Page 353 of Scarlet Wars
Standing before him, I leaned in to kiss him, instinctively reaching for something familiar, but he turned his head ever so slightly, enough for my lips to brush his cheek instead.
The rejection was small. Barely noticeable.
But it felt like a slap.
I stilled before I pulled back slowly, feeling very confused, while a knot already formed in my chest.
“What’s going on?” I asked softly, brows furrowed.
His jaw clenched. “I need to talk to you about Crown.”
His voice was rough, scraping over the words like they tasted bad in his mouth, but his tone was too flat. It was the kind of flat that meant he was holding something in.
“Oh, okay… I’m almost done packing. I know it’s taking me longer than I said, but I just wanted to do it manually one last?—”
“You’re not coming with me.”
I blinked first. Then laughed. “Geez, I’ll learn to pack faster. No reason to kick me out just yet, Mister First Offensive.”
“Emma…”
The way he said my name. It broke something inside him… I heard it. Felt it.
I crossed my arms. “What the hell is going on?”
As I studied him, I realized his eyes were burning, not with anger, but with agony.
“Are you in pain?” I whispered, my pulse spiking. “Do I need to heal you or something?”
He closed his lids for a beat, before he said, “This is something evenyoucannot heal.”
A chill crawled down my spine. “Caden, you’re scaring the crap out of me. Please. Just tell me what’s going on.”
His eyes finally met mine.
“I made you a promise,” he said, his voice rough. “I swore to you, over and over again, I’d help you find out who labeled you a terrorist. Who ordered your arrest. Who was behind the murder of your parents. And that I’d help you avenge them.”
I let out the breath Ihadrealized I was holding, as the tension bled out of my shoulders.
“That’s what this is about?” I said, smiling faintly with relief. “Caden…it’s okay. You were right. Gordon—Maurice—whatever the hell he was calling himself—he was probably manipulating me. Lying to me. Twisted up over the fact my mom chose my dad over him. Couldn’t handle it.”
I shook my head, trying to brush it away, to bring him back from whatever edge he was standing on.
“Whatever the reason, my father ordered my arrest to lure me to him and then gave the order to kill them. I hate I wasn’t the one driving a blade through his heart, but he still got what was coming to him in the end.”
Caden didn’t blink.
And then he spoke. “He wasn’t lying.”
The way he said it…. Cold, sharp, and final. No room for doubt. No room for hope.
I blinked up him, while my heart started thudding like a war drum in my chest.
“When he found out you killed those militants at your home,” Caden continued sounding too detached, “he contacted the president of the United States directly. He requested a warrantfor your arrest…and asked you’d be placed under his custody. But he never issued the original warrant for terrorism.”
The question came out tight. Small. “How are you so certain of this?”
He didn’t look away. “Because Maurice shared his memory of that conversation in the White House,” he said. “And I received a copy of it.”
