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Chapter 23

twenty-three

. . .

Cross

S he didn't know what she was asking me for.

Everything meant so much more than simply laying my truth at her feet. It meant her whole world would come crashing down, and I'd be the instrument of her destruction for telling her. More than that, she'd lose her hero. I'd already taken so much from her; I didn't want to be responsible for that too.

But it didn't seem like I was going to get a choice.

"Where do you want me to start? It's not exactly a linear equation. There's no beginning, middle, or fuck, even an end to this story."

"Tell me why you left that note."

Anxiety had already turned my blood to ice. Tingles of apprehension were working their way up and down my arms. "I got a call that night. Several, actually. Which I missed because I was?—"

"Deflowering me?" she offered.

"Yeah." I tried to smile, but I was too sick with worry to do more than grimace. A shuddering breath escaped me before I continued. If I was coming clean, she needed it all. "You need to understand, I was there with you, in awe of what I had, seeing our future plain as day. I was ready to marry you?—"

"Apparently, we were already married."

"You know what I mean."

She nodded, her eyes bright with emotion. She was trying her best to make this easy on me, but there was no easy way. Not with a truth that would hit with the force of a fucking bomb.

Blowing out a breath, I continued, "But then I had to leave you there, sound asleep and so pretty it hurt to walk away. I met up with my father. There was an emergency he wanted me to check out with him and Casey."

"My dad was with you?"

I gave her a tight nod. "I didn't think much of it, you know? He'd been grooming me to take over for a while at that point, and I'd done similar things in the past. Following up on shipment issues or dealing with rascals stepping out of line. None of that prepared me for what we found that night."

"Cross, what happened? You're shaking. What did you see?"

"You're aware we're involved in more than our on-paper businesses. You're smart enough to have figured it out a long time ago. It's been going on for generations now, and Senior put us all in danger because of it."

"The second set of books," she murmured. It wasn't so much a question as her connecting the dots.

"Most of the illegal stuff goes through the shipping company. People pay us a lot of money for our connections. We know who can be bribed to look the other way, plus we offer the security necessary to transport certain types of goods."

"Drugs."

"And weapons. Sometimes other less obvious contraband."

"This is how you ended up in bed with the Russians," she guessed.

"Yeah, pretty much."

"Okay, I'm following. So what did you guys find that night?"

My stomach churned as flashes of dead bodies lined up on the ground raced to the forefront of my mind. "A fucking blood bath. We lost so much, so many innocent people. And the shipment... this time it wasn't drugs or weapons. It was women. My dad had sold his soul to the Russian mob, and we'd become traffickers without even realizing it."

She jerked as if I slapped her. "Your dad knew ?"

"He swore up and down to Casey and me that he didn't. That if he'd known what they were using the trucks for, he never would have agreed, but the only one who knows for sure is him. He refused to tell either of us what happened to put him in a position to agree to any of their demands. Pretty sure that's a secret he took to his grave."

"My dad was involved in this? He was like you?"

God, she asked the last question with such disgust. Like me? A man who had blood on his hands. It hurt, but I'd earned it.

"Yeah. He taught me almost everything I know. My dad showed me the business. Yours showed me how to get the job done."

River looked like she was going to be sick.

"I know you don't want to hear this."

"Don't want to hear that the man who raised me wasn't remotely the person he pretended to be?" She laughed, but it was devoid of all humor. "I asked for the truth."

"And I gave it to you. He loved you more than anything. Once we learned about how far the Russians were willing to take things, the threats they made about you..."

"Me?"

"There were insinuations they'd do the same, or worse, to the people closest to us."

She blinked, her eyes cloudy with the weight of her thoughts. "So that's why you pushed me away. Why my father agreed so easily to let me go. Why he told me not to come back."

"We didn't want you anywhere near them. If something happened to you, I'd never forgive myself. I had nightmares for years about finding you in the back of one of our trucks. Dead. Because of me."

A little gasp escaped. "That's why I couldn't come back when my parents died."

"It wasn't safe."

"I understand why you thought you needed to do it. But it wasn't your decision to make. You chose to break me instead of trust me. You abandoned me. No, worse than that. You cut me off from everyone I loved."

"Sparrow—"

"I wasn't allowed to come to my parents' funeral. I wasn't able to say goodbye. I never got to tell my mother I loved her one last time. You took that away from me. All of you did." She raked her fingers through her hair, looking furious and devastated all at the same time. "My mother was tortured because your father got mine involved in this bullshit. I..." She started to hyperventilate, her breaths sawing in and out of her. "I need a minute."

She tried to jump down and push me away at the same time, her movement hurried and uncoordinated. In her rush to get away, she didn't realize I was trying to keep her from falling on her ass as my hands cupped her shoulders.

"Get the fuck off me, Cross."

"I'm just trying to?—"

"You've done enough. Just let me go."

I'd known this was coming. That as soon as she learned the truth, she'd hate me on a level she'd never reached before, but it still gutted me. Panic sent the last of my sanity fleeing. I couldn't lose her. Not again. Then suddenly it wasn't just her furious with me, but me furious with her.

"No, goddammit. Just listen."

"No!"

"Everything I've done has been for you, you stubborn woman."

"That's rich. I'm sure Cecilia was definitely for me."

Ignoring the jab, I continued. "I never stopped fighting to keep you safe, not once. And even though I regretted not having you in my arms every fucking night, I knew it was better that you were alive."

"But you're just fine having me here now?"

"Of course I wasn't. I was fucking terrified when you showed up after all these years. I thought I knew what yearning was, but to have you in the same room and not be able to touch you. To know the precise way your cunt grips me, remember how you taste, and know I'll never get to experience either again. It was hell, and I was desperate to escape. But then I found out you were mine, and it was game over. It didn't matter what I'd fought so hard for all these years. I'd already lost. And won." I shook my head, feeling like I wasn't making any sense but desperate for her to understand.

"I can't do this," she whispered, voice tight with tears. "Let me go, Cross."

"I let you go once. Never again." She opened her mouth to protest, and I slammed my lips down over hers, kissing her with a passion bordering on obsession. "I know this was a lot to take in. I understand needing time to process it all. I'll let you take a walk and cool off, but I will be coming after you. There is nowhere on this earth you can go where I won't follow. You are my wife, sparrow. 'Til death do us part."

Pushing away from me, she closed her eyes, one tear trailing down her cheek. "Trust me to know what's best for me this time. You might be my husband, but you're not my keeper. And this corrupt claim you have over me means nothing if I don't choose you."

"Corrupt?" The word was jagged in my throat. She was breaking my heart with well-aimed shots.

"What else would you call it? I didn't knowingly agree to marry you. I was manipulated at every turn. Not just with the marriage, but what happened after. For once, can you please just let me choose for myself?"

It was on the tip of my tongue to say no, because what if that choice wasn't me? In the end, it didn't matter what I wanted to say because she was right. I'd had similar thoughts myself, fears that I would tarnish her. I guess I was a filthy corruptor. She'd said as much.

But we'd mended things between us, hadn't we? The way we came together in my bed, how right we felt together, how fucking much I needed her—all those things had told me she was choosing this.

"Last night?—"

"Doesn't change anything." She shoved me with both palms on my chest, and I took one step back, giving her some room. Nudging me with her shoulder, she made for the house.

"River."

"Don't follow me, Cross. For once, please, just... leave me alone."

I watched her walk away, taking what was left of my heart with her.

She might think she'd gotten the final say, but she hadn't, not really. I'd give her the battle, but I'd be damned if I let her win the war.

Corruptor's claim or not, she was mine.

And I intended to keep her.

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