4

Eight glasses of water.

Two meals.

Seven bathroom breaks. With that blinking red light, I didn't want to risk a chamber pot. I'd only call for a bathroom break when I actually needed one.

Twenty-two hours.

I was never getting out of here.

Maybe this was rehab after all. Maybe there weren't group sessions and counselling and lectures and psyche evaluations. Maybe it was just this, day after day after day. Twenty-two hours in, and now I understood how easily it could drive anyone certifiably insane.

I'd still hardly slept.

Ants crawled in my brain and snakes slithered beneath my skin. My body ached and my muscles cramped with tension and the bad posture of slumping in a chair for hour upon hour. I tried to pace it out in the six-by-six room, but it wasn't nearly large enough for me to run away from myself and the mistakes I'd made.

The buzz of the door unlocking snapped me to attention.

Sergeant Mackintosh stood there on the threshold. I recognized him at once, the officer in charge.

He didn't enter, instead stepped back into the corridor. "Come with me."

"Where are we going?"

His brows furrowed in displeasure and I silently cursed my tongue. What did it matter? Even if they were finally transferring me to the rehab facility. Anywhere was better than these four walls.

I hurried out before he changed his mind.

He walked at a clipped pace, taking the lead as I scurried to keep up. The corridor opened into a lobby with a window box office and a number of closed doors. The only other person I saw was a young guard behind the window.

The Sergeant marched across the lobby and I followed, through a double set of swing doors that took us out into the bite of arctic air and weak sunlight.

There was a lot more activity out here. Guards walked with purpose or stood at attention by their posts each side of the gate. There was a hum of electric engines and unseen murmurs of official chatter. But all of that faded into a peripheral blur as my gaze zeroed in on Roman leaning against his truck.

He'd come to watch my transfer, to make sure I ended up where he thought I belonged.

He looked exactly as my heart remembered, standing there with his broad shoulders and toned muscle, silky hair grown out just long enough to caress his hollowed cheeks. Jaw chiseled in granite. Face sculpted in dark beauty. Arrogant brows riding those stone-gray eyes that seared me.

No devil horns.

No evil smear on his features to match the blackness of his soul.

It took another moment for me to realize we were headed straight for him. My feet turned to lead. I didn't want to hear any last words.

Sergeant Mackintosh noticed me lagging and his head snapped back. "Keep up."

I couldn't.

I didn't even try.

He grabbed me by the arm, yanked me in step with him, practically dragging me in the tide of his long-legged march.

Roman watched our approach without a trace of emotion to betray if he thought anything—felt anything—about my rough handling.

The sergeant yanked again, shoving me directly in front of Roman. "Here you go," he barked. "Let it be noted, your wife has been released into your charge. Take better care this time round. Leniency is never rewarded."

Roman's gaze narrowed on me. "I never make the same mistake twice."

Neither do I, I promised myself, and then my mind caught up to events.

What the hell was going on?

Roman didn't give me a chance to ask.

"Get in," he said and climbed behind the wheel.

I stood there a moment, gawking, then he started the engine and I scrambled around to climb in at the passenger side before he sped off without me.

As I closed the door and settled into my seat, he pulled away. "You okay?"

I looked at him. "Am I okay?"

"I just…" He shrugged, shooting me a furrowed look. "You've been through a lot. How are you feeling?"

"Like I should have run." I laughed, a dry, bitter thing. "I should have crossed that bridge and taken my chances in the Outerlands. That's how I'm feeling."

"Whatever you think about the wild, it's a hundred times worse than you could possibly imagine. Trust me."

"I did," I muttered. "I trusted you to keep me safe and you handed me over to the Guard."

"Georga—"

"No!" I cut him off. "I can't stomach your excuses, your lies, right now. You weren't stopped and searched, Roman. I was locked in that box, but I heard exactly how it went down."

He sent me another look, this one wordless.

I went on, "I know I broke the law and I was prepared to suffer the consequences on my own terms, even if that meant crossing the bridge into the Outerlands, or the wild, whatever you call it. Even if that meant being exiled to The Smoke. Even if that meant a stint in rehab. That was my choice to make. But you shoved me back into that box and you told me to trust you. You brought me back inside these walls. You took my choice away with false promises and threw me to the wolves."

