Chapter Fourteen #5
With another gulp, he poured black secrets directly into my soul.
“Everything I’ve told you is real. I’m like them.
Don’t think for a moment that I’m not. I fight this sickness on a minutely basis.
I don’t know how to stop it, and I don’t know if I have the strength to control it but I’m trying.
God, I’m trying. I don’t want to be this way.
I didn’t ask to be born with this curse.
He sent me here to prove I’m better than this, and I have a horrible premonition that I’ll fail, so...
” He shrugged. “I need help. There, I said it. You weren’t meant to be here, and I wasn’t prepared for you, but it’s happened, and now we’re both screwed unless you listen to me.
I need...I really need you to fucking listen when I say you can’t stand up to me.
You can’t fight me. I’ll do whatever I can to stop them from touching you, Ily.
I’ll do my absolute best to protect you, but in order to do that...
I’m going to have to be the one who touches you.
” He pulled back a little, wrenching my face to his. “Do you see what I’m saying?”
All his cryptic urging from the plane. All his vague hints as he chased and pinned me to the ground.
If he was a cop hunting traffickers, it would make sense that he would have darkness within him. If he worked undercover, he wouldn’t have gotten this far without becoming infected with whatever disease these bastards harboured.
He’d had to become one of them.
But at least he fought it.
At least he knew right from wrong.
Crushed against dusty books and utterly nude, I felt the first flush of safety.
Henri was many things.
Still a total stranger and without a doubt one of the most complicated men I’d ever met, but...I believed him. I believed my intuition on him. I believed there was far more to him than this and us and a transaction of flesh and fear.
Please, please let me be right.
Sucking in a breath, I nodded. “You’re saying everything you do to me is out of obligation...not desire.”
“Exactly.”
“And you need me to trust you.”
“With every damn part of you. Not a single shred of doubt. If you doubt me and fight back, then...this is all over. My life. Your life. Their lives.”
Their lives.
Did he mean the other slaves? Prisoners who were all alone and broken?
“You’re here for them?” I whispered. “The jewels?”
His eyes met mine and held.
He nodded just once.
I melted into a puddle of relief. “Really? Truly?”
A growl echoed in his chest. “Don’t question me. Not when I’m second-guessing every-fucking-thing.” Making sure no camera could hear him, he whispered, “I’ve been sent here, alright? Sent to stop what’s happening and save those trapped against their will.”
The world stopped spinning.
I’d been frightened out of my mind and wrapped up in my own demise, but Henri had put his life on the line to save others.
He’d used me as a tool.
He’d dragged me into this nightmare.
But...with one small whisper, he turned all my panic into conviction to help.
My mother always said my empathy helped Krish to trust and confide in me. I’d always been cursed with the ability to not only put myself in other people’s shoes but also their clothes, thoughts, and hardships.
I’d only spent a morning with the jewels, but it’d been enough to see every fracture, witness every bruise, break, and beg.
In a single heartbeat, my allegiance switched from my own survival to theirs. There was no way to know if Henri was telling the truth or if this was some kind of sadistic game, but...I didn’t have a choice.
I had to have faith in something.
It might as well be him.
He didn’t look away the entire time I deliberated. He didn’t let me go. He didn’t grab me for the cameras. He waited as if my answer meant far more to him than I could imagine.
Holding his steel-coloured stare, I whispered, “Do you swear on your soul you’re here to save them?”
“I swear it.”
I studied him.
I did my best to dive into all the pieces that he refused to share. Shadows stared back. Only time would tell if those shadows would consume him. “In that case, I-I’m willing to trust you.”
“Thank fuck for that.” Snatching another fistful of my hair, he jerked my head back as if punishing me. Ferocity glowed in his stormy gaze, and for a second, I feared I’d made a colossal mistake.
His voice turned thick and heavy, as if I’d agreed to something far worse than just trusting him. “You need to act, Ily. Act as if your life depends on it because it does.”
My pulse skyrocketed as he feathered his fingers along my jaw, pushing upward until my spine stretched and I stood on tiptoes.
“Play along with me. Pretend with me. That’s all I ask.
Don’t cry around me because your tears honestly undo me.
The blackness has a hold on me, I can’t deny that.
I will have to hurt you to prove I’m like them.
I will have to fuck you to stop others from raping you.
I know how that sounds, and I know you won’t forgive me, but...
don’t retaliate. Don’t argue. Don’t speak back.
Don’t show me a single flicker of fire. You do that, and we both might survive. ”
I swallowed against his hold, his fingers tightening around my neck. The visual the cameras would see was a Master slowly throttling his jewel. But the way he held me spoke of a secretive partnership.
He bit my throat, his teeth sinking just enough to make me flinch.
“As long as you play along with me, I can focus on protecting you. If you fight me, the darkness blinds me. But...if you tug on the good pieces—the pieces I’m doing my best to cling to—then I’ll have the strength to hold on until he arrives. ”
“He?” I couldn’t catch a proper breath. My heartbeat pounded in every extremity.