Page 145 of Beautiful Obsessions
“Do not dress this up for me.”
“I’m not.”
“You were breathing.”
“Barely.”
“You could have sent word.”
“No.”
His head tilted slightly.
“No?”
“If I sent word, Viktor would have killed us both.Again.”
His laugh was bitter.
I looked at him then.At the shadows beneath his eyes.At the place where his body still held the memory of injury.At the thinness beneath the expensive clothes.At the proof that my little brother had not escaped untouched.
I took a step toward him.He took one back.The rebuff stopped me in my tracks.
“I did not leave you because I wanted to.”
Archie’s mouth tightened.
“You left me anyway.”
He stared at me for a long moment, breathing harder now.
“Tell me,” he said.“Tell me everything.And don’t you dare leave out the parts you think will hurt me.”
A strange pride moved through me.
There he was.My brother.Not begging for mercy, but demanding the truth.Even when truth came with heartache.
I turned slightly, looking down at the floor where Viktor had put me.
“He shot me in the back before I could turn.”
Archie went very still.
“I know.”
I glanced at him.
His eyes had dropped to that same place on the floor.
Of course he knew.He had watched it.Maybe a hundred times.
“He made one mistake,” I said.
Archie looked back at me.
“He had men who loved me more than they feared him.”
The corner of his mouth twitched, but there was no humor in it.
