Chapter 6
Chapter Six
Ariana
Henry carefully set the gun on the nightstand beside the vase. The muzzle pointed toward the wall, but its presence still felt heavy. Looming.
“In case you change your mind,” he said evenly.
I wasn’t sure if the gesture was meant as additional proof of his honesty… Or as a manipulative ploy designed to make me lower my guard.
It was something Victor would have done. Which is why I didn’t trust it.
Henry picked up a chair from the corner and carried it closer, kicking the roses out of his way and setting it down a few feet from the bed.
“Sorry about your flowers,” I muttered, my throat scratchy.
“They’re not mine,” he replied. “I got them for you.”
My heart betrayed me with a sharp, skipping beat. “You did?”
He held my gaze, unwavering. “I did.”
It had been so long since anyone had given me flowers. Sure, the household staff routinely refreshed the various floral arrangements scattered throughout Victor’s estate, but they were showpieces. Not gifts like these flowers were.
Then again, Victor once bought me flowers on a regular basis.
Until he removed the mask and I saw the monster hiding underneath.
This could simply be another tactic to butter me up.
I refused to fall for it. Not when I knew what was at stake.
“You want to explain?” I began, forcing steel into my voice. “Then explain.”
He sank into the chair with a sigh, scrubbing a hand over his face. “I’m not even sure where to start.”
“The beginning usually works.”
He sat forward, his elbows on his knees, as he stared at the floor for several long moments.
For the first time since I’d met him, he looked uncertain. Not like the relentless man who had tracked me, but someone bowed beneath a weight too heavy to carry.
“The night we first spoke,” he said finally, lifting his eyes to mine. “At the gala. You were right. I’d been watching you. Truth is, I’d been watching you and Victor for months.”
A chill prickled down my spine, causing me to shiver. “Why?”
“Because I wanted revenge. I wanted Victor to feel my pain. To lose the person he treasured most.”
“Who’s that supposed to be?”
“You,” he said quietly. “Or I thought it was you.” His mouth tightened. “I thought you loved being Victor’s wife. Thought your soul was as black as his. But I was wrong. So damn wrong.” His throat worked in a hard swallow, his gaze burning into mine. “I’m so fucking sorry, Ariana.”
The words hit harder than I wanted them to. His voice was raw, stripped bare. And I cursed myself for hearing sincerity in it. For wanting to believe him.
But I couldn’t afford to cave. Not until I figured out what the hell was going on.
“You said you wanted him to feel your pain. Who did you lose?”
He was silent for a moment. Then he pushed out a long exhale. “Her name was Sarah Laurendeau. She was my daughter.”
“Was?” My chest squeezed, despite how much I wanted to hate him.
But hate was a strong word.
I wasn’t sure how I felt about Henry. Not yet.
“She died this past summer. It was ruled a suicide,” he sneered in disbelief.
“You don’t think it was.”
He slowly shook his head. “I may not have known her that well. Or at all, really. I was only sixteen when I learned my girlfriend was pregnant. She chose to have the baby and gave her up for adoption. It was supposed to be closed.”
“But you found her anyway.”
He shrugged. “I never spoke to her. I just wanted to make sure she had a good life. And she did. Two loving parents who gave her everything we couldn’t. An older brother they’d also adopted. She was happy. Bright. Alive.” His expression fell. “Then suddenly, she wasn’t.”
I recalled the day I’d gone down to the basement in Maine to grab his duffel bag. How I’d thought it was just a man cave but instead came face-to-face with a wall of monitors.
And on one of those screens was the image of a happy brunette who couldn’t have been more than a few years younger than me.
Now I knew why she looked familiar.
Because she looked like Henry.
“Why do you think Victor was involved?”
“I don’t just think it. I know it.”
His eyes burned with so much power and determination. And heartache. The heartache was nearly unbearable.
“According to her brother, she’d been seeing someone she met during her travels. A man named Victor. She had a popular travel vlog and traveled all over the world. In the months prior to her death, she stayed at dozens of properties Victor owned.”
“I’m not doubting you,” I began. “I’m more than aware that Victor hasn’t been faithful. But there must have been something more than her seeing a man named Victor.”
“A few days after her death, there was a payment from your husband to a charity linked to the District Attorney in LA, where she died. Then, mere days later, the autopsy report was released and the cause of death was determined to be suicide. If you ask me, it all seems a bit too convenient.”
“If you’re so certain of his involvement, why not go to the police?”
He shot me a sardonic look. “Did you ever go to the police?”
The answer lodged like a stone in my throat. Of course, I hadn’t. Because men like Victor were untouchable.
Henry leaned closer, his voice low and unshakable as he stated, “I’ve been around men like Victor my entire life.
He’s too well-connected, as you know. Nothing would happen to him.
He paid off the DA to have the autopsy report falsified.
He could just as easily pay off the DA to drop the charges.
I knew if I wanted justice, I had to get it myself.
So yes, I planned to hurt him. To make him believe he’d lost what mattered most.”