I couldn't look at him a moment longer, so I turned my gaze out the window and we rode in silence. My stomach cramped with nerves as we drove along an unfamiliar road. I'd never been anywhere near the wall before, certainly not anywhere near a Guard station. I had no idea where we were.

Was Roman even taking me home to Parklands?

I no longer trusted him in any shape or form.

For all I knew, he'd enrolled me into the Center for Reform and Rehabilitation. Husbands could arrange a private admission if they felt their wife was out of control. That's how Daniel's mother had ended up there. The Guard hadn't incarcerated her. It was Julian Edgar's signature on the admission form.

That anger simmering so dangerously close to the surface burned hotter, deeper, burned blisters onto my soul.

After a few more turns, I finally recognized where we were, skirting north of the town square. Then we were on the road to Parklands, approaching the barrier, and still my nerves twisted tighter and tighter.

The guard at the kiosk raised the barrier and waved us through.

It wasn't long before we turned down the rutted dirt lane that led to our rustic cabin in the woods. The first time I'd seen the cabin, the night of our marriage, I'd been slightly horrified at my new accommodations. Along the way, the charms of this log cabin tucked away in the woods had grown on me, just like the charms of its owner.

The cabin had started to feel like home.

Roman West had started to feel like home.

Well, not anymore.

Roman cut the engine and placed a hand on my arm, waiting until I brought my gaze in to meet his.

"You are safe now," he said soberly.

As if that should make me feel better. All's well that ends well. Except that's not how it works. Clearly he wasn't shipping me off to rehab, and maybe I was safe now, but that didn't dissolve the last twenty-four hours.

"Are you seriously kidding me?" I jerked my arm out from his touch and shoved open the passenger door. "I have spent the last twenty-four hours in a mental torture chamber."

I jumped down from the ridiculously high truck. "I had no idea what was going to happen to me. If they'd send me to rehab. If I'd be executed for treason!"

I slammed the door and marched across the crisp, cold forest floor to the cabin.

It wasn't just that six-by-six cell and my uncertain future that had bared my sanity to the bone. Roman's betrayal was a whole other level of torture. It clung to me like a dark shadow, mocking every look we'd ever shared, every word, every feeling, everything!

He'd built up my trust in him until it was steadfast. He'd shown me glimpses of a man I could fall for, had fallen hard for, and it had all been a facade. Just another mask he wore.

When I reached the front door, I was forced to wait for him.

Roman walked up to me, unhurried, heavy thoughts riding low on his brow. As he unlocked the door, he had the audacity to say, "I'm sorry for what you went through."

"Sorry?" My voice pitched. I was a volcano on the verge of eruption. "You're the one who put me through it to…to…" I had some theories. "To teach me a lesson? As a warning? To threaten me into being a good little wife?"

I yanked the door open and stepped inside the claustrophobic hallway with its row of coat hooks on the wall and naked bulb dangling from the ceiling. The cold followed me inside. Why the heck hadn't Roman turned on the heating?

I stomped into the main living area.

"Georga."

I ignored him, heading for the master bedroom. My bedroom. Roman slept in the spare room. That was the state of our marriage. Maybe I'd been deluded from the very start, to think we were actually building anything here.

He followed on my heels. "We need to talk."

"I have nothing to say."

"Then you can listen," he said sharply, authority stamped into his tone.

I whirled about to face him and folded my arms. My chin lifted in stubborn defiance, but I said nothing.

I waited to listen.

With a little practice, I could be just as cold and callous as Roman West. When it came to him, I would be an emotional wasteland, a place where bitterness, fury, hate, love and hurt all withered before it could touch me.

Roman sighed, dragging a hand through his hair. "Do you honestly think I wanted to turn you over to the Guard? That putting you into that nightmare was my first choice?"

I hadn't noticed the dark circles beneath his eyes before now. He looked almost as weary as I felt, and that gave me pause.

"Then why did you do it?" I asked.

"To keep you safe," he said. "It was the best option with the least risk, once Branson realized who you are."

Branson, the warden who'd confronted us in the parking garage at Sector Five. "I thought you were friends."

"We are, and he'll respect my request to handle the situation, but I know the guy, Georga, and he's a stickler for the rules. He didn't take you in for processing, but he will log the incident, if he hasn't already done so. The Guard would have taken you into custody, and they'd know I'd tried to cover it up."

