Chapter 11
Hot tears blurred her vision.
The terrace disappeared.
The potted palms. The breeze. The distant hush of the ocean against the cliffs. The smell of frangipani and cut vegetation. All of it fell away until there was nothing left but Bobby’s voice, raw and haunted with regret, and the pounding of her heart detonating inside her chest.
“I didn’t know they would use Remi to draw him out,” Bobby said, his voice low. “I didn’t know they would find her at his house. When I found her … when I saw what they did …” He stopped, pressing his fists against his eyes.
A sob raged within Remi’s chest, bubbling out of her in silent cries. Her body shook, wracked with the force of every year she’d spent not knowing the truth. A truth she never expected and could never have fathomed.
A violent flash of white burst through her head. Then heat. Then a rushing in her ears so loud it drowned out the rest of Bobby’s words.
She was back in the safehouse.
She’d called the number he’d made her memorize. It wasn’t exactly life or death. But what could be more important than telling him that he was going to be a father?
She didn’t know how long he would be undercover. Months. Years. Giving birth to his child without him knowing felt wrong. She’d insisted that they see each other, and he’d agreed to the meet-up.
She was seven months pregnant when the Jamaican cartel enforcers barged through the door. They shoved her to the floor. Pain detonated through her back as she clutched her belly and begged for mercy.
Bobby was the reason they came after her.
He’d found out about the safehouse. Told them that’s where they could find Everett. Hadn’t they told her as much while one held her down?
They were there to teach Everett a lesson about the consequences of betrayal.
Her screams ripped raw from her throat.
The wet drag of steel carving her open.
The blade slicing through her over and over.
A child inside her.
Then not.
The impossible emptiness after.
The room held the stench of sweat, blood, and fear.
She’d lain on the floor, soaked in her blood, and waited to die.
The rustle of leaves drowned out her memories.
A brisk ocean breeze blew strands of hair across her face.
She brushed them away, then pressed her hand against her dress.
Her fingertips found the rigid scars and deep gouges hidden beneath her carefully chosen wardrobe.
The ones she avoided looking at because seeing them brought back the memories she desperately wanted to forget.
None of it would have happened … if it weren’t for … Bobby.
All these years, every time she had turned away from a mirror, every time she had dressed in the dark, every time she had clenched her eyes shut as she showered, every time she had shut down beneath his touch or looked the other way while he was with other women rather than ask her body for something it no longer knew how to give, Bobby had known why.
He’d stayed with her and said nothing.
He had watched her live inside the wreckage of what the Jamaican cartel did to her child. He’d stood by as she lost Everett. He’d seen firsthand the end of her innocence.
And all the while, he had said nothing about the role he’d played in it all.
Ronnie shrugged, leaning against the edge of the couch. “Mr. Goodnight wanted the hacker who’d sent the Jamaican cartel after his daughter on the death list. He was going to come back to the organization to enact his revenge.”
“No … no … you know I fixed things for her.” Bobby talked fast, words tumbling out in a frantic rhythm. “I married her to make it right. I married her because I know it’s my fault she lost everything she ever wanted.”
Her body shook uncontrollably. Her breath came in shallow, ragged pulls that she fought to keep silent.
Bobby had found her. He’d saved her. He held her hand through the surgeries, comforted her through the grief, and supported her through the months of recovery.
He was patient with her as she learned how to live inside a body she loathed.
He told her she was beautiful when she couldn’t bear to look at herself.
Promised he’d never leave her, no matter what. He’d married her and called it love.
And he’d only done it because … he was the one who caused it all.
Bobby’s voice cracked. “I take care of her and I always will. I spend every fucking day trying to give it all back to her. She doesn’t want for anything. She’s happy with me. With our life together?—”
“You know better than anyone that the organization’s relationship with Mr. Goodnight is tenuous,” Simeon said, his tone unchanged and unmoved by Bobby’s words.
“The situation stayed contained because the men who attacked his daughter were killed months later. The organization can’t afford to make a wrong move where he’s concerned.
” Simeon ran his thumb along the face of his watch, slowly.
Deliberately. “You caused us to make a wrong move. You should’ve been on the death list for that. ”
“But we stepped in and protected your identity.” Ronnie tugged at his watch, sliding the face slowly back into position on his wrist. “Saved your life that time.”
“We won’t do that again,” Simeon said with a quiet finality.
Bobby looked between them like he was waiting for them to remember they had known him for years.
Neither did.
The Marengo brothers looked at him with matching stillness, then moved toward the front of the house in tandem. Ronnie paused at the edge of the foyer and turned back.
“We hate that it came to this, Bobby,” Ronnie said, a disturbingly genuine quality in his words. “We will make sure your mother is taken care of. We wanted you to know that.” He held Bobby’s gaze for seconds too long, then turned away.
The front door opened and closed with a quiet click. The engines of the SUVs turned over in the driveway, tires spun on the gravel, and then they were gone.
She stayed where she was. Minutes passed. She heard Bobby's footsteps cross the room and stop. The creak of furniture took his weight. Then nothing. The house was quiet around the two of them, and only one of them knew they were both inside it.
She had ignored her father’s warnings and risked her life to save his.
She’d wanted nothing more than to save him.
That’s what they did for each other.
But he hadn’t saved her.
It was all a lie.
Their marriage was a prison built by the man who had put her in the cell.
She’d lost everything she’d ever wanted in this life.
She’d lost Everett. Lost her child.
Because of Bobby.
Something moved deep inside her.
A reckoning that had been waiting in her scars and her destroyed womb.
Patient and silent and starving for the vengeance she’d thought she’d gotten.
It still eluded her.
Who would teach Bobby the consequences of betrayal?
The last of the tears slid down her face.
Her vision cleared. Her gaze was drawn to the thin bar of moonlight carving through the canopy of branches and leaves of the breadfruit tree. The light shimmered, dancing slowly across the dirt and sap-covered blade of the machete.
Bobby deserved to die.
And he would.
Tonight.