Chapter 49
Rhys
Ican still hear her screaming.
Even though the cell door is locked, even though they dragged me out, even though I’ve put half a hallway between us, Fallon’s voice still echoes, ragged and broken. It’s fucking carved into my skull.
My Fallon.
God, what did I do?
I have no fucking idea how to survive leaving her. But I have to walk away from her…for now. I can’t fight them all by myself. Not when they have her locked up like that.
My feet scrape across the stone floor as I follow the guard through the bowels of this mansion. Every step feels like walking on broken glass with bare feet. It’s cold, and the air is tinged with the scent of iodine and bleach that attempts to cover years of spilled blood.
It’s a dungeon pretending to be a hospital. Stretchers are crammed into alcoves, IV poles tossed and crisscrossed, and trays of surgical instruments lean against the walls, crusted with brown, dried blood.
When I stepped into her cell, Fallon’s eyes were hopeful, full of love for me, waiting for me to rescue her, but then I told her she was nothing to me.
Words that are still bitter on my tongue.
Her expression sank, like I’d torn her heart out with my bare hands.
She thinks I hate her. Or worse, that I never cared about her at all.
That our whole relationship has been a lie.
Each step that takes me further away from her doubles my guilt. It’s eating me alive.
But I had to be heartless so she wouldn’t show hope. So she wouldn’t fight and be treated worse by these scumbags than she already has.
First, I will deal with Black and Kosta, and all of their henchmen. They will pay for this in blood.
God, I love her so much more than I ever thought I could manage. I’ve loved her since the moment I caught her climbing in my window that night. Since she swooned at me with wild eyes and demanded the impossible.
Fallon is a feral little storm that has blown me the fuck away. She made me laugh, made me furious, made me feel when I worried I’d been half-dead for years, thanks to my commitment to Quinlan Empire.
I’ll spend the rest of my life asking her to forgive me for this betrayal.
A golden dawn is breaking over the snow, and they are making good on their promise to let me leave at first light. It’s not that I’m a great actor, it’s that they see Fallon as such a fucking mess that I couldn’t possibly love her.
Kosta and Elias disappeared through a different door, their voices fading. They’ve left Fallon to rot. My gut curdles. If she’s gone before I can fix this…
No. I won’t let that happen.
“Keep moving,” the guard in front of me snaps without looking back. “You heard Mr. Orlov. Nice long legs, would be a shame if something happened to them.”
I do as they say, my brain sparking with the ideas of how I’m going to come back here and kill every last motherfucker in this house.
The guards. Even the chef and the servants. I just hope I don’t find any dogs because I will kill them, too. That is how much I want every inch of this place to be wiped from the planet.
My hands tremble with the urge to reach for the gun tucked under my jacket and start shooting right now. But I can’t. They will kill me. And bury me. Park my car in Manhattan and make it look like someone else made me vanish. Some enemy of the empire.
And Fallon will be no better off.
The guard’s boots thud ahead of me, and I follow silently, the only flicker of warmth in my block of ice heart is for Fallon.
Fallon, love. Hold on. I’m coming for you.
And when I do…
God help anyone who stands in my way.