"So turning me in was best for you," I snorted.

"It put me on the right side of Capra's laws, which meant I was in a stronger position to keep you safe." His voice was thinning with frustration. Or maybe irritation. "How the hell do you think I managed to convince them to hand you into my care instead of sending you off to rehab? Although you're supposedly unaware you were ever beyond the walls, the fact remains that you were, and the charge against you was declared a Class A offence."

He retreated into the lounge and, after a moment, I followed.

"What does that mean? Treason?" A fresh chill rolled down my spine. "And that's a risk you were comfortable taking on my behalf? Turning me in and hoping you could talk your way around them?"

"Not treason, but an unacceptable security breach and high-risk behavior. Sergeant Mackintosh insisted on full rehabilitation." Roman grabbed two glasses and the bottle of whiskey from the sidebar. "I called in some favors with the council, but I couldn't get a majority vote there so I went to the High Wardens and an agreement was reached. There was never any risk, Georga. I was always going to keep you safe."

The way he said it, that dead-sure certainty, shaved off some of my frigid, hard edges. He honestly believed that, and it wasn't over-inflated ego.

He had plenty of ammunition to use on the council.

The photographs of Councilman Thorpe engaged in some kind of intimate liaisons with women outside of his marriage. The admission form of Councilman Edgar's wife to the Center for Reform and Rehabilitation. All hidden in a cut-out pocket of an artist's drawing book in Roman's study.

I was pretty sure he was saving that blackmail to further his own ambitions, but he would have pulled the trigger early, to help me, if the High Wardens hadn't come through for him. That realization blew some of the heat out of my volatile sails.

I perched on the arm of the leather couch. "Why would the High Wardens get involved? Why would they care about me?"

"I'm a warden and you're my wife," Roman said. "That makes you warden business and if there's one thing they do care about, it's keeping the council's nose out of warden affairs."

He crossed to the kitchen table and poured a healthy measure of whiskey into each glass.

"I don't want any," I said.

Ignoring me, he brought back two glasses and pushed one into my hands. "To take the edge off."

My edges were already softened. But I wrapped my hands around the tumbler, digesting everything I'd heard as Roman went to sit in the recliner across from me.

"You should have warned me about the change of plans," I said. "Instead you sent me into that cell blind."

"There wasn't time," he explained. "The whole ride back from Sector Five, I was determined to find another solution, one that didn't involve turning you in. I wasn't going to do it, but then I pulled up to the checkpoint and my gut instinct kicked in. It's always better to act than react after the shit hits the fan."

He sipped on his whiskey, his gaze locking on me. "I knew I could control the situation."

"But I didn't, Roman. For the last twenty-four hours, I didn't know that."

"I'm sorry."

He meant it…probably. Maybe that should have been enough for me. It wasn't. "I don't forgive you."

We shared a look that said it all, and said nothing at all. His face was a mask of careless indifference.

Roman hadn't thrown me to the wolves. But I didn't forgive him for so much more. His gut instinct had kicked in and he'd made a unilateral decision on my behalf. He knew he could control the situation. He knew what was best for me.

That was the way of men, and Roman was one of those men.

My world was built on lies and Roman was one of the men propping up that false foundation.

So no, I did not forgive him.

I popped off the couch and deposited my untouched glass in the kitchen sink. "I'm going to try and get some sleep."

"One more thing," he said. "You're not to leave the house or receive visitors for the next two weeks."

I paused, my spine stiffening as I turned to look at him. "You're putting me under house arrest?"

"The Guard and the council believe I'm committed to subduing your reckless and insubordinate proclivities," he said. "I have to be seen to be doing something."

"And?"

His brow lowered on me. "And?"

"What else will you be seen to be doing in the name of correcting my behavior?"

"That's all I've got." The ghost of a smile touched the corner of his mouth. "If you have any other suggestions, I'm all ears."

His amusement was a velvet blade. It didn't cut, but it was still a blade. Roman had never taken the rules and regulations of Capra seriously. He mostly just gave a superficial nod to the ones required to further his ambitions.

On the one hand, that gave me a wide scope of leniency within this marriage.

On the other hand, all those silly rules he found so amusing were my life. They tripped me up. They trapped me. If he had to walk in my shoes for five minutes, I guarantee he'd have an instant case of humor failure.