Page 44 of Lethal Lover

“Don’t say a word,” I hiss at her, trying not to move my lips.

Fireballs of rage explode through my insides.

I unlock the door to our suite and she pushes past me. Damn my eyes for dropping to her ass in that tight dress. Damn them harder for licking my lips as the muscles in her legs flex with each angry step she takes into the living room, her heels clicking against the floor.

She spins to face me, her eyes blazing. “I didn’t need any backup down there.”

“Yeah, I watched you go all Buffy the Vampire Slayer on their sorry asses. But after your whole big scene about how I’m too much of a liability to partner with, you go and completely blow the hell out of our cover. And for what? Vigilante justice, for fuck’s sake?”

“It’s your way of life, isn’t it?” she sneers. “I get stuck with you, and you get no restrictions at all. How’s that fucking just?”

“Take it up with Alek.” I kick off my shoes and unbutton my shirt. “And why the hell wouldn’t you tell me where you were going?”

“Because you were too busy playing craps to notice anything. Just like I figured.”

My eyes narrow. “Bullshit. I saw the bachelorette party. I saw the same things you did. How the hell do you think I was able to find you so fast?”

“I had to go after her.” She tears her gaze away from me and turns toward the window. Her hands run up and down the sides of her arms.

“I want to know why. What the hell was so important that you just had to go without telling me when you know exactly what we’re facing here?”

She turns tear-filled eyes back to me. “There’s a reason why I do this, why I’ve been working with Alek for so long to find Branko Ivanova.”

“Yeah, because he fucked with your family.”

“It didn’t start with that. Something happened years before that, something only a couple of people know. When I was sixteen, I was kidnapped from an arena in Miami by Branko’s organization. But it wasn’t just me who was taken. I was with someone else. Another girl.” She scrubs a hand down the front of her face. “But it wasn’t just any girl. Charly was my sister.”

Holy shit…

My pulse jumps into my throat and hammers against the side.

It was her.

All this time, I’ve felt some kind of weird connection with Val. Now I know why.

I saved her from that son of a bitch.

“And there were two guys who found us and saved me. But not Charly.”

Her voice cracks. “She didn’t make it. And I couldn’t save her. I’ve lived with the guilt for so many years, hating the fact that I had to be rescued like some pathetic damsel who couldn’t take care of herself. I was the epitome of a bratva princess. My head was in the sand about every aspect of my family’s organization. I hate that I was saved. That I had to be saved at all. And I was so terrible to the guys who found me. One of them really wanted to help, but I sent him away like a total bitch. I was devastated and disappointed in myself. I couldn’t face him or ever look him in the eye again without knowing the way he’d always see me.”

The truth dances on the tip of my tongue but I choke it back.

“Fuck. I didn’t know.”

“Not even my family knows about her. I wasn’t supposed to know about her, either. She was a half sister. My father had a relationship with a woman before meeting my mother and they had a baby. He didn’t know about her for a long time until she showed up at his office one day. She’d go and visit him after the initial meeting. One day, I happened to pop in and boom. Bombshell dropped.”

She turns away and starts to pull pins out of her hair. Strands fall to her shoulders as she tosses the metal stick things onto a table. “I knew after I lost Charly I’d never let myself be in that spot again. So, I started training with Kat. And that’s when I found out about Alek’s organization. Now I hunt the bastards who hurt girls like Charly.”

I remember everything about that night so damn clearly. I wanted to stay. Hell, I made Niall pull around the corner from the hospital just to make sure someone showed up to take her home. It was an older guy who looked a lot like her. A brother, I guessed.

I always wondered what happened to that girl. I’d have never thought in a million years I’d see her again, much less marry her.

She doesn’t want to hear that I saved her. She wanted to push that guy away because of how he made her feel—weak.

And fuck, we both know how dangerous it is to be seen as weak.

I swallow down the truth and move toward her. My fingers twitch with the urge to run through her hair. Shocks of electricity jump across my skin, tiny tingles erupting in my core. I’d been drawn to her before, but the pull now is so strong, I doubt I could fight it even if I wanted to.

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