken from her. Her light. Her peace.
“Hannah—” He stepped forward in case she fell, but she held up a hand, shaking her head as she inched around the desk.
“Don’t come near me!”
Her words slashed across his flesh like a knife.
“Take the folder,” he pleaded. “Read it. It’s all the information I have on him. It’s everything that gave me justification to do what I did.”
She shook her head vigorously, tears falling down her cheeks, the devastation flowing out of her. “I told you! He wouldn’t doany of that! There are no words on any pieces of paper that could ever change my mind.”
“Take it,” he whispered. “Please.” The last word was so low and guttural it portrayed every bit of desperation he couldn’t keep inside. He didn’t want to taint her foster brother’s memory. She loved him. He was family to her. But he needed to do everything fucking possible to get her to consider returning to him.
“I need to go. I need…” Her voice broke. “I don’t even know! I just need tobreathe!”
He clenched his hands into fists to stop himself from reaching for her. Wiping away her tears and begging her to stay. “Take all the time you need, Angel. I’ll be here. And I’ll always love you.”
Her face started to crumple, but she just kept it together, slipping out of the room, then out of his house.
The second she was gone, the silence buzzed in his ears, deafening him. All he wanted was Hannah back. To touch her. Love her.
The air burned in his lungs as he moved to his desk. He lifted the folder she hadn’t taken and threw it against the wall. Without a scrap of self-restraint, he swung his arm across the desk, sending every fucking thing flying.
He wanted to scream. To rage. But nothing would help. The hole in his chest would continue to widen, the pain so fucking deep he wanted to dig a hand into his chest and physically stop it.
He turned and shouted a curse, his voice echoing off the walls.
Then he saw it…the angel charm. It sat on the floor, shining amongst all the papers he’d just knocked off. Staring at him. Mocking him.
Slowly, he crouched and wrapped his fingers around it.
Gone. She was gone. And she’d left his heart here.
With a shout that ripped through the room, he turned and slammed his fist through the wall. The sharp edges cut into his knuckles, scraping across his skin, but it wasn’t enough. He wanted to burn. To bleed. To feel anything but this ache in this chest. This annihilation of everything he was.