My stomach turned, bile searing my throat as my vision blurred, my head throbbing once more. “So what? You were going to…kill me?”
“Absolutely not,” he answered without a moment’s hesitation. “I planned to take you. That’s all. I wanted him to wake up every morning, see your empty side of the bed, and feel what I feel every day I wake up.
“I spent months watching you. Galas. Fundraisers. I knew I’d have one chance to do this. And I needed to do it right. But that night at the museum…” He trailed off, staring past me, as if watching the memory unfold before him.
“I didn’t plan to approach you that night.
Or follow you into that exhibit. But there was just something about you.
And when our eyes met…” He licked his lips, as if struggling to find the words.
“I felt…alive. And I hated myself for it. You were supposed to be the enemy. I was supposed to hate everything you stood for, but something about you got under my skin.”
A spark of something lit up inside me.
Because I’d felt the same thing, too.
For those few moments we were alone in the pastoral exhibit, I felt alive. Just like he did. I felt like I could be myself again. I could be Ariana Summers.
Not Victor Kane’s wife.
Henry was the first person in years who I felt actually saw me.
Or was he just saying this because he knew it was what I wanted to hear?
“The next day, I took my boat out to clear my head. But instead of heading to open water, I found myself steering toward Star Island. That’s when I saw a boat pull up to your dock and a man dressed all in black get out.
A few minutes later, he emerged with your unconscious body.
I followed his boat to a warehouse up the Intracoastal.
Took him out. Grabbed you and his duffel, and brought you up to Maine while I figured out who he was and what he wanted. ”
“Took him out,” I repeated slowly. “What do you mean by that?”
“I killed him,” Henry responded bluntly. No excuses. No hesitation.
I should have been scared. If anyone else had told me they’d killed a man, I would have been horrified. Fearful for my own welfare.
But Henry wasn’t like everyone else.
He never had been.
And that only confused me even more.
“I guess you should be grateful this guy did your dirty work for you,” I snipped out, crossing my arms in front of my chest.
Pain shot through my ribs, but I pushed it down, not wanting to show any weakness. Over the years, I’d become a master at masking pain. I knew if I’d shown any indication of the trauma Victor forced me to endure, it would only be worse the next time.
“That’s not it at all.” Henry dragged a hand down his face.
“I admit that I did plan on abducting you, but after seeing someone else take you… I don’t know.
I was so fucking confused. You put me off balance, Ariana.
You made me feel things I didn’t think possible.
You make me feel things I didn’t think I ever would.
That’s why I intervened. I could tell the guy who tried to take you was dangerous.
Until I could figure out who the hell it was, I needed to keep you safe. ”
“You were an ass to me,” I reminded him. “Hot one minute, ice cold the next. It was like emotional whiplash living with you. Thankfully, I had years of experience with that sort of thing.”
“And I’m sorry for putting you through that.
I just…” He looked up at the ceiling, seemingly trying to make sense of his jumbled thoughts.
I’d never seen him so on edge. So uncertain.
“I didn’t want to care about you. In my head, you were just as evil as Victor.
” His Adam’s apple bobbed up and down in a hard swallow. “But then I saw your scars….”
He squeezed his eyes shut, his jaw tight, hands clenched into fists. The anguish in his expression felt so real. So raw. It couldn’t have been an act.
Could it?
“All along, my goal was to make Victor pay for what he did to Sarah.” He lifted his blazing eyes to mine.
“But when I saw what he did to you?” He shook his head.
“I’m sorry I didn’t realize the truth sooner.
The signs were all there. I was just so blinded by my hatred that I ignored them.
But I promised myself from that moment on, I’d do everything in my power to protect you.
Instead, all I did was put you in harm’s way again.
If I’d told you the truth, you never would have had a reason to turn on that phone.
Never would have read that conversation.
Never would have tried to escape. And because of me, you could have died.
Those bastards who ran you off the road and—”
“Wait.” I straightened, blinking repeatedly. “That wasn’t you?”
“Of course not,” he replied, indignant.
I searched his face for any indication he was lying. A flinch. An averted gaze. A twitch in his lips. I didn’t see one.
“Then who—”
“When you turned on that phone, the Bratva were able to track it. Were able to track you. They sent a team.”
I kept my face blank, but inside, my thoughts spun. If he was telling the truth, then he hadn’t betrayed me like I’d thought. He was just as caught up in whatever this was as me. But I still didn’t know whether I could trust him. I’d trusted Victor at one point, too.
I learned the hard way it was a mistake.
I couldn’t afford to make the same mistake again.
“How did I end up here? How did you find me?”
“One of my men tracked a plane from Miami that landed in a small airfield somewhat close to my cabin.”
“And the team the Bratva sent?”
“Are no longer breathing.”
Even more dead men. Even more blood on his hands. But he didn’t seem to care. What did that say about him?
“Why is the Bratva after me?”
“I’m not sure the Bratva is after you. Not in that sense. They were paid to do a job. That’s all.”
My pulse quickened. “By whom?”
His green eyes locked on mine, steady and unflinching. “Your husband.”